Judge lets Spanier suit move ahead

HARRISBURG - A judge cleared the way Monday for former Pennsylvania State University president Graham B. Spanier to pursue a defamation lawsuit against Louis Freeh, the ex-FBI director whose team issued a university-commissioned report critical of Spanier for his handling of complaints about Jerry Sandusky.

The decision comes despite a pending criminal case against Spanier that accuses him of covering up allegations about Sandusky, the former assistant football coach convicted of sexually abusing boys, including some on campus.

Judge Robert Eby ended a two-year hiatus in the suit against Freeh, saying he will deal on a case-by-case basis with any issues related to constitutional protections against having to give self-incriminating testimony.

Spanier's lawyer, Libby Locke, said the case "comes down to exposing just the false and defamatory conclusions that Freeh reached." She added: "We're very excited to move the case forward and to vindicate Dr. Spanier's reputation."

Spanier, still a Penn State faculty member, does not intend to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Locke said, but that could be an issue for his codefendants in the criminal case, former university vice president Gary Schultz and former athletic director Tim Curley.

The Freeh report said Spanier told investigators he never heard anyone say Sandusky was sexually abusing children. Freeh said it was more reasonable to conclude that Spanier, Curley, and Schultz, along with longtime head football coach Joe Paterno, "repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse from the authorities, the university's board of trustees, the Penn State community and the public at large."

More than four years after Curley and Schultz were first charged, all three are appealing a county judge's ruling that their criminal cases should proceed. They are charged with perjury, obstruction, conspiracy, failure to properly report suspected abuse and endangering the welfare of children.

The judge in the defamation case also let Spanier add as a defendant Freeh Group International Solutions, which participated in generating the Freeh report. Freeh's lawyer, Robert Heim, said the allegations are baseless.

"Mr. Freeh and his team did, at the request of Penn State, a full, complete and fair investigation," Heim said. "Mr. Spanier's claims that he was defamed are without any merit whatsoever."

Spanier was forced out as university president in November 2011, shortly after Sandusky's arrest.

Sandusky, who spent decades as an assistant to Paterno, is serving 30 to 60 years in prison.