Prosecutors urge jail for ex-Penn State president Spanier

HARRISBURG — State prosecutors say former Pennsylvania State University president Graham B. Spanier should spend as long as a year in  jail for his failure to act on reports that onetime assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was sexually abusing children, according to court documents.

"Nothing short of a sentence that includes a period of jail time would be an appropriate sentence for Graham Spanier," the state Attorney General's Office argued in a sentencing memo unsealed Thursday morning. It contends Spanier showed "a stunning lack of remorse for his victims" and should be punished "for choosing to protect his personal reputation and that of the university instead of the welfare of the children."

In their own motion to the judge, Spanier's lawyers cited the longtime university president's declining health and decades of public service in a bid to keep him out of prison.

"Graham Spanier has already suffered severely through public shaming, loss of employment and significant reputational harm," they wrote.

The filings came on the eve of sentencing for Spanier, 69, who was found guilty in March of misdemeanor child endangerment for not alerting child-welfare authorities in 2001 that Sandusky had been caught showering with a boy after hours in a campus locker room.

After that 2001 incident, Sandusky sexually assaulted at least four more victims, prosecutors Laura Ditka and Patrick Schulte told jurors during the trial.

The jury acquitted Spanier of more serious felony conspiracy and endangerment charges, and downgraded what had been a felony endangerment charge to a misdemeanor.

His sentencing Friday before Judge John Boccabella in Dauphin County represents what could be the final criminal proceeding in a case that has extended over nearly six years and roiled both the Penn State community and college athletics.

Also scheduled to be sentenced Friday are two former Penn State administrators — Tim Curley, the onetime athletic director, and Gary Schultz, who served as its vice president — who were initially accused of conspiring with Spanier to cover up Sandusky's crimes. Each pleaded guilty to endangerment charges and agreed to testify at Spanier's trial.

The statutory maximum for the charge on which Spanier was convicted is five years, although his lawyer, Sam Silver, is expected to argue for probation. Prosecutors noted his possible sentencing ranges from probation to 12 months in jail, but urged the judge to impose a sentence on the higher end.

"There is simply nothing mitigating about the harm that he has caused and the nature of his crime," they wrote.

Spanier, once considered among the nation's most prominent university leaders, has maintained for years that he is innocent. Regardless of the sentence, he is expected to appeal the verdict.

His weeklong trial reopened — but did not put to rest — a painful debate among many in the Penn State community and beyond about whether Spanier and other university officials should have been charged criminally for failing to recognize and report signs that Sandusky was a serial sexual abuser of children.

Both Curley and Schultz pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment charges just before the trial and were expected to be star witnesses against Spanier.

In its sentencing memo, however, the Attorney General's Office took no positions on their punishments and raised questions about their testimony. Prosecutors have agreed to allow Curley, due to a medical condition, to serve any custodial sentence through home confinement, but they excoriated him in the memo for what they called his "astonishing" memory lapses at the trial.

His lackluster testimony, they claimed, was "designed to protect those who deserved to share blame with Curley for the decisions that led to the colossal failure to protect children from Sandusky." And, they added: "his 'forgetfulness' also allowed him to save face in a room full of supporters who publicly called this trial a 'witch hunt.' "

Prosecutors said Schultz should be given credit for his truthful testimony. But they called his failure to act on his frustration over the university's handling of Sandusky "a puzzling dereliction of duty."

Because the actions of all three men, prosecutors wrote, the lives of Sandusky's victims have been "turned upside down."

"For most (if not all) of them, these children's first intimate experience was being molested by a 60-year-old pedophile," they wrote, adding: "They will never forget Sandusky's touch. They will never forget Sandusky's smell. These children have been sentenced to a lifetime of tortured memories."