Hearing set in Penn State University ex-president's email claim

BELLEFONTE -- Lawyers for Penn State and its former president Graham Spanier are headed to court next month to discuss whether his lawsuit seeking access to old work emails related to a child sex abuse investigation should be dismissed.

A court order dated Friday scheduled argument on the matter for Aug. 17 in the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte.

Spanier wants a judge to order the university to provide him with emails from 1998 to 2004 that relate to the investigation being led by former FBI director Louis Freeh of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal.

Sandusky, a former assistant under football coach Joe Paterno, was convicted last month of sexually abusing 10 boys, some on campus, over a 15-year period. He maintains his innocence.

In April, a university lawyer told Spanier's attorneys that state prosecutors asked the university not to share the emails so that an ongoing investigation wouldn't be compromised.

Spanier, who was Penn State president for 16 years, was forced out after Sandusky's November arrest but remains a tenured faculty member.

Spanier has not been charged with any crime, but two former underlings, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz, are awaiting trial on charges they failed to properly report suspected child abuse and lied to the Sandusky grand jury.

A report issued when Sandusky was charged said Spanier testified to the grand jury that Curley and Schultz went to him a decade earlier to report an incident involving Sandusky in a shower with a child.

"Spanier denied that it was reported to him as an incident that was sexual in nature and acknowledged that Curley and Schultz had not indicated any plan to report the matter to any law enforcement authority, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare or any appropriate county child protective services agency," the grand jury wrote.

CNN recently reported on emails that said Spanier was "supportive" of a decision by Curley and Schultz not to report the incident. Spanier warned, however, that they might "become vulnerable for not having reported it," CNN said.

Curley and Schultz deny the allegations against them and have sought to have the charges dismissed.

Source: http://www.ydr.com/rss/ci_21038419?source=rss

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