In a statement issued Sunday, Trustee Anthony Lubrano said that Penn State is entitled to a refund from former FBI director Louis Freeh due to the “disservice” the investigation has been to all parties it was meant to serve.
Lubrano said that there are misconceptions related to the Freeh Report, including the 430 people interviewed, noting that some individuals were interviewed repeatedly. He said no email documents prior to 2004 were reviewed due to the switch in email servers at that time. The only email documents that were reviewed were those in the Gary Schultz’s file, Lubrano said.
There’s a big discrepancy in the total number of documents that were said to have been reviewed as opposed to the number believed to have been reviewed, he added.
Lubrano further said that experts in the necessary areas should have been hired for the Freeh Report. Instead, he said, a prosecutor — whose mindset is to find someone guilty rather than try to find how that happened — was employed for the investigation.
“[The Freeh Report] was built on accusing people,” he said.
Freeh could not be reached for comment as of press time Sunday, but recently defended the Freeh Report shortly after the Paterno family critique was released.
“In the past months, Penn State has made a dedicated effort to reform the problems that led to Sandusky's ability to victimize children on the university campus,” the statement read. “I trust that the changes and improvements that Penn State has put in place will help to build a constructive and protective environment where children will not again suffer abuse.”
Lubrano said the Freeh Report did not interview “14 key people” including Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, Mike McQueary, as well as Jack Raykovitz, CEO of the Second Mile, and no one from the district attorney’s office. The investigation was thereby left to draw conclusions from innuendo, he said.
Freeh was hired a few days after Paterno was fired, indicating an unwillingness to be politically incorrect and a fear to be labeled as “enablers,” he said.
“[The Paterno report] helped us to understand how Jerry Sandusky’s conduct remained undetected for so long,” he added. “The Freeh Report didn’t do that.”
Lubrano said the investigation’s focus was shed on athletics because of the reported incident in 2001 that occurred in the Lasch Football Building.
He said those who were interviewed said the questions they were asked during the investigation were not asked about Sandusky, but about Paterno and specifically what kind of control and influence he exerted.
“I said from the outset back in November when he was hired, when I wasn’t a trustee at the time, I thought Louis Freeh was on a witch-hunt,” he said. “They’re relying on limited information to reach very far-reaching conclusions. It’s troubling.”
Further questioning the manner in which the report was written, Lubrano said the engagement letter between Freeh and the Board of Trustees must be made public. He plans to raise the issue of disclosure to the community at a board meeting in the future.
“People had the right to know what we paid,” Lubrano said, adding this is significant for the implementation of all those recommendations
“Putting aside its inaccuracy and unfairness, the Freeh Report is far from complete and as a result, I believe Penn State is entitled to a refund,” he concluded in his public statement.
Trustee Al Clemens and university spokesman David La Torre said they had no comment as of press time Sunday.
