Home » Blog » Emails: Freeh team supported, celebrated Sandusky conviction

Emails: Freeh team supported, celebrated Sandusky conviction

Published March 11, 2013
Louis Freeh

It was billed as an independent investigation that would serve as the definitive narrative on what happened at Penn State.

But a series of internal emails released by the Pennsylvania Attorney General last week suggest investigators for Louis J. Freeh didn’t arrive at their conclusions on their own.

After working with state prosecutors to convict Jerry Sandusky in June, Freeh’s team of ex law-enforcement officials celebrated the victory, the emails show. And within hours of his conviction, they offered their congratulations and expressed their pride.

“I am proud of you and the entire prosecution team,” wrote senior Freeh investigator Gregory Paw to Frank Fina, the AG’s lead prosecutor. “Very well done.”

The emails, released in response to a Right-to-Know Law request on Thursday, call into question the objectivity of an investigative team that Penn State hired to explain how child abuse allegations went unreported for years. They paint a picture of a group of private eyes who were hired to conduct their own, independent investigation, but wound up working with prosecutors to secure a criminal conviction and support their law enforcement objectives.

At the urging of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, Penn State hired Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan in November 2011 “to conduct a full, fair and completely independent investigation,” Freeh said when announcing his findings on July 12. “We have shown no favoritism toward any of the parties, including the Board of Trustees itself, our client.”

During the investigation, “we continuously interfaced and cooperated with those agencies and authorities,” Freeh said.

But the emails between his investigators and members of the Attorney General’s office seem to counter the former FBI director’s claim of complete independence. They suggest their interaction with law-enforcement agencies went beyond mere cooperation.

Hours after Sandusky was convicted, Freeh investigator Tom Cloud congratulated prosecutors. “As I told Tony – congrats on a great job in tough conditions,” he wrote to Randy Feathers, the agent who supervised the AG’s Sandusky investigation. “Our team is happy.”

Just before midnight, Feathers replied. “Thanks, [we] were happy too. It was great working with you guys. You all are real pros.”

The next day, Fina replied to Paw, who wrote how proud he was. “Thank you for all the help and support,” Fina said.

And when Freeh delivered his own verdict against Penn State on July 12, Fina was pleased. “Truly great work,” he said in an e-mail to Paw. “Please extend my congratulations to your team.”

Paw replied the same day. “This note really means a lot to me,” he told Fina. “I have a tremendous respect for you and your work, and it was my pleasure to have an opportunity to work with you on this matter.”

  • Ray Blehar

    Great job, Ryan.   Perhaps the first of many dominoes to start falling.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_US5Y56WDTKYSWJLGMTGOLKX6PY Jeff

    Oh!  So Anthony Sassano and Frank Fina were in contact with the Freeh Group all along?  “Great WORKING WITH YOU guys”?

    While there have been charges floating around that Fina/Sassano/Corbett were stonewalling the investigation, it turns out that the AG office was in CONTACT with Freeh Group?  And the Freeh Group somehow concluded that the problem lay entirely at Penn State – and there were no failures in the state agencies.

    One could certainly argue now that there was further collusion between Harrisburg and the Freeh Group to continue to build a narrative that blamed Penn State and NOT the state agencies responsible for doing the investigation.

    GREAT WORK, Ryan!  Fantastic.  Keep digging and hammering.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_US5Y56WDTKYSWJLGMTGOLKX6PY Jeff

    And wait – why did PENN STATE pay for this report if the Attorney General’s office had a hand in assisting with it?

  • http://www.facebook.com/jessi.lillo.50 Jessi Lillo

    Excellent detective work Ryan.  At the risk of repeating myself, I want a refund on Freeh’s payoff

  • Anonymous

    How terrible, an investigative team brought in to sort out what happened at PSU worked with the local and state authorities?

    What a scandal! I’m sure America would be appalled if they only knew!

    • http://twitter.com/markhentz mark hentz

      I think you’re missing the point.  Louis Freeh claimed his team was working independently, objectively, and fairly.  As it tuned out, none of those things were true.  So, if the entire basis of independence, fairness and objectivitey of his report was a lie, what other lies did he tell?  That’s the point. 

      • Anonymous

        The “independent” in this investigation was in reference to PSU in that they were paying for the investigation but it was being done by an outside group so as to avoid a whitewashing.

        Having access to the information uncovered by the District Attorney’s office and police who brought the charges against Sandusky and the three administrators would be an absolute pre-requisite in order to get anywhere.

        People attack Freeh all the time for not interviewing the main parties involved in this case, now they think he should have run this investigation without access to all the information the authorities had?

        What was he supposed to do, raead blogs to get to the bottom of this?

        • David Brodhecker

           The fact that Freeh had close ties, and business dealings with Sandusky, The Second Mile, and the PSU BOT should of excluded him as an “independent” investigator. When the BOT hired him they made claims that this would be a “far reaching investigation” yet it stopped at the doors of DPW, CYS, TSM, and the Centre county prosecutors office. The PA AG made claims of a cover-up from a Grand Jury investigation that could not even get the year right of the incident. The AG made claims of “anal rape” witnessed by McQueary, and then we find out victim # 2 comes forward , and gives a statement that nothing happened the night that McQueary said he saw “something of a sexual nature”. So we have Mike telling Joe, Curley, and Schultz that he saw something sexual happening between Sandusky and a young boy in 2002 that turned out to be 2001, and actually never happened at all. And you can get a speeding ticket tossed if the cop gets the color of your car wrong? How surreal?      

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_US5Y56WDTKYSWJLGMTGOLKX6PY Jeff

      There is so much wrong (i.e. lacking facts) in that statement, one wonders where to start.

      For STARTERS, one does not claim they conducted an INDEPDENDENT investigation, when it turns out they were working hand in hand with the “local and state authorities” especially when they said that such investigations were OUT OF SCOPE of their investigation.  Which is why DPW and CYS were NOT investigated by Freeh.

      So how can Freeh honestly claim he was tasked ONLY to investigate the inner-workings of Penn State, yet they were in contact with the state Attorney General’s office, who had QUITE the incentive to push a public narrative against Schultz, Spanier and Curley – who they just HAPPENED to be prosecuting at the moment.

      • Anonymous

        in·de·pend·ent [in-di-pen-duhnt] Show IPA
        adjective
        1.
        not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc.; thinking or acting for oneself: an independent thinker.
        2.
        not subject to another’s authority or jurisdiction; autonomous; free: an independent businessman.
        3.
        not influenced by the thought or action of others: independent research.
        4.
        not dependent; not depending or contingent upon something else for existence, operation, etc.
        5.
        not relying on another or others for aid or support.

        • Jeffrey Williams

          3. not influenced by the thought or action of others: independent research.
          Interestingly enough – those e-mails sound like the Freeh report was “influenced” GREATLY by the Attorney General’s office.Curious – why would they have contact with the PRESS SECRETARY for the AG office?  (A guy suspected of leaking documents to the press.)

          • Anonymous

            Really?

            Actually from what is known I’d say the opposite.

            Ironically, since you’re on the topic of emails, it was Freeh’s team that found the oft cited emails between Curley, Schults & Spanier discussing their vulnerability for not reporting Sandusky.

            Freeh found that evidence and brought it to the Attorney General, so who influenced whom here?

      • Anonymous

        Running an independent investigation does not mean that the investigators can’t work with other agencies, if simply means they don’t answer to any other agencies.

        You are ridiculous if you think this makes Freeh look bad to anyone beyond the Joepa-colored-sunglasses wearers.

        • http://twitter.com/posas13 Aaron

          Page 2:

          “It is understood by FSS, the Trustees and the Task Force, that FSS will act under the sole direction of the Task Force in performing the services hereunder.  It is also understood by FSS, the Trustees and the Task Force that FSS’s investigation will be completed in parallel to, but independent of, any other investigation that is conducted by any other policy agencies, government authorities, or agencies, or other organizations within or outside (e.g. The Second Mile) PSU, and will not interfere with any such other investigations.”

          So, does this jive with the emails that Bagwell uncovered?  If FSS was communicating with NCAA, BOT, PA AG, etc throughout it’s investigation — then didn’t they break this portion of the agreed terms of the project??

          • Anonymous

            Dude, see the definition of independent below, it doesn’t mean what you’d like it to here.

            It doesn’t mean they can’t cooperate with other investigations, it doesn’t mean they can’t talk, share and help out other investigations (and vice versa), it isn’t a restraining order keeping the Freeh people away from state and local authorities, it means the Freeh group will do its own investigation, come to its own conclusions and is beholden to no other agency involved in the case.

            Also, I’m confused, did the Free Investigation interfere with the concurrent investigation of the AG?

            Oh wait, you’re right, they did when the discovered more evidence Penn State was holding back from the original subpoenas.

            This latest “bombshell” from the Pattorneys is mucho ado about a whole lotta nuttin’.

        • Jeffrey Williams

          Nope.  You need to read the contract that Penn State signed with Freeh.  contact with the AG office would be OUT OF SCOPE according to Freeh himself.Ask Freeh or the BoT why there was no investigation or contact with DPW, CYS, the Second Mile, etc. yet there WAS contact with the Attorney General’s office.
          Hey, guess WHICH agency had the most to benefit by pushing a narrative that supported their case against Schultz, Curley and Spanier – the Attorney General’s office!  Why did the PR department of the Attorney General’s office get advance notice of the Freeh Press Release???

          • Anonymous

            Again, I don’t think you know what scope means but I’ll explain it to you.

            The scope of an investigation is the range of things being investigated. In this case it was very specifically Penn State’s involvement in the Sandusky mess, so a fairly narrow range.

            That’s it. That’s scope as it pertains to this.

            You would like to to mean that it limits who Freeh could or could not work with in order to carry out that investigation but what you want and what is real are quite obviously two VERY different things.

    • Jeffrey Williams

      Let’s take a look at the Penn State response when the Paternos released their rebuttal to teh Freeh report shall we?
      http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8987422

      “In November 2011, the Penn State Board of Trustees appointed former FBI director and federal Judge Louis Freeh to conduct an independent investigation of the University’s response to the allegations of sexual abuse committed by former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. The goal of this investigation was to uncover facts and identify where failures occurred in the University’s governance and compliance structure and to make recommendations to help ensure that such failures never happen again. This was an internal investigation into Penn State’s response to the allegations. It was not within the scope of Judge Freeh’s engagement to review the actions, motives or functions of entities outside of our University community. This was an internal investigation into Penn State’s response to the allegations, and that is how the University has utilized the report.

      As a result of the investigation, 119 recommendations were made to Penn State in areas such as safety and governance. To date, the University has implemented a majority of those recommendations, which are helping to make the University stronger and more accountable. The University intends to implement substantially all of the Freeh recommendations by the end of 2013.

      It is understandable and appreciated that people will draw their own conclusions and opinions from the facts uncovered in the Freeh report. ”

      INTERNAL INVESTIGATION.  Read that statement – and tell me exactly WHERE it says that Freeh would need to work closely with the Attorney General’s office to conduct an internal investigation of Penn State?Er, how about this:  It was not within the SCOPE of Judge Freeh’s engagement to review the actions, motives or functions of entities OUTSIDE of our University community.

  • http://twitter.com/posas13 Aaron

    Page 2 FSS scope of work:
    “It is understood by FSS, the Trustees and the Task Force, that FSS will act under the sole direction of the Task Force in performing the services hereunder.  It is also understood by FSS, the Trustees and the Task Force that FSS’s investigation will be completed in parallel to, but independent of, any other investigation that is conducted by any other policy agencies, government authorities, or agencies, or other organizations within or outside (e.g. The Second Mile) PSU, and will not interfere with any such other investigations.”

    So, Freeh’s team was permitted to interview only people that the Attorney General’s office approved of?  There were many people on the do not interview list — sounds like AG office only permitted discussions that would aid the case that the prosecution built?

  • Jeffrey Williams

    You can use a dictionary, but you certainly can’t read.  Specifically, READ the contract between Freeh and the BoT and read Freeh’s comments about the scope of his investigation.

    • Anonymous

      You should get a dictionary of your own, then you could look up the word SCOPE, it doesn’t mean what you think it does.

      The scope the contract refers to is specifically defining what Freeh is being paid to investigate. In this case it is quite clearly communicated that his scope was limited to Penn State, NOT entities outside of the university, ie The Second Mile, DPW, etc…

      As I’ve stated a few times here, Freeh’s cooperation and work with the government entities involved would be absolutely critical to any investigation and it is ridiculous to think the term independent means they are to work alone or that by working with the authorities they are somehow breaking their contract.

      This is basic stuff, man, if you really can’t see that there is nothing I can suggest for you besides buying that dictionary.