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Frazier: Freeh report’s conclusions aren’t “irrefreutable”

Published January 29, 2015
Frazier reporters

The chairman of Penn State’s task force that oversaw Louis Freeh’s investigation last month has doubts that top Penn State officials decided not to report child abuse allegations to protect the reputation of the school’s football program.

In a deposition given to lawyers as part of a lawsuit with Pennsylvania last month,  Trustee Ken Frazier said other reasons for not reporting the allegations are equally valid and that Freeh’s conclusions aren’t “as clear and irrefutable as some people seem to think they are.”

But he stands by his decision to hire the former FBI director over former secretary of homeland security Michael Chertoff. Chertoff, who attended law school with Frazier, works for a law firm that represents pharmaceutical company Merck, whose chairman is Frazier. Hiring Chertoff’s firm could hurt the report’s independence, Frazier said.

Frazier told lawyers he regrets the trustees’ decision not to review Freeh’s report before releasing it to the public. Freeh released his report to the public at the same time it was given to trustees, and “as a result we were scrambling to deal with the public fallout in a way that we would not have had we been able to sit down in a quiet room, understand what was being said, probe what was being said and being prepared for what was being said,” he said.

While refusing to reject Freeh’s conclusion that administrators decided not report a 2001 allegation of child abuse to protect the football program from bad publicity, he said the true motivation for their inaction is not clear.

“From my perspective, as I sit here today and as I sat there then, I continued to believe that human motivation is an extremely complex subject that has multiple layers.” Frazier said. “And so as it relates to the conclusions about why people did or did not do what they did, I believe there are multiple ways to explain that. I am not saying that the conclusions he drew were unreasonable. I am simply saying that there are other reasonable inferences that could be drawn from that.”

You can read the entire deposition here.

  • DanM

    Oh so it’s not an “invaluable North Star” anymore Ken?

  • Larry17

    The Freeh Report served Frazier’s purpose. Freeh never interviewed Sandusky, McQueary, Paterno, Curley or Schultz. No witnesses that WERE interviewed testified under oath. They just read script provided to them. Frazier’s purpose was to throw Paterno/ the football program under the bus rather than Frazier/trustees. The onlyt “cover up” in tghis whole store was done by Frazier and the Board of Trustees though Louis Freeh and his bogus “report”. Trustees did not have to “read” the report, because Trustees WROTE the report.

    • Frederick J. Hepburn

      We agree on this.

  • Thomas Hemler

    Wow Mr. Frazier, seems a 180degree change from what you said here: http://www.centredaily.com/2013/03/15/3538896_penn-state-trustee-frazier-dismisses.html?rh=1

    • Tim Berton

      Frazier wasn’t under oath when he talked to the Centre Daily Times so he could lie with worry of committing perjury. Lying in a sworn deposition is considered perjury.

  • DotMcGI

    I’m calling b.s. You could have come public 2 years ago. Be gone with you already.

    • JIm

      Excellent point and absolutely true

  • Catalacjack
  • Tim Berton

    Page 11 “Q. Okay. When did you first learn of the allegations surrounding Jerry Sandusky?
    Frazier: To the best of my recollection, the first I heard of it was in November of 2011 when the grand jury report came out.”

    I find that hard to believe given that Baldwin gave a presentation on the Sandusky grand jury at the May 2011 Trustees meeting and it was in the newspapers starting in March 2011. Baldwin also had advance notice of the arrests.

    • Rebecca D Knowles

      So, in this instance, from where would a charge of perjury come? County, Commonwealth, other?