Posted on 12/22/2013 2:48:00 AM PST by abb
The lawyer for ex-Penn State president Graham Spanier is raising new questions over what she called contradictions raised by the grand jury testimony of Cynthia Baldwin, the university’s embattled former in-house lawyer.
Baldwin approached the state Attorney General’s Office about an “off the record” discussion in exchange for a deal in which the information she provided was not to be used against her, according to documentation released Sunday by Spanier lawyer Elizabeth Ainslie.
Baldwin signed the document, called a proffer letter, on Oct. 19, 2012, and a week later she went before a grand jury. In her testimony, Baldwin said Spanier was “not a person of integrity” because of lies she thought he told her about his knowledge of abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky.
Spanier’s lawyer also released glowing remarks Baldwin made to federal investigators about Spanier that were included in a report about him for a national security consulting job. That interview with Baldwin happened only months before Baldwin went to the grand jury.
“Ms. Baldwin’s testimony was, we believe, created in large part by her own fear of prosecution,” Ainslie said in a statement. “We believe this chronology — showing Cynthia Baldwin’s remarkable flip-flop — speaks for itself.”
The letter indicates Baldwin floated the idea of a proffer to state prosecutors and Chief Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina said his office was “interested in pursuing this matter.”
“Although your client may be prosecuted for any criminal involvement, no statements made by you or your client, or other information provided by you or your client during the ‘off-the-record’ proffer or discussion will be based against your client in any criminal case,” Fina wrote to Baldwin and her lawyer, Charles De Monaco.
Ainslie and the lawyers for Spanier’s former colleagues, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz, have put Baldwin at the center of their defense strategy.
Ainslie and her co-counsel have asked a Dauphin County judge to dismiss some counts against Spanier, Curley and Schultz based on the issues surrounding Baldwin’s involvement. The judge said Tuesday he would only consider written documentation, such as court transcripts, and he refused to hear new testimony from Baldwin at a court hearing.
The lawyers say Baldwin misled their clients into thinking she was there to represent them at their grand jury appearances in early 2011.
For instance, newly released court transcripts show Baldwin told the grand jury judge in private that she was “solely” representing Penn State. But, minutes later, when a prosecutor asked Spanier if he had a lawyer with him, he named Baldwin, who didn’t object or clarify her involvement, the transcript shows.
The lawyers say Baldwin violated attorney-client privilege by testifying to the grand jury and that her presence in the grand jury room, if she wasn’t representing the men, was in violation of grand jury secrecy.
Baldwin’s lawyer has said his client, who is a former state Supreme Court justice and Penn State trustee, did nothing wrong. Penn State waived attorney-client privilege for almost all Sandusky-related issues, according to a transcript of a private meeting days after the proffer letter and days before Baldwin took the stand in front of the grand jury.
Baldwin testified for more than two hours, detailing how she kept Spanier informed of legal issues about the Sandusky scandal before the charges were announced and later how Spanier went into crisis mode when the scandal rocked the campus.
In response to Baldwin’s testimony, Ainslie said Baldwin’s’ words are “shamefully inaccurate” and one-sided, because the defense lawyer could not cross-examine the witness at the grand jury.
Baldwin testified that Spanier lied to her about his knowledge of the Sandusky allegations, saying that email messages in 1998 and 2001 contradict his assertion that he knew nothing about either incident at the time.
In her statement, Ainslie suggested Baldwin testified the way she did because the conclusions were suggested to her by Fina, the prosecutor.
Baldwin also testified that Spanier lied in a news report about his knowledge of the incidents.
That’s a completely different picture of Spanier from the one Baldwin gave to federal investigators during an interview sometime between February and May 2012.
Baldwin had high praise for Spanier, called him “a man of integrity” and said that his performance as the university president was “wonderful.”
Baldwin also told the investigators that she thought Spanier was fired Nov. 9, 2011, because he offered unconditional support to Curley and Schultz, who’d been indicted days before on charges of perjury and failure to report abuse.
According to the report, Baldwin was asked whether Gov. Tom Corbett put any pressure on Penn State’s board to fire Spanier. Baldwin said the governor was unhappy that Spanier fought his drastic budget cuts to Penn State and that there had never been a governor as involved in the board as Corbett was when the Sandusky scandal broke.
Spanier, Curley and Schultz face counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, endangerment and failure to report abuse. Their lawyers have vowed to fight the case to clear their clients’ names.
It looks like that's about to happen.
Baldwin has been the key all along, but the fact that she's an insider and a retired judge makes it hard for other attorneys to turn on her. Maybe she's too radioactive now, and they'll have to burn her.
http://media.centredaily.com/smedia/2013/12/22/00/07/A9XYT.So.42.pdf
http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/5297669-74/baldwin-spanier-former#ixzz2oCAI6c9Y
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Ex-PSU-Lawyer-Flip-Flopped-on-Spanier-236906361.html
Of interest to you.
Of interest to you.
This is true. The Penn State lawyer was a moron and acted like counsel for Spanier and the others guys under examinations - Huge conflict of interest. Not sure it will save them though. Just gives them a claim against Penn State.
More important, it will allow the truth to come out about the coverup.
Thank you for pinging me. It is of interest.
I can understand why they have issues with this woman testifying to the grand jury, etc.
But I don’t understand what criminal charges she could have been faced with that would have lead her to “make a deal” with the prosecution.
And, btw, how long was she Penn State’s lawyer?
She won’t talk and no one will make her because she is from the privileged class — a lawyer, a woman, and black — and she knows where the skeletons are buried up there.
Furthermore all Spanier’s, Curley’s, and Schultz’s lawyers want is her testimony before the Grand Jury stricken from the record.
That should be a given.
After that the prosecution has no case and all charges will be dropped.
She’s already talked. It’s in the court record.
In 1983, Baldwin worked as the prosecuting attorney-in-charge in the Office of the Attorney General at the Bureau of Consumer Protection.[2] She rose to the bench in 1989, when she became the first black woman elected to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. Baldwin served in this office for sixteen years.[3] Then, in 2006, she was appointed to the state Supreme Court by Governor Ed Rendell. She retired from the court in January 2008. After retiring from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but before becoming Penn State’s General Counsel, she became a partner in the international law firm of Duane Morris, LLP. There, her focus was on appellate litigation and not-for-profit issues.[2]
Justice Baldwin is an alumnus of Penn State, and served as the president of its alumni association from 1989-91.[4] She also served as Chair of the Penn State Board of Trustees from 2004-2007.
In January 2010, she was recruited to come to Penn State as the University’s first general counsel, establish the Office of General Counsel and assist in recruiting a permanent general counsel. In that capacity, she became involved in the Jerry Sandusky scandal. News reports in July 2012 indicated that Baldwin, in her capacity as General Counsel, recommended that then-Penn State president Graham Spanier reject calls for an independent body overseeing the school’s athletic programs.[5] Additionally, her role is being questioned in the case of the potential criminal cases against Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley. When Curley appeared before the grand jury, he told court officials that Baldwin was his attorney, but she stated that she was only representing the university on that occasion;[6]
ustice Baldwin is a former Fulbright lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, where she lectured and conducted research on constitutional issues for the Zimbabwe Supreme Court prior to the changes made by President Robert Mugabe.[3] She has also worked on many worldwide ethics issues including participating in anti-corruption projects for developing nations through the Brookings Institution.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Baldwin
If you are talking about the Grand Jury record involving her then that ain’t much.
All she talked about was the conversation in the car as they all drove up together to give their Grand Jury testimony.
Baldwin will be put on the stand, under oath. Count on it. Too many people now know what’s going on to hide it any more.
She was the “cutout.” She told everybody back in 2011 that Sandusky’s behavior could be swept under the rug, and to just stay clammed up.
Are the grand jury transcripts posted online?
When was she brought into this???
Unless I am mistaken she only got involved in 2010-2011 — not before that.
And as a Hillary coattail rider she knows those famous words: “I don’t recall”.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/192201085/Graham-Spanier-grand-jury-testimony-colloquy-from-April-13-2011
http://www.scribd.com/doc/192201096/Graham-Spanier-grand-jury-testimony-from-April-13-2011
http://www.scribd.com/doc/192201108/Cynthia-Baldwin-grand-jury-proceedings-October-22-2012
http://www.scribd.com/doc/192201126/Cynthia-Baldwin-grand-jury-transcript-from-October-26-2012
If they are available they might have them at:
http://www.framingpaterno.com/
or one of their links.
Thanks. Some reading for after church.
It’s all about the coverup. Spanier, JoePa, Baldwin, Curley, Schultz - they all knew and covered it up.
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