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NCAA emails show communication with Freeh, community reacts
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By Erin McCarthy and Morganne Mallon | Collegian Staff Writers | Posted 10 hours ago

UPDATE: 6:40 p.m.

Alumni-elected trustees Al Lord and Bob Jubelirer were both frustrated by Penn State’s public response to the newly released NCAA emails.

In two separate interviews, Lord and Jubelirer both used the same word — “embarrassment” — to describe the university’s statement, which asserted it was public knowledge that the NCAA monitored the progress of Freeh’s investigation.

“It flies in the face of what Barron said last week” — in response to other NCAA emails indicating the NCAA tried to bluff Penn State — Lord said.

Lord was talking about the statement in which university president Eric Barron and Board of Trustees Chairman Keith Masser said they “find it deeply disturbing that NCAA officials in leadership positions would consider bluffing one of their member institutions.”

Jubelirer voiced similar frustrations — with the university’s Wednesday statement, and with the board members who did not vote in favor of Lord’s proposal to reexamine the Freeh Report last month.

And he called for action against Freeh.

“One of the things we should do is sue Louis Freeh,” Jubelirer said. “That report was totally flawed.”

In light of Wednesday’s NCAA emails — and more that will likely be unsealed in lawsuits — Lord said he is confident all the sanctions will be rescinded, including the wins vacated from late head football coach Joe Paterno.

Jublierer said he also wants the NCAA to give back the fines the uiniversity paid it.

“This is a national story and one that is far from over,” Jubelirer said. “If you tried to write a movie about this, I’m not sure people would believe this.”

UPDATE: 5:00 p.m.

State College criminal defense attorney Matt McClenahen said he believes there is a possibility the NCAA could be charged for theft by extortion in relation to its handling of Penn State following the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case.

If it is determined the NCAA had no right to impose the sanctions yet threatened Penn State with the death penalty unless the terms of the sanctions were complied with, “that sounds like theft by extortion,” McClenahen said.

The emails released today make it appear Freeh was working under the guidance of the NCAA, who were trying to dictate what Freeh’s report would include, he said.

“The irony of the situation is, if they didn’t challenge the Endowment Act, none of this would be happening now,” McClenahen said. “There’s a saying that ‘pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.’ Not only did they engage in egregious, outrageous conduct, they set themselves up to be found out after the fact when they could have swept it under the rug.”

If the Attorney General makes the decision to go forth with extortion charges, the decision would not be made until after the NCAA, Corman and McCord’s case goes to trial in January, he said.

UPDATE: 3:34 p.m.

Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship, an alumni group who has been critical of the board’s decisions in the aftermath of the Sandusky case, said the newly released emails confirm the public was misled.

“The Penn State community and the wider general public were led to believe that Louis Freeh was hired to provide an objective, independent assessment of how a pedophile could have gone undetected so long; and to learn how to prevent it from ever happening again,” Elizabeth Morgan, co-founder of PS4RS, said in an emailed statement through spokeswoman Maribeth Roman Schmidt.

“Sadly, with today’s news, we have learned that the real objective was to place the blame on Penn State football so that the NCAA could hand down harsh sanctions and thereby prop up its faltering image.”

At a special Penn State Board of Trustees meeting last month, alumni-elected trustee Al Lord — who is backed by PS4RS — discussed his proposal to reexamine Freeh’s Report.

The proposal was rejected after receiving only nine votes, all of which came from alumni-elected trustees.

Wednesday, PS4RS had harsh words for Freeh.

“Louis Freeh obscured the lessons that should have been learned from this tragedy,” Morgan said, “and did a terrible disservice to children everywhere.”

UPDATE: 2:20 p.m.

Communication between the NCAA and Freeh group began as early of November of 2011 and continued after Freeh’s report was released, according to court documents.

In documents received by the court on Tuesday, Sen. Jake Corman and state Treasurer Rob McCord responded to the NCAA cross motion in which the NCAA asked the court to prevent an inquiry into their contacts with the Freeh Group, according to court documents.

The NCAA asked the court to prevent the release of the contacts, which Corman and McCord called “extensive and substantive,” because the Freeh investigation was “entirely independent from the NCAA,” according to court documents.

However, Corman and McCord provided the court with a 104 page document detailing the communication between the NCAA and the Freeh Group and advised the court that the NCAA’s claim of only having periodic contact with the Freeh Group “should bear no weight,” according to court documents.

In a statement to ESPN, Donald Remy, the Chief Legal Officer of the NCAA, said Corman’s statements are a “mischaracterization of the evidence and “are inconsistent with the facts,” and that he believes the communication between the Freeh Group and the NCAA was consistent with the NCAA’s “commitment to monitor the progress of [the] investigation.”

Corman and McCord said as early as Nov. 30, 2011, Remy reached out to Omar McNeill of the Freeh Group to arrange a phone call between NCAA President Mark Emmert and Louis Freeh. In the following month the NCAA arranged to meet with members of the Freeh Group in State College, according to court documents.

In a Dec. 5, 2011 email, it was stated the NCAA was looking into “collaborating with the Freeh Group’s investigation,” according to court documents.

Later, the Freeh Group sent McNeill a list of questions for use in the Penn State investigation and McNeill solicited from the NCAA a list of potential witnesses and database search terms for the investigation, according to court documents.

In December of 2011, the NCAA, the Freeh Group and the Big Ten began “scheduling and having a series of weekly conference calls to discuss Penn State” that continued regularly during the time Freeh’s report was released on July 12, 2012 and even beyond, according to court documents.

Original story: 11:26 a.m.

The NCAA and those hired by Penn State to independently investigate the university’s handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case worked together, according to court documents obtained by ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.”

The emails show former FBI director Louis Freeh’s investigators corresponded and met with NCAA officials throughout the investigation. In July 2012, the NCAA levied sanctions on Penn State, based on the findings of Freeh’s Report.

The documents were released publicly Wednesday as part of the discovery phase in state Sen. Jake Corman’s lawsuit against the NCAA.

“It has been public knowledge for almost three years that the University had agreed that the NCAA and the Big Ten Conference would monitor the progress of the Freeh investigation,” the university said in an emailed statement through spokeswoman Lisa Powers. “While the NCAA may have made suggestions to the Freeh Group with respect to its investigation, the scope of the Freeh investigation was established by the Penn State Board of Trustees, as set forth in the Freeh engagement letter, not by the NCAA. “

“The University’s preliminary review of the NCAA’s proposed questions suggests that there are many proposed questions that are not addressed in the final July 12, 2012 report.”

Check back with The Daily Collegian for updates.

To email reporter: ekm5162@psu.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @ErinMcPSU