FOR THE RECORD: Objective evidence of defects and dishonesty in the Freeh Report

Re: September Board meeting to consider the Freeh Report

To: Penn State Trustees

cc: Senator Yudichak, SB 1240 Cosponsors, Alumni Networking, Attorneys Wick Sollers and Michael Chertoff, Eileen Morgan

forwarded: Jay Paterno

The purpose of this communication is to make it a matter of proven record that Penn State’s Board of Trustees was informed of numerous problems with the Freeh Report prior to the September Board meeting. These problems include not only “mistakes” but outright dishonesty, as proven entirely from Mr. Freeh’s own words as opposed to the opinions of others. I also direct the Board’s attention to alumna Eileen Morgan’s outstanding assessment of the Freeh Report at http://emf.intherough.net/Critical%20Analysis%20of%20Freeh%20Report.pdf

In addition, Michael Chertoff’s review of Mr. Freeh’s work for Wynn Resorts depicted Freeh as essentially a hired gun willing to prostitute his status as a purportedly impartial investigator. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-22/okada-review-finds-wynn-resorts-probe-deeply-flawed-.html Okada Review Finds Wynn Resorts Probe ‘Deeply Flawed’

The review by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff found that Wynn Resorts’ independent investigation, conducted by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, was “structurally deficient, one-sided, and seemingly advocacy-driven,” Okada’s Universal Entertainment Corp. (6425) said today in a statement.

…The review by Chertoff found that Freeh’s law firm “viewed itself as an advocate first and an impartial investigator second” in preparing the report. Freeh and his colleagues “cherry-picked evidence and stretched to reach conclusions that would be helpful to the Wynn Resorts Board,” according to today’s statement.

This is far from the only non-Penn State related incident that casts doubt on Mr. Freeh’s diligence and/or ethics. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-19/bin-hammam-s-life-ban-from-soccer-overturned-by-top-sports-court

“It is a situation of ‘case not proven’, coupled with concern on the part of the panel that the FIFA investigation [performed by Freeh] was not complete or comprehensive enough to fill the gaps in the record,” CAS [Court of Arbitration for Sport] said.

As shown by the attached .pdf file, Mr. Freeh’s “work” for Penn State comes across in the same manner.

* http://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Commonwealth/out/1MD13_4-9-14.pdf?cb=1 (April 9 2014) Page 37. 

The majority appears to arrive at this outcome because it is bewildered, as I am, by how the Board of Trustees of PSU could have approved or allowed to be executed a “Consent Decree” involving the expenditure of $60 million of PSU funds when the Consent Decree specifically states that the matter “ordinarily would not be actionable by the NCAA.” If, as the majority suggests, the NCAA did not have jurisdiction over conduct because it did not involve the regulation of athletics, then the expenditure of those funds is problematic, given that PSU is a non-profit corporation as well as being tax-exempt as a charitable organization, and that Boards of Directors of non-profit charitable corporations have a fiduciary duty to ensure that funds are only used for matters related to its charitable purpose – in this case, the students of PSU. See 15 Pa. C.S. §5712. Moreover, the majority position is understandable given the lax supervision by those responsible for insuring that non-profit and charitable organizations operate as non-profit and charitable organizations as well as their failure to take action against Boards of Directors and Officers who use funds of a non-profit and/or charitable entity to pay funds that they are not legally obligated to pay and/or expend funds not related to their charitable purpose or who no longer act as a charity. See Zampogna v. Law Enforcement Health Benefits, Inc., 81 A.3d 1043, 1047 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2013).