Pennsylvania State Sen. Jake Corman and Treasurer Rob McCord continue to battle the NCAA over what information should be kept out of the court room.
In new documents filed in the Commonwealth Court last week, the athletic organization fires back at the two state officials for their attempts to force the NCAA to produce emails with the Big Ten conference. The NCAA claims these communications are protected by a legal tool called joint defense privilege. Corman and McCord disagree, and have asked Judge Anne Covey to intervene.
In response, the NCAA called their challenge “an exceedingly narrow issue” that has “little to do with the legally relevant issues in this case” in documents filed on Thursday. The NCAA argues Corman’s and McCord’s attempts to force the NCAA to produce emails with the Big Ten is an attempt to deflect attention from what the NCAA claims are important facts: the consent decree was willingly agreed upon by the NCAA and Penn State, and no witness has testified that the NCAA lacked the authority to impose its sanctions.
Corman and McCord sued the NCAA in Commonwealth Court last year in an attempt to force the NCAA to spend the $60 million fine it imposed on Penn State within Pennsylvania. The NCAA imposed the fine and other sanctions on Penn State after the two organizations signed the consent decree in July 2012. The Freeh report – completed by former FBI director Louis Freeh and released earlier that year – formed the basis for the NCAA’s sanctions by concluding that university administrators hid knowledge of Jerry Sandusky’s child sexual abuse from the public.
“With the facts leaving them without any valid challenge to the Consent Decree, Plaintiffs apparently have opted to offer out-of-context sound-bites and strained conspiracy theories derived from the NCAA’s interactions with [Freeh’s investigative group],” the NCAA attorneys write, referencing Corman’s claims that the NCAA influenced the outcome of the Freeh report.
The NCAA also notes that numerous court decisions have upheld the importance of privileged communications, and claim it has properly used an important legal tool.
On Friday, attorneys for Corman and McCord responded, calling the NCAA’s filing “their latest of numerous transparent smokescreens.” Corman and McCord argue that the NCAA and Big Ten both acted and ultimately sanctioned Penn State as separate entities, which does not entitle the NCAA to claim joint-defense privilege.
Corman and McCord ask the court to force the NCAA to produce its communications with the Big Ten, and to allow their attorneys to question NCAA’s Chief Legal Counsel Donald Remy a second time about conversations with the Big Ten in the wake of the Sandusky scandal. Judge Covey has set a January trial date to determine if the consent decree is a legally valid document.
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