The Penn State Sunshine Fund saw a small victory Friday in its quest to view hundreds of Penn State documents related to the internal investigation into the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal.
Commonwealth Court President Judge Dan Pellegrini ruled in favor of the organization, spearheaded by Penn State Board of Trustees candidate Ryan Bagwell, setting a hearing for April 8.
The issue stems from roughly 700 pages of documents the group has sought under the state’s Right to Know law, also known as the open records law. Of those 700 pages, the state’s Office of Open Records ruled that 150 pages are not considered public documents and therefore do not need to be released.
The Sunshine Fund appealed that decision and the judge is allowing the group to make an argument that the 150 pages deemed private, due to attorney-client privilege, be released. Bagwell says most, if not all, of the 150 pages withheld are related to the Louis Freeh investigation.
“We disagree with that decision, because we believe that there is a significant body of evidence to demonstrate that Penn State waived the privilege by allowing Freeh to discuss his investigation with law enforcement agencies, the NCAA, the Big Ten conference and a Pennsylvania congressman,” Bagwell said in an email.
Penn State has argued the university did not waive attorney-client privilege.
“We are excited to have the opportunity to show the court why it should grant our application to allow us to send the university interrogatories and requests for document production,” Bagwell said.
Penn State hired Freeh, former director of the FBI, to conduct an independent investigation into the Sandusky scandal.
In the final report, the Freeh firm says administrators “repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse from the authorities, [PSU’s] Board of Trustees, the Penn State community, and the public at large.”
As a result of that report, the Board of Trustees terminated then President Graham Spanier and head football coach Joe Paterno. Since then, critics have called into question those and other decisions made by the board.
Penn State did not respond to a request for comment.
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