Tuesday was a disappointing day for former Penn State administrators Graham Spanier, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz.
Starting with former university president Spanier in September, attorneys representing all three men filed motions requesting access to numerous sealed documents that they claim are related to their ongoing court proceedings.
Dauphin County President Judge Todd Hoover denied those requests in documents filed Tuesday and released to the public on Thursday.
Spanier, along with former Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and former Senior Vice President for Finance Gary Schultz, face a number of charges including perjury, failing to report child endangerment and conspiracy. Prosecutors claim they tried to cover up the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal. All three men have pleaded not guilty.
The administrators’ wanted the documents as part of the pre-trial discovery process. There is a database of more than 20 million electronic documents that turned up during Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s probe into the Sandusky investigation.
The documents were initially thought to have been destroyed, but were later recovered during the course of the Attorney General’s investigation.
In the months leading up to September’s initial request, Spanier’s attorneys made numerous requests to the Office of the Attorney General requesting documents based on a list of search terms. They later received only three email conversations, which the Attorney General’s Office said were the only relevant materials they could release, according to court documents.
“The [Office of the Attorney General] did not provide a privilege log or other explanation for having withheld responsive documents,” says the formal request from Spanier’s legal team filed on Sept. 9.
Last week, the Office of the Attorney General responded to Spanier’s, Curley’s and Schultz’s request for documents by arguing that only the released documents were relevant to their cases as discoverable materials.
It argued that simply being recovered during the course of the investigation does not make the requested documents applicable to the three cases.
The judge agreed, saying “no basis exists upon which the court may conclude that the Commonwealth withheld production of discoverable materials.”
No trial dates have been set for any of the defendants.
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