A judge has ruled that Louis Freeh’s law firm must turn confidential documents to the estate of former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno.
Attorneys for the Paterno estate have been fighting tooth-and-nail for months to subpoena the Pepper Hamilton law firm for an undisclosed number of documents gathered during Freeh’s investigation into the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
Pepper Hamilton (which acquired Freeh’s law firm through a merger in 2012) fought just as hard to keep those documents out of Centre County court, appealing several of Judge John Leete’s decisions that overturned the firm’s objections. But Leete refused to put the case on hold for those appeals, and now he’s issued an order directing Pepper Hamiltion to turn over the documents within the next 30 days.
Leete’s order is the latest twist in the legal fight between the Paterno estate and the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
The plaintiffs in the suit — which includes the Paterno estate, former Penn State assistant football coaches Jay Paterno and William Kenney and former university trustee Al Clemens — first filed their suit against the NCAA in May 2013. They argue that the NCAA overstepped its authority in the aftermath of the Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, ultimately decreasing the value of the Paterno estate and making it more difficult for Jay Paterno and Kenney to find work.
Pepper Hamilton is entangled in the case because it acquired the law firm of Freeh, Sporkin and Sullivan in 2012. Freeh and his team of investigators were hired by Penn State in 2011 to determine what actions or inactions allowed the Sandusky scandal to unfold. The Freeh Report was released in 2012, and ultimately formed the basis for the NCAA’s punitive sanctions against Penn State.
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