Pa. Supreme Court Suspends Sandusky Prosecutor Fina’s Law License, Reprimands Baldwin

A former Pennsylvania deputy attorney general who helped lead the prosecution of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse case had his law license suspended for one year and one day on Wednesday by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court over his handling of grand jury witness testimony against three former Penn State administrators who were accused of a cover-up.

The justices ruled 5-0, with one abstaining, that Fina violated an ethical rule in using former Penn State general counsel Cynthia Baldwin as a witness against former Penn State President Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and senior vice president Gary Schultz. Justice Kevin Dougherty agreed Fina violated ethical rules, but dissented on the punishment, writing that it was too severe.

Fina’s attorney Joe McGettigan, who was the chief prosecutor at Sandusky’s 2012 trial, told the Associated Press that he will seek a review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Baldwin also received a public reprimand from the court for failing ‘to protect her clients’ right to competent counsel and entitlement to unfettered loyalty…’

The court’s decisions concurred with recommendations by the Pennsylvania Office of Disciplinary Counsel.

Baldwin appeared with Spanier, Curley and Schultz when they testified before the grand jury investigating Sandusky in January 2011. All three men have said they believed Baldwin was acting as their attorney, while Baldwin contended she was representing the university, not them individually.

In October 2012, Baldwin was subpoenaed and testified before the grand jury. Less than a month later, Curley and Schultz were charged with additional crimes and Spanier was charged for the first time. All were three accused of lying to the grand jury, obstruction and failure to report child abuse in connection with a decade-old report about Sandusky, then a retired assistant football coach, with a boy in a campus locker room shower.

Fina has argued that he questioned Baldwin in a way that did not violate attorney-client privilege. In an opinion issued Wednesday, however, Justice David Wecht wrote that Fina misrepresented his intentions about the scope of his inquiry to a grand jury judge and that attorneys for the administrators would have sought to first have privilege claims adjudicated before Baldwin’s testimony.

‘To state it plain, instead of Baldwin serving as a shield for her former clients, her testimony was elicited and used by Fina as a sword against them, to devastating effect,’ Wecht wrote.

Baldwin’s testimony ultimately led to the most serious charges against the three administrators being quashed. In 2016, the state Superior Court threw out felony charges against all three men, concluding that neither the administrators nor the university had waived privilege as it related to their individual interactions with Baldwin.

Curley and Schultz both pleaded guilty in March 2017 to one misdemeanor count each of endangering the welfare of a child and served brief sentences in county jail. That same month Spanier was found guilty on the same count, but the conviction was thrown out by a federal judge in April 2019, a day before he was scheduled to report to jail. The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office has asked a federal appellate court to reinstate the conviction.

Sandusky, the founder of the now-defunct Second Mile charity for at-risk youth, was convicted in June 2012 on 45 counts related to child sexual abuse. He has continued to appeal the conviction and is serving a 30-60 years in state prison, a sentence that was re-affirmed in November.