The new judge in Graham Spanier’s defamation lawsuit against Louis Freeh will hold a pretrial conference next month.
The conference, set for Tuesday, Sep. 15, will primarily act as a means to schedule future hearings for arguments on pending motions.
The two motions in question date back to March 18, when Spanier’s lawyers asked the court to modify the stay on the lawsuit and attempted to add Penn State to the suit.
Spanier is suing the former FBI director for the Freeh Report, in which he was commissioned to look into the child sexual abuse of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky. Freeh found that there was a cover-up of sorts by Penn State administrators including Spanier, but the latter alleges that this was a pre-meditated conclusion that wrongfully damaged his reputation and career.
A stay is in place on the pretrial efforts in the lawsuit, including discovery, because of the criminal charges filed against Spanier, former athletic director Tim Curley, and former vice president for business and finance Gary Schultz. The three are alleged to have covered up Sandusky’s abuse to some degree, and Spanier initially asked for the stay until those matters are cleared up.
He is now asking the court to modify that stay and allow discovery to some extent, while also asking for Penn State to be added as a defendant for violating a resignation agreement. When Spanier stepped down as president, the university allegedly agreed not to make negative comments about him, but he says they violated this by publishing and accepting the Freeh Report.
The September 15 hearing will set a briefing schedule as well as a date for oral arguments on these two motions, which judge Robert Eby wants to hold in the first three weeks of November.
