Paterno Family and Freeh Report Anger: 'We Vehemently Disagree With Findings'
Joe Paterno's family have strongly denied the findings of a former FBI director, Louis Freeh, who was hired as a special investigator in the case, and who reported that Paterno was one of four high ranking Penn State officials who helped cover up the sex abuse scandal involving his former assistant Jerry Sandusky.
The family of Paterno released a statement on Monday saying that they "vehemently disagree" with the conclusions reached by Freeh and his team of investigators.
The report by Freeh was released last week and created a renewed firestorm around Paterno's legacy at Penn State. The report claimed that Paterno was one of four university officials to help cover up the child sex abuse so that Sandusky and the university could avoid bad publicity and the scandal.
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The report added that administrators reversed a decision to report a 2001 encounter between Sandusky and a boy after the athletic director discussed it with Paterno.
The family of Paterno has now asked attorneys to review the findings and claims made in the report, and they have said the findings will "absolutely not" be the last news in the case, and they will fight for his innocence.
"Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State," Judge Louis Freeh and his law firm revealed Thursday morning, after months of investigating the school's involvement in the sex abuse case against former football coach Jerry Sandusky.
Freeh and his law firm, Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, LLP, were retained in Nov. 2011 on behalf of the Special Investigations Task Force of the Board of Trustees of The Pennsylvania State University to conduct the independent investigation. They released a full report on the investigation online last week, revealing their findings for the first time to the public.
Sandusky was convicted last month of 45 counts.
