Two hundred interviewed in Penn State investigation
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- Former FBI chief Louis Freeh and his investigators have conducted 200 interviews in their extensive probe of the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State, asking questions that go beyond the charges against retired assistant coach Jerry Sandusky and into the relationship between the football program and the administration.
Since November, when the Penn State Board of Trustees hired his group to examine the Sandusky case, Freeh's team has talked to people ranging from high-level administrators to retired secretaries to current and former staffers in the athletic department. That includes many employees who worked at the football building while the late Joe Paterno was coach.
The trustees themselves also are among those to be questioned, said board chairwoman Karen Peetz, who told The Associated Press 200 people have been interviewed in all.
As Freeh seeks to fulfill his mission - he is charged with finding out how Penn State failed to stop an alleged predator in its midst, and with recommending changes aimed at preventing abuse - board members facing criticism are stressing anew that the former federal judge and his team have complete independence. They see the breadth of his investigation as a sign of that.
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Frustrated by what they call the trustees' rush to judgment in the frantic days and weeks following Sandusky's arrest, some critics have questioned whether the board used the scandal as a pretext for Paterno's ouster for other reasons. Paterno won a Division I record 409 games and two national titles over 46 seasons, but questions about when he would retire constantly swirled around the program especially over the last decade.
Paterno had said he rebuffed a request by administrators to step down in 2004, the team's fourth losing season in five years. He asked that he and his veteran staff stay on for a shot to turn things around - and Penn State won two Big Titles and 51 games over the next five seasons.
"I have no doubt based on my conversations with 22 trustees that the decision to fire Joe was not based on the Sandusky matter," prominent donor Anthony Lubrano, who is running for a seat on the board, wrote in an email. "Rather, for almost eight years the trustees wanted him removed (but) didn't know how to do so without suffering the ire of the alumni."
Many of the same critics want Freeh's investigation to be completely independent of the trustees.
An alumni watchdog group that has endorsed Lubrano's candidacy, Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship, has said "it does not believe that the investigation can be truly independent given the involvement of the Board of Trustees on the investigative team."
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