PHILADELPHIA — Former Pennsylvania State University President Graham Spanier faces criminal charges on accusations he took actions to cover up the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal, state Attorney General Linda Kelly said.
Spanier, who was fired by Penn State last year after Sandusky’s arrest, is charged with five counts including endangering the welfare of a child, Kelly said at a news conference Thursday in Harrisburg, the state capital.
Additional counts were also brought against two former university officials who had previously been charged, she said.
The charges against Spanier, 64, come less than a month after Sandusky, 68, a former Penn State assistant football coach, was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison for sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period.
Sandusky, who was convicted by jury in June on 45 criminal counts, committed some of his crimes in campus buildings or while he was employed by the school, according to prosecutors and victims.
A July report commissioned by the university and prepared by Louis Freeh, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, placed Spanier at the center of a cover-up of Sandusky’s actions.
Read more in Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.