STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Nine Penn State trustees elected by alumni have demanded access to documents used to create the Freeh Report on the school's handling of child sex abuse complaints against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
The group said the board has a responsibility to review the materials and verify the sources of criticisms in the 2012 report by former FBI director Louis Freeh.
The Associated Press obtained a letter the alumni-elected faction sent Wednesday to board Chairman Keith Masser asking for access to the supporting documents. They said the materials are the property of the board.
"Louis Freeh and his report greatly damaged the reputation of Penn State," trustee Albert Lord, who joined the board this year, said in a statement. "As fiduciaries of Penn State, we have both a legal as well as a moral obligation to ask questions about such an inherently incomplete work product."
Masser said through university spokesman Lawrence Lokman on Saturday that the request is under review.
Penn State President Eric Barron vowed earlier this month to review both the report and the source material, given acrimony that has developed over Freeh's report. The school had hired Freeh to lead an investigation.
Then-president Graham Spanier, former athletic director Tim Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz are charged criminally with covering up complaints about Sandusky, a retired defensive football coach. Sandusky was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing 10 children, sometimes on campus, and is serving 30 to 60 years in prison.
Freeh's report was issued shortly before a consent decree between Penn State and the NCAA resulted in a four-year bowl ban, a $60 million fine and a temporary loss of football scholarships. The NCAA recently ended the bowl ban and restored the scholarships.
