Penn State Taps Former FBI Director Freeh As 'Investigative Counsel'

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh has been brought in to be a "special investigative counsel" for Penn State's internal look into how its officials handled reports that former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky might have been sexually abusing young boys.

Penn State trustee Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of drug giant Merck & Co., just announced Freeh's role. Frazier chairs the trustees' special investigations committee.

Sandusky, who says he is innocent, faces 40 criminal counts related to the alleged abuse of at least eight boys over more than a decade — sometimes on campus property. Two university officials have been charged with lying to a grand jury about what they knew as long ago as 1998 and failing to report the possible abuse to police. They profess their innocence.

Long-time head football coach Joe Paterno and school President Graham Spanier lost their jobs after coming under fire for allegedly not doing enough to stop what might have been happening.

Frazier, speaking at a news conference, said the Penn State investigation will spare no university officials — past or president — from scrutiny.

Freeh was FBI director from 1993 to 2001. He was a U.S. District Court judge (appointed by President George H.W. Bush) before that. A graduate of Rutgers University and Rutgers School of Law, he founded and chairs Freeh Group International Solutions, "an independent global risk management firm serving in the areas of business integrity and compliance, safety and security, and investigations and due diligence."

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