By Peter Gleason
You knew the squalid, awful Penn State sexual abuse scandal in which former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was evidently left to have his way with young boys while everyone from Joe Paterno to the school’s president looked the other would come down to this:
Money.
If you doubt this, check out a letter in the Centre Daily Times, the Nits’ hometown paper:
Later this month, the power bloc of the Penn State board of trustees will attempt to seat Ira Lubert as the new board chairman.
Lubert, appointed to the board by his friends, sits on the board’s executive committee, but his greatest damage was done as the chairman of the “Sandusky victim settlement committee,” a group formed in 2012 that operated in complete secrecy — not only from the public and from the university stakeholders, but also from the other members of the board.
To date, Penn State — through Lubert’s committee — has distributed more than $93 million in payouts to 32 claimants. This figure exceeds the entire value of the 500-plus victim settlements in the Boston Archdiocese sexual abuse scandal.
Lubert’s committee made payments to these claimants even though, on May 8, Penn State President Eric Barron stated that “None of these allegations … has been substantiated in a court of law or in any other process to test their veracity.”
Further, in the Penn State vs. PMA lawsuit, Judge Glazer stated that the actions of Lubert’s committee — actions whereby Lubert presumed that Penn State officials had a knowledge of, and a liability for, Sandusky’s activities — triggered an exclusion which would allow PMA to withhold insurance payments to Penn State.
The payouts did, however, provide legal cover for the leaders of Second Mile — of which Lubert was a board chairman.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Lubert’s fiduciary responsibility.
BARRY FENCHAK, STATE COLLEGE
