A jury found former Penn State University President Graham Spanier guilty of one misdemeanor count of child endangerment Friday, ending a case that dragged on for more than four years over whether Spanier and two other university executives covered up previous allegations made against former Penn State assistant football coach and convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky. A longtime Penn State assistant football coach, he also ran a charity for at-risk children, the Second Mile, which he used to access a steady stream of victims, some of whom he brought back to the Penn State campus and assaulted in the locker room and showers for the football team. The case brought about an inglorious end to the career of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who was fired days after Sandusky’s 2011 arrest and died months later, and sowed deep divisions in the Penn State community that remain today. Still contentiousMore than four years after Sandusky’s conviction, Spanier’s trial exposed how little the wounds resulting from Sandusky’s case and its aftermath have healed in the Penn State community. Spanier, Penn State’s president from 1995 until he was forced out shortly after Sandusky’s 2011 arrest, watched stoically throughout the trial as prosecutors accused him of enabling a pedophile.

Source: Washington Post March 24, 2017 21:00 UTC