Pa. AG’s office pushes for former Penn State president Graham Spanier to start jail sentence
Pennsylvania prosecutors asked a judge Monday to put an end to former Penn State President Graham Spanier’s yearslong appeals, writing there is no legal barrier to enforcing his county jail sentence.
A federal appeals court that reinstated Spanier’s conviction for child endangerment over his handling of a report that former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abused a boy denied his most recent appeal earlier this month.
Spanier’s only remaining option is to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s spokesperson said.
Spanier was sentenced in June 2017 to a minimum of two months in jail, followed by two months of house arrest. His lawyer, Sam Silver, asked Judge John Boccabella on Friday to revise the sentence to four months of house arrest with electronic monitoring.
Spanier, 72, had heart surgery in 2019 and was diagnosed with an advanced stage of prostate cancer.
It’s “nothing short of astonishing” that prosecutors want to send Spanier to jail during the coronavirus pandemic, Silver wrote in an emailed statement.
“It’s simply absurd and irresponsible right now,” Silver wrote.
The state OK’d some modifications to Spanier’s potential sentence, including work release with medical furloughs and a flexible report date to the Centre County Correctional Facility.
The jail is not accepting new inmates because of a COVID-19 outbreak until at least Jan. 25, except for “very serious offenses.” The jail is operating at about 47% of capacity.
“We would like to point out that this is the third time that the defendant has attempted to renegotiate his lawfully imposed sentence in the aftermath of suffering a court loss,” Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Schulte wrote in a three-page letter to Boccabella.
Spanier was ousted as university president after Sandusky was arrested in 2011 on child molestation charges. He was convicted of one misdemeanor count of child endangerment.
Spanier told a judge at sentencing he regretted not intervening more forcefully to the report of Sandusky abusing a boy in the football team’s shower.
Sandusky is serving a 30- to 60-year sentence at Laurel Highlands state prison.