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Ex-Penn State President Graham Spanier Defends Himself

In the wake of the sanctions handed down by the NCAA on Monday to the Penn State football program, Graham Spanier, the former university president who was implicated in the Freeh Report as one of the administrators who helped cover-up Jerry Sandusky's misdeeds, sent a three-page letter to the school's board of trustees on Monday, defending himself.

The letter, as reported by Yahoo! Sports asserts that Spanier didn't help "protect" Sandusky, as Spanier himself was a victim of physical abuse as a child:

"It is unfathomable and illogical to think that a respected family sociologist and family therapist, someone who personally experienced massive and persistent abuse as a child, someone who devoted a significant portion of his career to the welfare of children and youth ... would have knowingly turned a blind eye to any report of child abuse or predatory sexual acts directed at children," Spanier said in the letter.

Spanier hasn't been charged with any crime and maintains that he'd never heard of any misconduct of a sexual nature with regard to Sandusky and the young boys he was found to have abused.

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Photographs by dizfunk used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.