Disciplinary hearing opens for PSU's ex-top lawyer during Sandusky investigation

By Paula Reed Ward
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
May 22, 2018

https://bit.ly/2s3ovBh

An expert in grand jury proceedings testified Tuesday that former Penn State University general counsel Cynthia Baldwin violated attorney-client privilege and failed to competently represent three top officials at the school during the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse investigation.

Philadelphia-area attorney David Rudovsky was the first witness called Tuesday as part of the Office of Disciplinary Counsel’s case before the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board against Ms. Baldwin for professional misconduct. The case is being heard in an Allegheny County Orphans’ Court courtroom in the Frick Building Downtown.

If the panel finds that Ms. Baldwin violated the rules, it can recommend to the state Supreme Court discipline ranging from reprimand to disbarment. The court can then accept the recommendation, reject it or change it.

Ms. Baldwin, who became Penn State’s first in-house counsel and chief legal officer for the university in 2010, previously served as an Allegheny County Common Pleas judge and as an appointed justice to the state Supreme Court.

The allegations by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel were filed against her in November.

Sam Napoli, representing the office, told the three-person panel hearing Ms. Baldwin’s case that he intended to show that she violated the rules of professional conduct for attorneys in several ways, including that she had a conflict of interest in representing all the defendants; that she did not exercise legal skill and failed to render proper representation to them; that her conduct was prejudicial to the administration of justice and that she violated attorney-client privilege by testifying before the grand jury herself.

“What this case is about is her representation of Tim Curley, Gary Schultz and Graham Spanier,” Mr. Napoli said. “It is not about whether Mr. Curley, Mr. Schultz or Mr. Spanier are guilty of any crimes.

“It is not about their conduct.”

Mr. Rudovsky, who was called as an expert in grand jury matters by Mr. Napoli, testified that while Ms. Baldwin is a competent attorney, he did not believe her representation relative to the Sandusky case met the levels required by the Rules of Professional Conduct.

He told the panel that the warnings she gave the individual Penn State officials relative to a potential conflict of interest were “clearly deficient,” and that she failed to get appropriate waivers of that potential conflict from the individuals.

“This was rife with possible conflicts,” he said.

But Charles DeMonaco, who represents Ms. Baldwin, gave a lengthy opening statement in which he said his client was duped by the three Penn State officials she represented, former vice president Schultz, former athletic director Curley and former university president Spanier — all three  charged by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office with endangerment and for covering up Sandusky’s sexual abuse of children.

Mr. DeMonaco said there is no basis for the claims raised by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel and that Ms. Baldwin’s conduct at all times as she represented Penn State and its individual officers was “diligent and competent.”

He discounted the case against Ms. Baldwin, noting that there is no complainant in the charges against her and that the Office of Disciplinary Counsel would call no fact witnesses to support its charges.

“There is no evidence to support these assertions,” he said.

Instead, Mr. DeMonaco said that Schultz, Curley and Spanier lied to their own attorney and withheld information from her, furthering their conspiracy to cover up Sandusky’s crimes.

Curley and Schultz pleaded guilty to child endangerment, while Spanier was convicted of one count at trial.

No one was found guilty of conspiracy.

Among the witnesses Ms. Baldwin expects to call are Frank Fina, who tried the case against Mr. Sandusky on behalf of the attorney general’s office, as well as Bruce Beemer, former first deputy attorney general.

Mr. DeMonaco told the panel that in his 43 years of practice, he finds Ms. Baldwin’s case “most troubling.

“I am at a loss as to why we are here.”