excerpted from ABC News Lyneka Little
The university launched an Openness Website that follows the amount spent on legal fees and crisis communication. The financial figures, which were last updated in Feb. 2012, show more money being spent on the internal investigation and crisis management than on legal services and defense.
According to the Websites Openness page, by the end of Feb. the University spent more than $5.3 million on its internal investigation and crisis communication in the sex abuse scandal that rocked the University last year.
Two months later the figure would balloon even more.
According to the Centre Daily Times, by the end of April the University had shelled out close to $12 million in legal and other fees in connection to the child abuse scandal related to the case. Of the $11.9 million spent, more than half was spent on crisis management and for an internal investigation.
The university has spent $2.46 million for the board of trustees’ internal investigation, including $1.14 million to Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan, former FBI director Louis Freeh‘s firm, according to Pennstatetrustee.com, a blog operated by Myke Triebold, a Penn State graduate. The website breaks down the fees with $111,164 going to Domus Inc. and $172,563 to Kekst and Company Inc., both for public relations for Freeh; $499,370 to Ketchum Public Relations for crisis management; $506,162 to Reed Smith LLP and $32,053 for “other” consultants and costs. (as of February)
With the college’s reputation at stake, Roskopf does not find the figure spent for crisis management surprising.
