IBJNews

NCAA says Penn State fine money in special account

Back to TopCommentsE-mailPrint

The NCAA said Thursday it has no immediate plans to spend the $12 million already paid to it as part of the sanctions against Penn State University over its handling of child sex abuse allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

The fate of that money — and the rest of the $60 million Penn State owes the Indianapolis-based NCAA — is the subject of two legal challenges, one from a state lawmaker and the other from Pennsylvania's governor.

On Wednesday, a Pennsylvania judge put on hold state Sen. Jake Corman's request for an injunction barring the NCAA from spending the money. Corman asked for the injunction request to be put on hold, indicating the filing had the support of the NCAA.

NCAA spokesman Bob Williams said the organization has not been negotiating with Corman, either about spending the $12 million or the larger lawsuit, and called his lawsuit groundless.

Corman, a Republican who represents State College and chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, sued the NCAA two weeks ago, arguing the NCAA's plans to spend $60 million over five years from Penn State runs afoul of his oversight role in state spending. The state contributed $214 million this year to Penn State, which has a $4.3 billion budget.

"We believe the senator's lawsuit is without basis, and we intend to proceed with the litigation," Williams said. "As we've explained to the senator's lawyers in our discussions, no funds will be disbursed until a third party administrator is appointed, and until that time the funds are held in an independent account not controlled by the NCAA."

Corman's request to put on hold his injunction said the NCAA informed him "that for multiple reasons it has no intention to disburse or otherwise dissipate said funds in the immediate future," and agreed to give Corman two months' notice if that changes.

At a convention in Grapevine, Texas, NCAA president Mark Emmert disputed Corman's statement that the NCAA has been negotiating over the lawsuit and said his organization will never see the money or decide where it is spent.

"A group of presidents and others are setting up the framework by which all that will happen," Emmert said. "As they set that up and get it all in place, then indeed that group can make a decision to dispense money."

Commonwealth Court Judge Keith Quigley's order put Corman's application for an injunction on hold unless Corman seeks to reactivate it.

Also Wednesday, Corman introduced a narrowly focused bill, the Institution of Higher Education Consent Decree Endowment Act, which would determine how matters such as Penn State's are handled. Corman's office said he believes it would also apply to the NCAA-Penn State consent agreement.

The act's primary provision is that fine money must go into a custodial trust in the state treasury, and the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency would distribute the money in the state for child sexual abuse prevention or to help victims.

The NCAA also is defending a federal antitrust lawsuit filed Jan. 2 by Gov. Tom Corbett that seeks to have the $60 million fine and other penalties against the university thrown out. There have not yet been any additional substantive filings in that case.

Penn State and the NCAA entered into the agreement in July, following Sandusky's conviction on 45 counts of child sexual abuse. The former assistant football coach is serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence but maintains his innocence.

ADVERTISEMENT

Post a comment to this story

COMMENTS POLICY
We reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is obscene, profane, vulgar, racist, sexually explicit, abusive, or hateful.
 
You are legally responsible for what you post and your anonymity is not guaranteed.
 
Posts that insult, defame, threaten, harass or abuse other readers or people mentioned in IBJ editorial content are also subject to removal. Please respect the privacy of individuals and refrain from posting personal information.
 
No solicitations, spamming or advertisements are allowed. Readers may post links to other informational websites that are relevant to the topic at hand, but please do not link to objectionable material.
 
We may remove messages that are unrelated to the topic, encourage illegal activity, use all capital letters or are unreadable.
 

Messages that are flagged by readers as objectionable will be reviewed and may or may not be removed. Please do not flag a post simply because you disagree with it.

Sponsored by
ADVERTISEMENT

facebook - twitter on Facebook & Twitter

Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ on Facebook:
Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ's Tweets on these topics:
 
Subscribe to IBJ
  1. In my opinion the estridge companies are crooks. They filed bankruptcy on their 'track housing' side of the business two weeks before they closed on one of my clients' homes. When my client first interviewed Estridge as a builder 6 months before, they specifically ASKED about the solvency of their business, knowing that some builders were struggling. Estridge truly misrepresented their financial situation at that time. I suppose I am more unhappy with the whole system than I am with the builder because what the heck==you can file bankruptcy on 'track homes' but still keep building and make money off of 'custom built' homes??? How ridiculous! They are all homes. How can a company be allowed to bilk thousands of dollars from their subcontractors but still be allowed to build houses?? they should have been made to pay back all their unpaid contractors before being allowed to profit from building any more houses! This alone makes them and the system crooks in my eyes. I would never build an estridge home and I would not recommend for my clients either. If they were truly 'bankrupt' how could they afford to keep building homes anyway??? The whole system needs fixed.

  2. I live a couple blocks east of the Angie's campus and my house is assessed for ~$160,000. If I could get that amount, let alone $384,000 (a 140% bonus), I'd sell in a minute. Either Angie's stockholders just got fleeced, or Angie's is getting about a 58% discount on their property taxes, if these properties are actually worth what they paid Mr. Oesterle for them. Which do you think is the case?

  3. Perhaps the IMA board is really to blame! They agreed to hire Charles. They can't seemingly find donors among themselves, or bring in new blood that will support the museums operating budget with an expanded museum and money to provide curators with something to do (ie buy art). The headlines of disarray at the museum and mass firings are hurting the reputation of the museum for some time to come. If people on the board had misgivings, perhaps they shpuld have more forcefully opposed efforts that they have seemingly been unable to fund, like expansion and the costs it has created!

  4. See, I told u Indyman and Dipsicle....this 8 days is overkill. It's barely worth a weekend....great job Tony George! Your dream has been fulfilled....he fans want the I r l back. Thats how good it was.....and that sucked.

  5. I have been in training for a short time now but right off I can see that safety and quality are the number one issues, my experience as of late has been a positive one, the employees along with Jeff the plant manager and the operation supervisor as well as the engineers are a highly motivated group of people, what an asset for the area to have and for company's in need of a quality metal products.

ADVERTISEMENT