HARRISBURG, Pa. _ Graham B. Spanier, the former Pennsylvania State University president once considered one of the nation's most prominent college leaders, was convicted Friday of endangering children by failing to act on signs that Jerry Sandusky was a serial sex predator.
After nearly 12 hours of deliberation, the jury of seven women and five men found Spanier guilty of a single misdemeanor count of endangerment. He was acquitted of a second endangerment count, as well as a felony count of conspiracy.
Still, the guilty verdict was a stunning blow to Spanier, 68, who had long proclaimed his innocence, and to his supporters, who had fiercely defended him and accused prosecutors of overreaching and unfairly staining the university. Many, including his wife, Sandra, a Penn State English professor, were in the Dauphin County Courtroom to hear the verdict.
Spanier didn't appear to react when the verdict was read in a hushed courtroom.
Prosecutors said he agreed in 2001 with two Penn State administrators at the time, athletic director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz, not to report assistant coach Mike McQueary's claim that Sandusky was caught after hours with a young boy in a campus locker-room shower.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who this year took over the office that spent had nearly a decade investigating and prosecuting the Sandusky case, said the verdict showed no one is above the law.
"There are zero excuses when it comes to failing to report the abuse of children to authorities," he said.
Spanier's lawyer, Sam Silver, said they were heartened by the jury's acquittal on two counts and would appeal the guilty verdict on the third. That count had originally been a felony count, but jurors downgraded it to a misdemeanor.
Emails show that the three men knew Sandusky, a longtime assistant to head football coach Joe Paterno, had been investigated by university police after a similar claim in 1998. They first decided to report the 2001 incident to child-welfare authorities, but then changed that plan. Instead, they agreed to talk to Sandusky, bar him from bringing boys on campus, and share the report with the president of Second Mile, the charity Sandusky started for vulnerable children.
Sandusky sexually assaulted at least four more children after the 2001 incident, including another boy in a campus shower the next year, jurors were told. That victim was among the witnesses who testified this week.
Both Schultz and Curley pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution, although a deputy attorney general told jurors in her closing argument that they were not the government's star witnesses.
Spanier opted not to testify. His lawyers argued that the prosecution didn't present any evidence that Spanier knew Sandusky was a child sex abuser or that he knowingly conspired to cover up a crime.
Spanier, who rose to national prominence as Penn State's leader for 16 years, has maintained that he acted appropriately in 2001 based on the information he had at the time. He contends he was told by his lieutenants that Sandusky's behavior with the boy in the shower amounted to "horseplay."
Long-time Spanier friend Gary Glynn left the courtroom with a grim expression.
"Disappointed," he said, declining to comment further.
Glynn, a retired investment manager from New York, said earlier in the day that no matter the verdict, his faith in Spanier would not be shaken.
"I just know if he had any idea what was going on, he would have put a stop to it," Glynn said.
The verdict is likely to bring to an end the final criminal case related to the scandal, which erupted in 2011 when Sandusky was indicted for abusing children on and off Penn State's campus, and Schultz and Curley charged with conspiring to cover up his crimes.
At the same time, both Spanier and head football coach Joe Paterno were forced from their jobs. A year later in 2012, Spanier was charged with the same crimes as Curley and Schultz. After years of legal wrangling and appeals, the case against Spanier was whittled to two felony counts of child endangerment and one felony count of conspiracy.
During its deliberations, the jury twice asked questions about the charges, including definitions of reckless and supervision as defined under the law.
The case has deeply divided the Penn State community and its board of trustees. Eight of nine alumni-elected trustees on the 37-member board_who have supported Spanier and have been critical of the university's handling of the matter_have attended the trial.
As a crowd gathered Friday morning outside the courtroom, Trustee Alice Pope underscored the gravity of the decision.
"This is an important matter for the university no matter whose side you're on," Pope said.
Trustee Bill Oldsey said a conviction could have huge ramifications for higher education administrations, who deal with sensitive matters all the time.
"This is going to be like a shot fired around the world," he said. "If people of Graham's caliber will continue to aspire to lead the great universities of this country, then we have to make sure in this age of accountability that there are protections from being wrongly accused."
Still pending are a host of civil cases over the scandal, including a lawsuit filed by Spanier against Penn State.
Democratic state Rep. Mark Rozzi hailed Friday's conviction as "a partial victory" that would nonetheless leave some victims feeling disappointed that Spanier was acquitted of conspiracy.
"I'm sure that there's a lot of Penn State victims out there today that are disappointed and believe that more of a cover-up was done, said Rozzi, who has been an advocate for sex-abuse victims in the state legislature. "They were probably hoping for more."
