Jill Kelley and Paula Broadwell, the two women at the center of the David Petraeus scandal, both visited the White House multiple times during the last four years. 

Kelley  has visited three times since September of this year, and Broadwell’s two visits were in 2009 and 2011,  a White House official told NBC News on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

Kelley’s trips were set up by a White House staffer she met at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., where she served as an unpaid social coordinator.

The staffer hosted Kelley and her twin sister, Natalie Khawam, for breakfast in the White House cafeteria, known as the mess, on Sept. 28 and again, for lunch, on Oct. 24. 

The third visit, on Sunday, Nov. 4, occurred just three days before Gen. Petraeus resigned as CIA director, citing an extramarital affair.  Kelley also took a tour of the White House that day with her husband, Scott, and their three children, as well as Khawam and her child. 

Broadwell visited the White House twice -- in June 2009, when she met with a National Security Staff member who handled Afghanistan and Pakistan policy, and in June 2011 when she attended a broad briefing on Afghanistan-Pakistan for approximately 20 guests, according to the White House official. 

The women have emerged as key figures in the scandal that cost Petraeus his job.

Numerous government and law enforcement officials have told NBC News that Kelley inadvertently triggered the investigation that revealed Petraeus' extramarital affair with Broadwell, his biographer, by complaining to an FBI agent she knew about a series of harassing emails she had received. Agents investigating the cyber-harassment case first determined that Broadwell was the author of the emails, then found evidence of her affair with Petraeus, the officials said.

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Updated at 2:20 p.m. ET: Pennsylvania state prosecutors, citing what they called "a conspiracy of silence," on Thursday charged Graham Spanier, the former president of Penn State University, with perjury, obstruction of justice and endangering the welfare of children abused by the school's former defensive coordinator, convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky. 

The prosecutors also brought new felony charges against two former top Penn State officials -- Tim Curley, the ex-athletic director, and Gary Schultz, an ex-Penn State vice president who oversaw the campus police. Both men had been previously charged in the case and they, along with Spanier, have publicly insisted on their innocence.

"This case is about three powerful men who held high positions -- three men who used their positions to conceal and cover up for years the activities of a known child predator," state Attorney General Linda Kelly said at a news conference in Harrisburg. "This was not a mistake, an oversight or a misjudgment.

"This was a conspiracy of silence by top officials at Penn State, working to actively conceal the truth, with total disregard to the suffering of children,"  Kelly said.

“Graham Spanier has commited no crime and looks forward to the opportunity to clear his good name and well earned national reputation for integrity,” Spanier’s lawyers said in a statement. “This presentment is a politically motivated frame-up of an innocent man. And if these charges ever come to trial, we will prove it.”

“To be clear, Tim Curley is innocent of all charges.
We are carefully reviewing the presentment and will reserve a more comprehensive comment for a later time,” Curley’s lawyer said in a statement.

They also blamed the charges against their client on Pennsylvania’s Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, saying that Kelly – whom he appointed – had brought the case against Spanier to divert attention from the fact that when Corbett was attorney general, he had failed to bring criminal charges against Sandusky in 2009  – an issue that Democrats have criticized him for. Kelly on Thursday adamantly denied that politics played any role in the case.

The new charges come nearly one year after Sandusky was arrested and charged with repeatedly abusing young boys dating back to 1998, setting off one of the biggest scandals in the history of college sports. Sandusky, the longtime deputy to the school's late legendary football coach, Joe Paterno, was convicted on 45 counts of child sex abuse last June and was sentenced last month to 30 to 60 years in state prison.

Full coverage of the Sandusky trial

Spanier, 64, a professional sociologist and family therapist, served for 16 years as president of Penn State, one of the largest public universities in the country, where he was a popular figure on campus and an active booster of the school's football program. He was fired last year, after Sandusky’s arrest, and is now facing eight criminal charges, including five felonies, each of which carry a potential prison term of seven years.

The charges laid out in a new 39-page grand jury presentment are based in part on evidence uncovered in a report last summer by former FBI director Louis Freeh. But the grand jury report also provide new details-- in part culled from previously undisclosed grand jury testimony and documents -- of how Spanier, Schultz and Curley allegedly deceived investigators and hid key information from other university officials, including the chief of the campus police and, in Spanier's case, from the Penn State Board of Trustees.

The grand jury report also provides new details about the trail of an incriminating "Sandusky file" that was kept in a file drawer in Schultz's office -- documenting a 1998 police investigation of Sandusky "with very detailed information" about Sandusky's contact with a young boy in the Penn State shower and a later 2001 allegation about Sandusky abusing another young boy in the Penn State shower.

This and other material was not turned over to prosecutors despite  grand jury subpoenas for all documents relating to the defensive coordinator between 2010 and April 2012. In all, 22 boxes of Sandusky documents, photographs and other materials were not initially turned over in response to the subpoeanas and, as a result, the investigation into Sandusky was "signficantly thwarted and frustrated," the grand jury report states.

According to the new grand jury report, the Sandusky file was removed from Schultz's office by his administrative assistant last year and delivered to his home on Nov. 5, 2011, the same day the then-Penn State vice president was first charged in the case. A previous assistant testified she was given an "unusual request" by Schultz to never "look in" the Sandusky file and that the request was delivered in a "tone of voice" she had never heard him use before.

The new grand jury report states that the emails and other documents show that Spanier, Curley and Schultz at first agreed to report to child welfare authorities a 2001 allegation by former graduate assistant Mike McQueary that he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in the Penn State shower. One indication of how serious they took it was found in documents showing that Schultz sought legal advice from Penn State's outside lawyer, Wendell Courtney, who billed the school for a "Conference with G Schultz re reporting of suspected child abuse."

But Curley later changed his mind "after talking it over with Joe" -- a reference to the late coach Joe Paterno. (At the news conference, Kelly declined to speculate on whether Paterno would have been charged in the case had he been alive.) They then developed a new plan to encourage Sandusky to seek professional help. "This approach is acceptable to me," Spanier wrote in a Feb. 27, 2001, email to Curley and Schultz.

Spanier added: "The only downside for us if the message isn't 'heard' and acted upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it. But that can be assessed down the road. The approach you outline and a reasonable way to proceed."

According to the new grand jury report, Spanier initially told investigators in March 2011 that he knew nothing about the 1998 police probe of Sandusky (despite emails showing he was briefed on the investigation) and was given only sketchy information about the 2001 allegation, believing that involved only a contention of Sandusky "horse playing around" with a child. And he later made similar comments before a grand jury, including testifying  that there was "no discussion" about reporting the 2001 incident to child welfare or police -- part of the basis for the perjury charge against him.

The report says that Spanier never told the Penn State trustees about either the 1998 or 2001 allegations. When he did brief the board in May 2011 -- after a newspaper story first disclosed the investigation into Sandusky -- Spanier directed the university's chief lawyer, Cynthia Baldwin, to leave the room and then "specifically informed the Board that the investigation had nothing to do with Penn State and that the investigation was regarding a child in Clinton County [Pennsylvania] without affiliation with Penn State," the grand jury report states. 

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CHICHIGALPA, Nicaragua – You won’t see a road sign pointing to “La Isla de Viudas,” or “The Island of Widows,” as it’s not the community’s official name. It’s a nickname born from a horrific body count. 

In the past 10 years, it’s believed that hundreds, if not thousands, of residents of Chichigalpa — mostly male sugarcane workers — have died from chronic kidney disease, or CKD. That in a city of nearly 60,000, roughly the size of Ames, Iowa. 

The mysterious and hidden epidemic, first highlighted by the Center for Public Integrity, has claimed thousands more lives across Central America. In El Salvador and Nicaragua alone, the number of men dying from the excruciatingly painful disease has risen five-fold in the last two decades. High rates of CKD also have been found in rural villages in India and among the rice paddies of Sri Lanka.

Sacorro Mendez Flores, who lives in the “La Isla” district of Chichigalpa, remembers when her son first fell ill. Jorge Luis Silva didn’t look sick at first, but inside he was dying. His kidneys struggled to filter waste from his body, to no avail. Five months ago, Flores buried him. 

“The same thing happened to my husband,” she said. “They both died the same.”

Sacorro Mendez-Flores, surrounded by her grandchildren, holds a family photo. The resident of Chichigalpa, Nicaragua, lost both her son and husband to chronic kidney disease.

Researchers are searching for answers about why this disease is ravaging not only the bodies of its victims, but the communities they leave behind. 

The illness spreads
More than 20 million Americans aged 20 and older have chronic kidney disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In developed countries like the U.S., CKD often goes hand in hand with obesity, diabetes and hypertension. With treatment, including dialysis and kidney transplants, many with the disease survive. 

The CKD plaguing parts of Central America, however, is something scientists have never seen before.

“It affects people who don't have diabetes or hypertension, which are the usual risk factors for chronic kidney disease,” said Sasha Chavkin, a CPI reporter who has covered the mysterious epidemic for several years. “No one can figure out what it is that's making all these people sick.”

Slideshow: Mysterious malady fells sugarcane workers

Estbean Felix / AP

Workers in Central American sugarcane fields are dying of chronic kidney disease at an astonishing rate and experts are unable to say why.

Launch slideshow

“It comes at great social, economic and humanitarian cost,” said Dr. Daniel R. Brooks, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Boston University School of Health who is leading a research team looking for the cause of the epidemic. “These are working-age people who are being struck down, and whole communities are really hurt and devastated by this disease.” 

And with little or no access to the life-saving treatments available in the developed world, a CKD diagnosis is often tantamount to a death sentence. 

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In Nicaraguan sugarcane community, workers stare death in the face

Chronic kidney disease: 'Silent killer' may have multiple triggers

“Where we stand right now is that ultimately this disease is not treatable in this community,” said Nate Raines, a researcher with the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine Global Health program, which is collaborating with two organizations in Nicaragua on research independent from the Boston University group. “What we need to do is find the cause. That's the only way to really help the health situation.” 

Many in Chichigalpa believe that the root of the disease lies in chemicals sprayed in the sugarcane fields while men are working, or seeping into the water supply. A spokesperson from the sugar industry says the chemicals used are standard fertilizer and are not used to excess.  

Science, so far, points to a more complicated answer. 

'Markers' of kidney damage found
The research team from the Boston University has linked the disease in Central America to strenuous labor, dehydration and environmental conditions in which chemicals may play a role. That theory was supported by the group’s most recent study, which found “markers” of kidney damage in adolescents as young as 12 in affected communities. 

Thousands of miles away, research in Sri Lanka’s affected communities also indicates chemicals may play a key role in the illness devastating communities there.

As reported last month by the Center for Public Integrity, the country’s health ministry and World Health Organization announced in June that a years-long study had identified chemicals thought to be an essential cause of the disease: cadmium and arsenic. Both are heavy metals found in fertilizers and pesticides that can cause an array of health effects, including the type of kidney damage ravaging communities in Sri Lanka and Nicaragua.

While most of those tested had lower levels of the toxic elements than officially designated as dangerous by the United Nations, researchers believe that long-term exposure, likely through the food chain, may explain the high incidence of CDK. 

The findings, due to be officially released in October, represent a potential breakthrough in the research about CDK worldwide, including the epidemic in Nicaragua. 

Researchers in Central America have not pinpointed a chemical cause. But the new research on adolescents indicates the kidneys of those going into the fields may already be damaged, making the long days and repeated dehydration in the fields potentially deadly. 

Some experts also suggest that sugarcane workers may also unwittingly be harming themselves as they struggle to stay hydrated while cutting up to 11 tons of cane a day by hand.

For a refreshing pick-me-up, they occasionally slice a stalk of cane, peeling back its “bark” and sticking it in their mouths, where it produces a sweet sugary liquid. 

But investigators now wonder: Could that constant flow of sucrose, combined with 90-plus degree temperatures and severe daily dehydration, be a deadly cocktail that slowly brings on CKD? 

“We believe high amounts of sugar solutions may not cause much kidney damage,” said Dr. Richard Johnson, head of the division of renal disease and hypertension at the University of Colorado, Denver. “But under certain circumstances, such as dehydration, we’re concerned the sugar may actually be toxic in causing damage to the kidneys.”

The sugar link
Whether or not sugar consumption plays a direct role in causing the Central American form of CKD, activists say it is a thread that connects the disease to its northern cousin.

In the U.S., rampant sugar consumption – Americans eat an average of 22.2 teaspoons of sugar per day according to the American Heart Association—drives many of the diseases linked to CKD, including diabetes and hypertension. 

And with recent steep increases in the price and demand for sugar, more people are working longer hours in the sugarcane fields of Central America. In 2011, the U.S. imported 330,000 metric tons of raw sugar from Central America, or nearly one-quarter of total raw sugar imports that year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

“Not only is the production of sugar killing people, but the consumption of it is killing people,” said Jason Glaser of La Isla Foundation, a nonprofit group he founded to focus attention on the epidemic and fund research that he hopes will solve the mystery. “It's bad for you and it's bad for workers.” 

The sugar industry, however, rejects suggestions that it is causing the epidemic of CKD among workers at its mills and plantations.

“We are not responsible for it,” said Mario Amador, a spokesman for the sugarcane industry. “We’re working to find a solution.”

He also blames the workers themselves, saying they drink too much alcohol. “It’s part of our culture,” Amador said. “It’s part of the things we do in our country. Poor people do it a lot.” 

Amador also speculated that active volcanoes in the region could have contaminated the water supply. But he admits he does not know why so many have died from CKD.

No matter what the research finds, Central America is unlikely to curb its cane production anytime soon. The world market for sugar is strong, and the industry receives direct help from abroad. 

The International Finance Corp., the private-sector arm of the World Bank, has provided loans of more than $100 million to promote production and biofuel in Nicaragua in recent years. Though the loans went to two plantations whose workers have been heavily affected by kidney disease, they were approved without formal consideration of the disease because the IFC did not find a link between the cane fields and CKD, according to the Associated Press. 

After workers complained about the loans, the IFC helped to negotiate an $800,000 donation to sponsor the ongoing Boston University study, the Center for Public Integrity reported. The money was provided by Nicaragua Sugar Estates Limited, a major sugar producer in the west of the country, part of more than $4 million it has committed toward research and community development in recent years.

Waiting to die
But for many in Chichigalpa, the results of the research – whatever they may be – will come too late. 

Like most of the men in this community, Maximiliano Lopez, spent years in the fields cutting sugarcane. He began at 5 a.m., when the air was cool, and continued to work as the sun beat down, sometimes logging 14 hours a day. Then he was informed he had CKD.

Even after his diagnosis, which bans him from working in the fields or at the mill, the muscular 32-year-old said he used a friend’s identification to return to cutting cane. Nicaragua is the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, he explained, and many workers continue to work the harvest after being diagnosed with kidney disease because it is the only work they can find. 

“A lot of people do it out of necessity,” Lopez said. “They have a big family and they're the head of the household, so even if they're sick, you have to find work to support your family.” 

But, as Lopez and other cane workers eventually discovered, short-term survival may mean leaving behind the families that they labored so mightily to support.

“I began working there to earn a living and instead I earned death,” he said. “I’m just waiting for the day to come.” 

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Investigative News Network
The focus on billionaires’ and corporations’ contributions to Super PACs this year has highlighted the impact of the rich and powerful on the presidential campaigns.

But an analysis by the Investigative News Network of contributions by wealthy individuals in seven states shows that their giving is greater than any one cause or race reveals -- with millions flowing into state, federal and even local campaigns, parties and committees far and wide.

Take Colorado software entrepreneur and gay rights activist Tim Gill. He has given $450,000 to Colorado independent expenditure committees so far this political cycle, which began in 2011. He’s also given generously out of state—$100,000 to the Ohio Democratic Party Executive Committee and $25,000 to the Iowa Democratic Party—and smaller amounts to 26 candidates and causes in that time, from President Barack Obama to Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, to candidates running for the Colorado state house.

All told, Gill, who did not respond to a request for comment, has doled out nearly $3.7 million to state and federal causes and campaigns in the past five years, making him the largest political donor from Colorado who wasn’t funding his own campaign.

Gill is no exception.

Wealthy Iowans put most of their money into causes at home, but they have also donated to candidates, parties and causes in New Jersey and Washington state this election cycle. Likewise, donors from Missouri have given to political parties and campaigns in Tennessee and Indiana. Money from Vermont has flowed into Wisconsin, from Colorado into Pennsylvania, from Massachusetts to Washington State and from California into Georgia. Donors in all seven states examined for this report gave to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s successful campaign to beat a recall election this summer.

The findings illustrate what Michael J. Malbin, director of the Campaign Finance Institute in Washington, DC has been seeing in his own research.

“Politics is becoming increasingly national,” said Malbin, the author of several books and a professor at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany, SUNY in New York. “Means of communication, fundraising and also campaigning are becoming national -- and it’s affecting state and even local races.” 

This is different from the century-plus-old participation by national corporations and labor unions in state politics, he said.

“There are a much broader variety of actors, often ideologically motivated, who are involved now. And they can bring resources to bear that can overwhelm local resources,” he said. “It does create questions about representation that could be troubling.”

There is no single government database that captures all of the contributions by any prolific donor. They are recorded in piles of reports to federal and state elections officials by the campaigns and causes that have received the money.

To get this rare, comprehensive look at the top donors in seven states, the Center for Responsive Politics, which collects and analyzes contributions on the federal level, and the National Institute on Money in State Politics, which gathers and studies contributions in state races, merged their data on the top donors. The organizations, both members of INN, looked at donations to and from California, Colorado, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Vermont. The data do not include so-called “dark money” contributions to 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofits, which are exempt from campaign disclosure requirements. 

Supplemented with reporting by INN-member newsrooms across the country, the analysis showed that looking at state and federal donations together gives a more complete picture of the most generous political contributors in each state--and where their money is going. In some cases, to look at only one would grossly misrepresent who the top donors even are.

The list of top donors to state campaigns and causes in Massachusetts and Vermont would be different from the list of top donors in those states to federal candidates, parties and causes – which is where they sent most of their political contributions.

In Colorado, Iowa and Missouri, the situation is reversed. The biggest contributors donated the largest sums to state candidates and issues.

Of California’s top 10 donors in 2011 and so far in 2012, four contributors gave overwhelmingly to state causes and campaigns while the other six have given most heavily on the federal level. Only by merging both sets of records does the full picture of the state’s most active political contributors emerge.

San Francisco hedge fund manager Thomas Steyer, for instance, gave nearly $22 million this year to support a ballot initiative he’s spearheading that would force corporations with operations out of state to pay more California taxes. Another top California donor, DreamWorks founder and CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg has given relatively little to California campaigns and causes this cycle--around $10,000—but has donated $2 million to the top Super PAC supporting Obama, Priorities USA Action.

Some wealthy individuals give so broadly that it’s only by looking at contributions across state and federal campaigns that the full breadth of their political reach is revealed.

Retired ING Insurance Executive Fred Hubbell has donated just shy of $114,300 in this election cycle -- divided about evenly between state and federal causes and campaigns. He gave much of it in $1,000-or-smaller contributions to individual Democratic candidates in his home state of Iowa.

The analysis also illustrated how fluidly money moves across states.

In the 2012 election cycle, New York billionaires George Soros and Michael Bloomberg and Chicago billionaire Nick Pritzker, whose family owns the Hyatt hotel chain, were among the single biggest donors to three ballot initiatives in California in 2012, with donations of about $500,000 each. (Disclosure: Soros’ Open Society Institute is among the nonprofit Investigative News Network’s funders.)

The trio donated, respectively, to the Committee for Three Strikes Reform, which seeks to limit the use of life sentences to violent third strike offenses; Californians for a Cure, which sought to increase cigarette taxes to fund cancer research (the proposition was narrowly defeated this summer); and Taxpayers for Public Safety, which is trying to repeal California’s Death Penalty.

“Criminal justice is an issue that George Soros had been concerned about for many years,” said his spokesman Michael Vachon. “And what happens in California is relevant. It’s a bellwether state. California immigration policy, prison reform, all kinds of things that happen in California tend to have a ripple effect through the country.” 

Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna said public health initiatives are a key issue for the mayor of New York and “he has always been willing to back up his support with contributions.”

Pritzker said through a spokesperson that he feels it’s “high time” California gets rid of its death penalty as Illinois has.

“Economic and moral reasons compel the conclusion that life without possibility of parole is far superior to the death penalty,” he said. “The entire country should be interested in this referendum in the largest state in the country.”

While some would cringe at wealthy individuals influencing laws in states where they don’t live, Candice Nelson, chair of the Department of Government at American University and an expert on campaign finance, said there’s another argument.

“If you believe in a cause, why should you only be able to give to a cause in your state?” she asked.

She said a deep look at individuals’ donations gives an indication not only of the causes that matter to them, but also of their social and political networks and what seats are in play that are seen as having national importance.

“It gets to the question of the network, of who’s asking who for money,” Nelson said. 

Bill Stetson, who together with his wife and daughter is the heaviest donor from Vermont this political cycle, said his personal friendships often motivate his donations. 

“If you have the money to give, just as is the case with giving to charities and nonprofits, you must give to candidates you believe in -- or who’s going to support those candidates? What kind of people will be in Washington and Montpelier?” asked Stetson, an environmental policy consultant. He said he donates principally to environmental causes and candidates who support them, regardless of party or state lines.

The Stetson family has donated over $200,000 to the national Democratic party and Democratic party committees in a long list of states: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, North Carolina, Nevada, Michigan, and New Hampshire. Jane is the finance chair for the DNC and a significant Obama bundler.

The INN analysis also showed the impact of state limits.

Vermont caps individuals’ donations to a maximum of $2,000 to state candidates and Political Action Committees. So far this year, the Stetsons have given only $9,000 to state campaigns and causes, even though they are close to prominent state politicians like former Vermont Governor Howard Dean.

By comparison, Missouri’s top donor, St. Louis financier Rex Sinquefield, has spent nearly $7 million in political contributions already this election cycle, much of it to fund committees that seek to eliminate Missouri’s state income tax and phase out the state control of the St. Louis Police Department through ballot measures. Missouri is one of four states with no campaign contribution limits.

A multi-millionaire who won’t divulge his net worth, he has given a total of $21.5 million since 2008.

But state limits aren’t the only determining factor. 

Iowa doesn’t limit state contributions either and the biggest donor there so far this campaign cycle, real estate businessman Bill Knapp II, gave a comparatively small $199,850.

One other factor could be at play: Unlike Missouri, Iowa does not have an initiative process for ballot measures. 

Iowa still has its share of contentious issues. It is a battleground state for the presidential election and a state Supreme Court retention vote has drawn interest -- one of the justices facing voters backed a 2009 decision legalizing same-sex marriage, angering conservatives.

As a result, it has been getting donations from out-of-state donors, large and small.

Chicago millionaire and Democratic supporter Fred Eychaner donated $25,000 to the campaign of Iowa Senate candidate Michael Gronstal in September 2011, making him the campaign’s largest single contributor. Florida businessman Gary Chartrand gave $50,000 to the Iowa Republican Party in November. It also received $15,000 from Susan and Howard Groff, who own a construction equipment rental company in California called Northwest Excavating. State candidates and parties in Iowa have also received donations from residents of New York, Texas, Michigan, and a number of other states.

According to the party, they’re giving of their own initiative.

"Some Republicans, in say, California, will donate to help the Republican Party [in Iowa] because they feel it will go further than if they donate where they live in a more Democratic state,” said Megan Stiles, spokesperson for the Iowa Republican Party. “But in terms of seeking out-of-state donations, we haven't really been doing that."

The Justice Department announced Thursday that it has ended a lengthy investigation into the CIA's interrogation and treatment of prisoners without bringing any criminal charges. 

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the investigation into the deaths of two suspected terrorists  who died in CIA custody -- one in Iraq and another in Afghanistan -- was ended without charges because "the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt." 

The two cases include the highly publicized case of Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in a shower stall at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq while in CIA custody.  Several U.S. soldiers, who were photographed with al-Jamadi's body, packed in ice inside a body bag, were later prosecuted and convicted in military courts for prisoner abuse. 

The investigation spanned more than four years. It began with an investigation into the CIA's destruction of videotapes of aggressive interrogations of terrorist suspects, but was later expanded to include the deaths of the two detainees. 

In all the Justice Department investigated the treatment of 101 detainees who been held in U.S. custody since 9/11. 

CIA Director David Petraeus issued a statement thanking everyone at the CIA who supported the Justice Departments investigations.  

In an apparent effort to put the incidents and investigations to rest, Petraeus added, "As intelligence officers our inclination of course is to look ahead to the challenges of the future rather than backwards at those of the past."

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Ethan Magoc/News21

Barbara Johnson, a National Council of La Raza voter registration canvasser, assists Quilvio Rodriguez, 26, of Miami, with his registration application on May 31, 2012, outside a grocery store in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood.

Florida’s hanging chads and butterfly ballots in 2000 ignited the divisive battle that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court denying an election recount, effectively declaring that George W. Bush won the presidential election by 537 votes.

Another potentially close election is ahead, and the nation’s largest swing state is again at the center of a partisan debate over voting rules — this time, a fight about the removal of non-citizens from Florida’s voter roll and how the state oversees groups who register voters.

It is set against a national backdrop of a bitter fight between Democrats who say voting rights of students and minorities are endangered and Republicans who say that voter fraud is widespread enough to sway an election.

While many other states have considered laws that would require that people show a photo ID before they can vote, Florida has taken a different tack. Republicans there wrote a law in 2011 that they said would eliminate voter registration fraud by more closely controlling third-party registration, early voting hours and voter address updates.

“With the old law, some things weren’t illegal or designated as fraud,” said Rep. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican and funeral home owner who sponsored the bill.

Voting rights advocates were most concerned about these features of the new law: reducing from 10 days to 48 hours the time that third-party groups had to hand in voter registrations and cutting early voting days from 14 to eight, including eliminating the Sunday before Election Day. Those whose address has changed to another county since they registered, must cast a provisional ballot and confirm their new address within two days.

Of the roughly 22 million Florida votes cast since 2000, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has received only 175 complaints of voting-related fraud, 11 of which led to convictions, according to data obtained by News21.

Baxley said his bill was a proactive step. “We wanted to prevent mishap and mischief.”

For Navene Shata, a 21-year-old south Florida college student, the changes meant she would have to update her address at least a month before voting. She works 30 hours a week around a busy class schedule and involvement with student government.

“I do keep watch and want to see what the candidates have to say,” Shata said, “but voting is frustrating when these pointless things get in the way.”

News21 is a program of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation that is helping to change the way journalism is taught in the U.S. and train a new generation of journalists capable of reshaping the news industry. It is headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Since 2006, nearly 500 top journalism students in the U.S. have participated in the landmark national initiative.

“The whole process was poor. Major changes were made in committee, and none of it was vetted,” Dockery said. “When one party has two-thirds of the vote, you can overrule anything. People go off to extremes.”

Gov. Rick Scott, who signed the 2011 law, took an interest in voter rolls when an analysis by the Florida Departments of State and of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles found 180,000 Floridians were registered to vote, had driver’s licenses but had not confirmed their citizenship status.

Secretary of State Ken Detzner discussed the issue with election supervisors in April. The state cut the list to 2,700 voters before sending it to county officials to verify citizenship status.

The problem? The shorter list included many citizens.

What’s become known as the voter purge worried many — from legal voters who were incorrectly targeted, to county officials to voting rights advocates.

Again, there is uncertainty in Florida, a state with troubled election history. Poll taxes were required until 1937, and voting rule changes in five counties are subject to federal review because of a pattern of civil rights violations.

The Department of Justice in June unsuccessfully sued in federal court to stop the voter removal, and another suit from four civil rights groups is pending.

Federal law prohibits sweeping state voter removals within 90 days of a federal election, and Florida has an Aug. 14 primary. But a federal judge in late June said the state can remove confirmed non-citizens.

“It’s the timing, it’s the fear-mongering,” said Myrna Perez of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, a public policy group that opposed many voting rule changes nationally. “This scare tactic that there are hordes of non-citizens voting is wrong.”

Neither the 2000 presidential election controversy nor the current disputes much mattered to a group of Miami high school students who registered to vote in May.

“Eh, kinda. That was like 12 years ago. I was 5,” said Kristena Swanson, 17, a Southwest Miami High School senior and one of 318 students who registered May 30 in the school’s auditorium. “But, yeah, I know how bad the voting issues have been here before.”

Miami-Dade Public Schools became a Florida third-party voter registration group in March. Sixty district schools registered more than 10,000 high school students on April 4. They held a second drive May 30, and at school year’s end, 12,514 Miami-Dade students had registered — Florida’s third-largest registration group total.

Under the 2011 law, voter registration groups that formerly had 10 days to turn in completed registration forms were given just 48 hours to do so. They faced a $50 fine for each form turned in more than two days after completion, among other restrictions. But organizations statewide developed strategies to turn in voter registration forms within 48 hours, as the 2011 law required.

“When the law changed,” said Millie Fornell, a Miami-Dade associate superintendent, “we at the district office sat down and said, ‘How do we take the onus away from the schools?’”

The day after Miami-Dade’s second voter drive in May, however, a federal judge threw out the 48-hour rule, reverting to the previous 10-day period.

Baxley said he wasn’t that upset with the decision. “I don’t think they got much for their money on the lawsuit,” he said “If they want 10 days instead of two, fine.”

“They” are the League of Women Voters, the Florida Public Interest Research Group Education Fund and Rock the Vote, federal lawsuit plaintiffs. The league and Rock the Vote suspended registration drives for 13 months.

“We need the state to settle down and make sure people can be proud of Florida’s elections,” said Deirdre Macnab, the league’s Florida president. “Registering voters is our most popular job, and it was the first thing we did in 1939.” Its efforts were more informal door-to-door canvassing until the 1970s when counties first started deputizing registrants.

About 100 other third-party groups, including the nonpartisan National Council of La Raza, which advocates for Latino civil rights, continued registering voters throughout the past year.

“We don’t tell people who or what to vote for. We just want them to register,” said Natalie Carlier, La Raza’s regional coordinator. And its canvassers do not only register Hispanics.

On a humid May afternoon, about 20 La Raza canvassers gathered in an upstairs room of their nondescript office building near downtown Miami. Carlier stood in the middle of the canvassers’ half-circle, speaking to part-time workers who cover parts of Miami several hours a day, five days a week.

Carlier fielded questions and problems that the canvassers recently encountered. Charts on the wall noted each day’s voter tally. A paper cutout of a thermometer’s mercury showed how many voters her group has to register to reach its goal of 35,000-plus before November.

Through July, La Raza had registered more than 35,000 voters, according to the Florida Division of Elections.

Barbara Johnson, 36, was born in Cuba to an African-American father and Cuban mother. She joined La Raza two years ago on a whim — quitting a retail job — and became dedicated to the work.

Hundreds of times a day, any time someone walks past her spot outside a Little Havana supermarket, she has a rapid-fire approach.

“Hola! Como esta? Esta registrada para votar?” she gets a curt nod in return from an older woman. “Any updates? Change of address? New voter card?” Johnson, like other canvassers, moves easily between English and Spanish.

Angelica Arroyo, 36, came out of a Publix supermarket and filled out a card with her teenage daughter watching. “I wasn’t registered and wanted to vote,” Arroyo said in Spanish. “I would have tried to register, but I’m happy I found her just now.”

Navene Shata was up early during the school year, in class all day at Palm Beach State College and worked almost full time at a CVS pharmacy.

Her schedule is typical of many working college students without much free time.

Shata recently moved from Boca Raton to Deerfield Beach — moving from Palm Beach County to Broward County in the process — which will help accommodate her new studies in pharmacy at Nova Southeastern University. Before the 2011 law, voters could change counties, update their address on Election Day and vote. Now, voters who don’t change their county registration before Oct. 29 can cast a provisional ballot and must return to the elections office within 10 days of voting and prove their new address is valid if they want their provisional ballot counted.

It was not an issue in January’s closed primary, when only Republicans could vote.

In Broward County, where Shata now lives, voters cast 4,222 provisional ballots in 2008; 3,958 were not counted — one of the worst acceptance rates in the state for that election.

Voters who recently moved between counties and don’t update their registration could face problems in November. Shata said she’ll make time this summer to update her registration, although “I don’t understand why the law was changed.”

The governor continues to defend the state’s non-citizen voter purge.

“We’re doing the right thing,” Scott said on CNN in June. “I can’t imagine anybody not wanting to make sure non-citizens don’t dilute a legitimate U.S. citizen’s vote.”

The process began well ahead of the 2012 election. For months, Florida’s Department of State requested access to a federal database with better information about citizenship than the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security denied access, claiming the database was not designed as a voter-roll maintenance tool. The state sued, claiming that federal law requires the database be shared.

The U.S. Department of Justice countersued to block the purge. The same judge who reversed the 48-hour third-party registration law said Florida is allowed to remove non-citizen voters, but most county officials refused to do so because they do not trust the state’s list.

Homeland Security agreed in July to share its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, a system that Detzner said updates every 72 hours.

“Keep in mind,” Detzner said, “if we have a name that we run across the SAVE database and it’s a citizen, that person will never be processed on down to the (county election) supervisors. Supervisors are ultimately the ones that make a decision about taking someone off of the rolls.”

Michael Ertel, supervisor of elections in Seminole County, just north of Orlando, is concerned about the dispute’s effects on voters: “What I don’t want to see is people reading these stories and then saying, ‘You know what? The process doesn’t work. Forget it. I don’t want to vote.’”

Ertel supported the law’s changes and voter-roll maintenance — presuming it’s conducted properly — but said he fears the fight could disillusion voters.

“When they don’t go to the polls,” Ertel said, “that’s a sad bit of collateral damage.”

Andrea Rumbaugh and Joe Henke of News21 contributed to this article. Joe Henke was a Hearst Foundations Fellow this summer at News21.

Discuss this series of stories on the Facebook page for Open Channel, the NBC News investigative blog.

Or send feedback to News21.

When Floyd Herbert Abdul, a native of Zimbabwe living legally in the United States, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Nov. 24, 2006, he was plunged into a bureaucratic system that he describes as “hell on Earth.”

“They do so much to literally dehumanize you,” he said. “If you’re not strong mentally, then you lose it.”

The reason for Abdul’s nightmare: He never received a letter informing him of an upcoming immigration hearing because the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, sent the letter to an outdated address.

As a result, Abdul, a political opponent of Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe who is seeking political asylum in the U.S., spent over four months in detention, first in Atlanta, then at the Etowah County Detention Center in northeast Alabama. Etowah, a jail that also holds county inmates, has for years concerned human rights activists. They say the quality and quantity of food, lack of access to the outdoors and jail-like conditions are inappropriate for immigrant detention, which is not designed as punishment. 

ICE considered closing the facility in late 2010. But as detailed in an NBC News investigation, politics and small-town economics kept immigrants coming to Etowah. The detention center now holds “long-term” detainees, many of whom have criminal records or complicated cases that drag on for months or years.

Hannah Rappleye/NBC News

The Abdul family relaxes on a swing in the yard of their Liliburn, Ga., home. Pictured left to right are Aanisa, 9, Floyd Abdul, 39, Jayden, 6, and Sharon Shahadat, 38.

In 2007, Abdul found himself locked away in the remote jail after being arrested outside his suburban Atlanta home. He later learned that when he missed the hearing he was never notified about, an immigration judge had ordered him deported. Abdul would later prove he never received the paperwork.

Thousands of immigrants – both legal and illegal -- are deported “in absentia” each year, sometimes after intentionally skipping court dates and becoming fugitives. But the number of such deportations surged in the mid-2000s – including a one-year spike of 80 percent to 126,000 in 2005, according to the Government Accountability Office  -- in part because the Department of Homeland Security lacked mailing addresses for many immigrants. 

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In Abdul’s case, he fought the deportation order with the help of an attorney. In April 2007, ICE agreed to release Abdul on a $25,000 bond while his asylum claim went forward.

His family was overjoyed to see him home. But shadows lingered. 

“Even when he came home, he would just sit, and just stare into space,” remembered his wife Sharon Shahadat, 38.

Things have improved since then. The children are in school. Abdul has picked up some work. The family is back in a routine of dinners at home, playing with the kids in the yard and church on Sundays. 

But the seeming tranquility is undercut by uncertainty over the ongoing appeal of the deportation order, and the knowledge that ICE agents could again show up at the door at any moment, Shahadat says. 

“We just pray,” she said. “At times you try to plan ahead, but you’re always what if, what if. It’s always at the back of your mind.”

The Freeh Report is a scathing indictment, to speak colloquially, of officials at Penn State. But it could also preview actual indictments against Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, and Gary Schultz, key Penn State officials at the time Jerry Sandusky's sex abuse of minors was first being reported. And if Joe Paterno was still alive, his name could easily be added to that list.

The report describes many of the facts those following the case already knew, but the facts were described in a way that very clearly maps onto the elements of crimes.

The report finds that senior officials at Penn State had no concern about the welfare of at least one victim of Sandusky's crimes and allowed Sandusky continued access to the campus, where he was able to continue to perpetrate his crimes.

Paterno, Curley, Schultz, and Spanier were aware of an investigation about improper conduct with Sandusky in a shower with a young boy in 1998. Then, when they learned from Michael McQueary that another incident occurred -- and this time much more graphic details were provided -- they only asked Sandusky not to bring his "guests" into Penn State showers.

Report: Penn State president, Paterno concealed facts about sex abuse

Most substantially, the report observes, not only did Penn State officials not attempt to learn this young man's name to see if he had been harmed, they actually placed him in danger by informing Sandusky that McQueary had seen them in the shower together. In effect, university officials tipped off Sandusky to a potential child witness against him. Sandusky could have threatened the boy -- or worse -- to ensure his silence. Or Sandusky could have merely taken out his rage at being discovered on this young man he saw as the reason for the discovery.

By not reporting Sandusky's activities and allowing him on the campus after these incidents, university officials essentially assisted Sandusky in his crimes. As the report poignantly states, university officials gave him access to the university and the trappings of a top college football program. The officials thus "provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims."

As prosecutors decide their next move, the Freeh Report offers a description of facts tailor-made for an indictment for endangering the welfare of a minor. It provides perhaps even more.

Typically, to conspire to commit a crime or to aid and abet a crime, you have to desire that the crime occur. No one argues that Penn State officials wanted Sandusky to rape boys. Courts, however, are beginning to recognize that for very serious crimes, if you take an action that you know assists the completion of that crime, you may well be legally responsible as a conspirator, aider or abettor. 

If prosecutors elect to use the trend in modern conspiracy and complicity law to bring indictments in this case, the perjury and failure to report charges against Curley and Schultz will seem like minor offenses in hindsight.  And the Freeh Report gives prosecutors the ammunition to do just that.  

The author of this piece is an NBC News legal analyst and professor at Duquesne Law School.

The full investigative report by Louis Freeh is available in this PDF file.

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Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and other university leaders "repeatedly concealed critical facts" relating to assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s child sex abuse from authorities, according to Louis Freeh, the former FBI director who conducted an investigation for the university in the Sandusky scandal.

Freeh also found that "although concern to treat the child abuser humanely was expressly stated, no such sentiments were ever expressed" by university officials, including Paterno and the university president, for Sandusky’s victims. The report says that five boys were assaulted by Sandusky on university property after officials knew about a 1998 criminal investigation.

Update: Members of the Penn State board of trustees spoke at an afternoon news conference.

"Our hearts remain heavy, and we are deeply ashamed," said trustee Kenneth C. Frazier, chairman, CEO and president of Merck & Co., the pharmaceutical company. "An event like this can never happen again in the Penn State University community. Judge Freeh's report is both sad and sobering."

The president of the university, Rodney A. Erickson, said, "It has become clear to me that I need to reconsider our community's leadership culture." He said the university is partnering with the Pennsylvania Coalition against Rape, and creating a center for the protection of children. "This is a problem that plagues our nation," Erickson said, "and we have a special duty" to prevent and treat child sexual abuse.

A statue of Paterno remains outside Penn State's 106,000-seat Beaver Stadium. Members of the board of trustees were asked whether it should remain.

"The whole topic of Joe Paterno being honored or not being honored is a very sensitive topic," said Karen B. Peetz, a banker and chairman of the board. "We believe this is something that will continue to be discussed."

Trustee Frazier added, "You have to measure every human by the good they've done and the bad they've done. I'm not trying to make light of what we've found in the report, but I will say that if you want to measure the man's life," you have to measure the good and bad. "I think we have to take some reflection and some distance before we make decisions about what we think about Joe Paterno's entire life." 

The Freeh report says the main cause of the university's failure was a desire to avoid bad publicity. Also contributing:

• A striking lack of empathy for child abuse victims.
• Lack of oversight by the board of trustees.
• "A president who discouraged discussion and dissent."
• Ignorance of child abuse issues and laws.
• A football program that had opted out of university programs and training on reporting requirements.
• "A culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus community."

The full investigative report is available in this PDF file.

Freeh's findings may affect the reputation of legendary coach Paterno, who died soon after the Sandusky allegations became public, as well as the university's standing with the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which so far has not announced any punishments of Penn State. The NCAA said Thursday it is studying the report.

Paterno had testified to a grand jury in 2011 that he knew nothing of the 1998 criminal investigation, but Freeh, based on multiple university emails, said Paterno was among the officials who knew, and who allowed Sandusky to keep his university access until 2011.

Summary of the report
Freeh was hired by the university in November to review the school's dealings with Sandusky and its response to a 2001 report that he sexually abused a boy in a Penn State shower room, an incident witnessed by football assistant Michael McQueary. (McQueary's term was allowed to expire this year, and he is no longer employed by the university.)

Freeh's team of investigators found:

"The most saddening finding by the Special Investigative Counsel is the total and consistent disregard by the most senior leaders at Penn State for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims. As the Grand Jury similarly noted in its presentment, there was no "attempt to investigate, to identify Victim 2, or to protect that child or any others from similar conduct except as related to preventing its re-occurrence on University property.

"Four of the most powerful people at The Pennsylvania State University -- President Graham B. Spanier, Senior Vice President-Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz, Athletic Director Timothy M. Curley and Head Football Coach Joseph V. Paterno -- failed to protect against a child predator harming children for over a decade. These men concealed Sandusky's activities from the Board of Trustees, the University community and authorities. They exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky's victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well-being, especially by not attempting to determine the identity of the child who Sandusky assaulted in the Lasch Building in 2001. Further, they exposed this child to additional harm by alerting Sandusky, who was the only one who knew the child's identity, of what McQueary saw in the shower on the night of February 9, 2001.

"These individuals, unchecked by the Board of Trustees that did not perform its oversight duties, empowered Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted and unsupervised access to the University's facilities and affiliation with the University's prominent football program. Indeed, that continued access provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims. Some coaches, administrators and football program staff members ignored the red flags of Sandusky's behaviors and no one warned the  public about him."

Mark Parker, the CEO of Nike, the athletic equipment company, said Thursday it would remove Paterno's name from a child care center. Parker had given a eulogy at Paterno's funeral, defending the coach's response to the allegations. "I have been deeply saddened by the news coming out of this investigation at Penn State," Parker said. "It is a terrible tragedy that children were unprotected from such abhorrent crimes. With the findings released today, I have decided to change the name of our child care center at our World Headquarters. My thoughts are with the victims and the Penn State community."

Paterno family responds
The Paterno family released a statement saying there wasn't much new in the Freeh report: "From what we have been able to assess at this time, it appears that after reviewing 3 million documents and conducting more than 400 interviews, the underlying facts as summarized in the report are almost entirely consistent with what we understood them to be. The 1998 incident was reported to law enforcement and investigated. Joe Paterno reported what he was told about the 2001 incident to Penn State authorities and he believed it would be fully investigated. The investigation also confirmed that Sandusky's retirement in 1999 was unrelated to these events."

"One great risk in this situation," the Paterno family statement continued, "is a replaying of events from the last 15 years or so in a way that makes it look obvious what everyone must have know and should have done.  The idea that any sane, responsible adult would knowingly cover up for a child predator is impossible to accept. The far more realistic conclusion is that many people didn't fully understand what was happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events. Sandusky was a great deceiver. He fooled everyone - law enforcement, his family, coaches, players, neighbors, University officials, and everyone at Second Mile," his charity for children.

"Joe Paterno wasn't perfect. He made mistakes and he regretted them. He is still the only leader to step forward and say that with the benefit of hindsight he wished he had done more.  To think, however, that he would have protected Jerry Sandusky to avoid bad publicity is simply not realistic. If Joe Paterno had understood what Sandusky was, a fear of bad publicity would not have factored into his actions.

"We appreciate the effort that was put into this investigation. The issue we have with some of the conclusions is that they represent a judgment on  motives and intentions and we think this is impossible. We have said from the beginning that Joe Paterno did not know Jerry Sandusky was a child predator. Moreover, Joe Paterno never interfered with any investigation. He immediately and accurately reported the incident he was told about in 2001.

"It can be argued that Joe Paterno should have gone further. He should have pushed his superiors to see that they were doing their jobs.  We accept this criticism. At the same time, Joe Paterno and everyone else knew that Sandusky had been repeatedly investigated by authorities who approved his multiple adoptions and foster children. Joe Paterno mistakenly believed that investigators, law enforcement officials, University leaders and others would properly and fully investigate any issue and proceed as the facts dictated. This didn't happen and everyone shares the responsibility."

On NBC's TODAY show on Thursday morning, the coach's son, Jay Paterno, told host Matt Lauer that all the family has wanted is for an investigation to find the truth. "We have never ever at any time been afraid to see what people have had to say," and he called the Freeh report "one opinion, one piece of the puzzle." "We've never been afraid of the truth, so let's have the truth come out and let's go from there."

Former college president responds
Former Penn State President Graham Spanier has come under particular scrutiny in recent weeks amid news reports suggesting he was made aware of suspicious activity involving Sandusky in 2001 and that no report of the incident was made to authorities.

"At no time in the more than 16 years of his presidency at Penn State was Dr. Spanier told of an incident involving Jerry Sandusky that described child abuse, sexual misconduct or criminality of any kind, and he reiterated that during his interview with Louis Freeh and his colleagues,'' Spanier's attorneys, Peter Vaira and Elizabeth Ainslie, said in a written statement.

An "independent" investigation

The investigation is billed by Pennsylvania State University as "independent," though the university is paying the law firm of Freeh, the former federal judge and director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Sandusky, 68, was found guilty of 45 counts of child sexual abuse last month and is currently in prison awaiting sentencing. He faces a maximum sentence of more than 400 years in prison.

Jim Prisching / AP file

How will Penn State's "independent report" affect the reputation of its much-beloved former football coach, Joe Paterno, who died after the scandal broke?

Gary Cameron / Reuters file

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh was hired in November to determine whether Penn State University officials knew about child sex abuse allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

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The Sandusky scandal led to the ouster of Spanier from the university presidency and Paterno, and charges against Timothy Curley, the athletic director who is on leave from the university, and Gary Schultz, the VP of finance and business who has since retired. The latter two are accused of perjury for their grand jury testimony and failing to properly report suspected child abuse.

Spanier hasn't been charged. He remains a tenured professor of sociology at Penn State. He has sued the university to gain access to internal emails that his attorneys say will exonerate him.

On Wednesday, the Paterno family released a letter written six months earlier by Paterno, saying, "This is not a football scandal."

More from the report:

"In critical written correspondence that we uncovered on March 20th of this year, we see evidence of their proposed plan of action in February 2001 that included reporting allegations about Sandusky to the authorities. After Mr. Curley consulted with Mr. Paterno, however, they changed the plan and decided not to make a report to the authorities. Their failure to protect the February 9, 2001 child victim, or make attempts to identify him, created a dangerous situation for other unknown, unsuspecting young boys who were lured to the Penn State campus and football games by Sandusky and victimized repeatedly by him.

"The stated reasons by Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley for not
taking action to identify the victim and for not reporting Sandusky to the police or Child Welfare are:

"(1) Through counsel, Messrs. Curley and Schultz have stated that the “humane” thing to do in 2001 was to carefully and responsibly assess the best way to handle vague but troubling allegations.

"(2) Mr. Paterno said that “I didn’t know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was. So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.”

"(3) Mr. Spanier told the Special Investigative Counsel that he was never told by anyone that the February 2001 incident in the shower involved the sexual abuse of a child but only “horsing around.” He further stated that he never asked what “horsing around” by Sandusky entailed.

"Taking into account the available witness statements and evidence, it is more reasonable to conclude that, in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at Penn State University – Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley – repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse from the authorities, the Board of Trustees, Penn State community, and the public at large. 

"Although concern to treat the child abuser humanely was expressly stated, no such sentiments were ever expressed by them for Sandusky’s victims.

"The evidence shows that these four men also knew about a 1998 criminal investigation of Sandusky relating to suspected sexual misconduct with a young boy in a Penn State football locker room shower. Again, they showed no concern about that victim. The evidence shows that Mr. Paterno was made aware of the 1998 investigation of Sandusky, followed it closely, but failed to take any action, even though Sandusky had been a key member of his coaching staff for almost 30 years, and had an office just steps away from Mr. Paterno’s. At the very least, Mr. Paterno could have alerted the entire football staff, in order to prevent Sandusky from bringing another child into the Lasch Building. Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley also failed to alert the Board of Trustees about the 1998 investigation or take any further action against Mr. Sandusky. None of them even spoke to Sandusky about his conduct. In short, nothing was done and Sandusky was allowed to continue with impunity."

Land deal for Second Mile charity
According to the report, Schultz met with Second Mile officials on July 24, 2001, or six months after McQueary reported seeing Sandusky abusing a boy in a Penn State locker room, and agreed to sell 40 acres of land to the organization. The land, purchased by the university in 1999, was adjacent to the home where Sandusky started the Second Mile. It would be used to build the Second Mile's $11.5 million dollar "Center For Excellence."

In September 2001, the university's Board of Trustees approved the sale to Sandusky's charity for $168,500. 

The report states that neither Spanier, Curley nor Schultz informed the Board of Trustees of the 1998 or 2001 investigations of Sandusky: 

"Nothing in the board's records or interviews of Trustees indicate any contemporaneous discussions of the 2001 Sandusky incident and investigation, the propriety of a continuing relationship between Penn State and the Second Mile, or the risks created by a public association with Sandusky when the land transaction was discussed," the Freeh report says.

"Schultz, who oversaw the transaction, did not make any disclosure of the Sandusky incident during the Board's review of the land deal. In fact, Schultz approved a press release, issued September 21, 2001, announcing the land sale in which he praised Sandusky for his work with Second Mile."

Eight years later, according to the report, Schultz contacted a bank on behalf of Sandusky and the Second Mile, in an effort to secure financing for the Center for Excellence. In 2009 he told officials from an unnamed bank that "the Second Mile is raising funds to support an expansion of their facilities here in State College…Would you be agreeable to meet with Jerry Sandusky…and me? They are really good people and this is a great cause related to kids."

The bank officials agreed to meet with Sandusky.

More on this land deal is in our earlier story, Ghosts of Sandusky's dreams haunt empty home where his charity was born.

NBC national investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff, producer Tom Winter, and investigative researchers Lisa Riordan-Seville and Hannah Rappleye contributed to this report.

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