Wednesday, July 30, 2014
The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office won’t investigate a former state university official accused of sexually assaulting students several years ago because it’s already defending the university in the students’ civil lawsuit, state officials told the students’ lawyer.
An “internal conflict of interest between the Criminal Law Division and the Civil Law Division would preclude us from conducting a criminal investigation,” Lawrence Cherba, executive deputy attorney general, wrote in a July 10 letter to Albert Murray Jr.
Murray, the students’ lawyer, had urged Attorney General Kathleen Kane to investigate Sanders or appoint a special prosecutor. Murray released Cherba’s reply this week.
A federal civil trial on the students’ claims is scheduled for October. Sanders denies wrongdoing.