In our last Sandusky post, we reported how the lead prosecutor of Jerry Sandusky, Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina, got himself and three judges fired for his love of sharing porn, racist jokes, and other underhanded deeds.
He was the perfect man – entirely lacking in ethics – to lead the Sandusky prosecution.
While prosecuting Sandusky, Fina had a cozy relationship with Judge Barry Feudale, who was in charge of the Sandusky grand jury.
The grand jury leaks to the media that ensued were illegal and turned the Sandusky prosecution into a trial by media more than a year before the criminal trial.
After Sandusky’s conviction, Feudale appointed Fina to investigate who leaked the grand jury information.
Fina tried hard to investigate, he said, but could not find the leaker. After all, he was not going to arrest himself.
Sandusky prosecutor, Frank Fina
Post-Conviction Tactics
After Fina convicted the innocent Jerry Sandusky, he wanted to get Penn State administrators Timothy Curley, Gary Schultz, and university president Graham Spanier for a supposed coverup that never happened.
All three testified before a grand jury that they had no information that suggested Sandusky had abused anyone, much less raped a boy a decade earlier, as was alleged and leaked to the media.
Cynthia Baldwin was Penn State’s general counsel, and she accompanied Curley, Schultz, and Spanier during their grand jury testimonies.
In PA, only an attorney for the witness can attend the grand jury with the witness.
The three men testified separately.
All three testified they never heard Sandusky raped a boy in the Penn State shower room.
Fina’s Desperation
The truth was not helpful to prosecutor Fina.
Seeing he did not have Spanier, Schultz, or Curley, he hoped to flip Baldwin and get them.
She had been late turning over some documents he had subpoenaed from Penn State, and Fina threatened to indict Baldwin on obstruction of justice charges.
He also clarified that he wanted her to testify that her clients lied about knowing nothing about Sandusky raping a boy in the Penn State locker room more than a decade earlier and covered it up.
Baldwin knew Fina could indict her as fast as you can say “ham sandwich.”
Cynthia Baldwin
She also knew Fina did not want her. He wanted Graham Spanier to put the icing on the Sandusky conviction cake.
Baldwin could call Fina’s bluff. But she had plans to retire with a pension and live in the Caribbean during the winter.
An indictment would cost her life savings and kill her tropical island escapades filled with sun-drenched beaches, vibrant music, and exotic adventures.
Baldwin’s Deal
All Baldwin had to do to ensure the good life she had worked so hard for was to testify as Fina needed.
He was clear: he wanted to indict her clients for perjury, but he would settle with indicting her if he had to.
Perjury is in the eye of the beholder in PA, which means she did not have to worry about lying to the grand jury as long as she lied the way Fina wanted.
This is how it works in PA, at least in the Sandusky case.
But Baldwin was smart. First, she wanted a deal (a proffer) with Fina: If she told him what he wanted, he would have to guarantee she would not be charged.
After all, she knew Fina was a snake who would use her like a cheap whore to sell out her clients and then turn around and nail her with obstruction anyway.
So, Baldwin cut a deal. She would tell Fina anything he wanted to hear provided he did not indict her.
A Conspiratorial Agreement
Fina assured her he only wanted to question her about her privileged conversations with Curley, Schultz, and Spanier. She agreed, and the two conspirators, Fina and Baldwin, cut a deal to sell out her clients.
Still, there were some details to work out.
According to PA Rules of Professional Conduct 3.10, a prosecutor must obtain prior judicial approval before bringing a lawyer to the grand jury to ask about clients.
But that was easy. The judicial approval would come from Fina’s porn buddy Feudale.
Judge Feudale held a hearing on Baldwin’s testimony on October 22, 2012.
During that hearing, Fina told his buddy Judge Feudale that he would not invade any attorney-client privilege that the three Penn State administrators could claim.
He said he would not question Baldwin about Spanier, Schultz, or Curley’s “testimony before the grand jury, and any preparation for or follow-up they had” with her.
Judge Feudale, perhaps with a wink to his porn buddy, who loved to send racist jokes (Baldwin is black), allowed Fina to call Baldwin based on the stipulation that Fina would not question Baldwin about her representation of the Penn State administrators.
Judge Barry Feudale
The Grand Jury Testimony
To get around this, Fina and Baldwin planned a neat little trick. He would do everything he told Feudale he would not do by having Baldwin pretend she was not Spanier, Curley’s, and Schultz’s attorney but that she only represented Penn State.
When Baldwin appeared before the grand jury, Fina, knowing that the grand jury minutes were secret unless he leaked them and knowing he had nothing to fear from porn buddy Feudale, went straight ahead and questioned Baldwin about her communications with Schultz, Curley, and Spanier.
Fina asked about her discussions with the administrators regarding the grand jury’s investigation, their responses to her requests for subpoenaed materials, and Spanier’s preparation for his grand jury testimony—all privileged.
But even though she broke privilege, the truth was helpful to Spanier, Schultz, and Curley. They had told the truth in the grand jury.
The more Fina questioned Baldwin in the grand jury about her communications with the three administrators, the more she lied to tell Fina what he wanted to hear.
Based on a practical analysis of what we know today and what she testified in 2012, Baldwin perjured herself at least 50 times during her grand jury testimony.
Baldwin’s Happy Lies
They were happy lies. She saved herself, and thanks to her Fina, she indicted the innocent Spanier, Curley, and Schultz for perjury.
In other words, he used Baldwin’s perjury to indict the three innocent men for perjury.
A decent trade, she thought at the time.
By the end of 2012, Sandusky was in prison. Spanier, Schultz, and Curley’s lives were on hold, and they were finally convicted – Spanier, of a misdemeanor.
Life went on for the victors; Baldwin went down to the Caribbean and had the time of her life.
Fina wore the laurels of his high-profile convictions—Jerry Sandusky and the three top administrators at Penn State.
Disciplinary Actions
However, on January 10, 2018, the Pennsylvania Office of Disciplinary Counsel filed a petition alleging Fina had violated Pennsylvania’s Rule of Professional Conduct 3.10 because he had told Judge Feudale he would “not question Baldwin in any way that would invade attorney-client privilege” and then he did and used the invading of privilege to indict three men.
During an oral argument before the High Court in November, Amelia Kittredge with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel called Fina “someone who cannot or will not separate right from wrong.”
On February 19, 2020, the Supreme Court suspended Fina for a year and a day.
The PA Supreme Court justices issued a 5-1 decision to suspend Frank Fina’s license for a year and a day.
Justice David Wecht called Fina’s punishment “manifestly appropriate.” He said lawyer-client privilege issues should have been hammered out before Baldwin testified.
“Instead, Fina chose to mislead the supervising judge, causing that jurist to believe such resolution was unnecessary because Fina undertook to refrain from inquiry into areas of potential privilege,” Wecht wrote. “Fina promptly reneged on those assurances. This conduct fell far below the ethical standard we rightly demand of a prosecutor in this type of situation.”
Baldwin’s Censure
For her role in it, the Supreme Court decided to discipline Baldwin for violations of multiple Pennsylvania rules of professional conduct by testifying to the grand jury regarding privileged communications.
She received a public censure without suspension.
“It is impossible to conclude in light of the seriousness and solemnity of the warnings administered by the supervising judge that the individual clients believed anything other than their personal interests were being protected” by Baldwin, Justice Dougherty wrote in the opinion announcing her punishment.
Justice Dougherty wrote in a 4-0 opinion that Baldwin’s public reprimand is warranted because she “has never contemplated, much less expressed, remorse.”
Remorse? Why should she? She avoided an indictment by throwing her clients under the bus, and that’s a deal she would make any time.
The Supreme Court found Baldwin guilty of professional misconduct and issued her a public reprimand, saying “her simultaneous representations…reflected incompetence, violated her obligation to avoid conflicts of interest, resulted in the revelation of client confidences, and prejudiced the proper administration of justice with significant personal and public effect.”
The court formally censured her on July 22, 2020.
Baldwin began a public relations campaign, saying she was the victim of racial discrimination by former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Saylor. It did not work.
She found it very hard to get new clients and decided the Caribbean was a more forgiving place than America, where they did not appreciate how she was a great black leader and that racism made her lie and betray her clients.
Feudale’s Removal
The Judicial Conduct Board of Pennsylvania investigated Judge Feudale for his actions, filed formal charges, and conducted a hearing that led to his removal. The PA Supreme Court removed Judge Feudale from the bench due to his unethical relationship with prosecutor Frank Fina, leaking confidential grand jury documents, and involvement in Fina’s ‘Porngate’ scandal.
Such were the ethics of the prosecutors, lawyers, and judges in the Sandusky case, where the innocent went to prison, and the guilty went to the Caribbean.
