Spanier Asks Court to Reconsider Denial of Saudi Arabia Trip

As part of Graham Spanier’s bail agreement with Pennsylvania, he was forced to surrender his passport to the commonwealth.

The former Penn State president is facing criminal charges including perjury, child endangerment, conspiracy, and more in connection with an alleged coverup of football coach Jerry Sandusky’s child sexual abuse.

Spanier wants his passport back temporarily for a trip to Saudi Arabia as a higher education consultant, a request that was granted for the very same trip last year. But the request was denied by Dauphin County director of probation services Chad Libby, who told Spanier in an e-mail that the United States doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia, according to court documents.

Spanier is requesting the trip “to consult with and conduct seminars for the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Higher Education, the same purposes for which he was permitted to travel to Saudi Arabia in November 2014,” according to a legal filing in support of his motion to temporarily receive his passport.

The courts previously granted Spanier a temporary passport return for trips to London and Spain earlier this year as well, and he immediately surrendered it back to the state upon return to the country.

Attorneys for Spanier argued that he poses no risk and has previously proved that through previous international trips granted by the courts.

“There is no reasonable basis for refusing Dr. Spanier’s request to travel to Saudi Arabia,” the filing said. “He has no criminal history and no history of noncompliance with any of the restrictions of his bail. … There is simply no basis to conclude that Dr. Spanier is a flight risk or that he poses a safety risk to anyone. The denial of Dr. Spanier’s travel request is a significant deprivation of his liberty.”

The court issued a response promising to respond to the motion by 12 p.m. on Wed., Sept. 16 at the latest.