Louis Freeh

At 74 years old, Louis Freeh physical status not available right now. We will update Louis Freeh's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Freeh approached acting New Jersey Governor Donald DiFrancesco, and offered to serve, without salary, as the state's anti-terrorism "czar". Di Francesco approached both major-party candidates for governor to secure their approval; Bret Schundler, the Republican candidate, agreed "in principle". However, Democrat Jim McGreevey, who won the gubernatorial election, turned down Freeh in favor of Golan Cipel. It was later discovered that McGreevey and Cipel had been involved in a sexual relationship. McGreevey was heavily criticized for giving the post to Cipel rather than Freeh or another experienced individual.

In September 2001, Freeh was appointed to the board of directors of credit card issuer MBNA; he also served as the bank's general counsel, as well as corporate secretary and ethics officer. Likewise, Bristol-Myers Squibb elected him to its board of directors.

Freeh is also a member of the board of consultants of the Gavel Consulting Group, formed by current and former federal judges and high-ranking government officials to provide advice and counseling to the private sector.

Beginning in 2004 Freeh began teaching as an adjunct law professor for Widener University School of Law. Drawing on his years of experience, he has taught White Collar Crime.

In 2007, Freeh formed Freeh Group International Solutions, a consulting and investigative firm headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware with regional offices in Washington DC and New York. Affiliated firms include Freeh Group Europe and the law firm Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan, LLP. The latter firm includes Eugene R. Sullivan, a retired Federal Judge in Washington D.C. and Eugene R. Sullivan II amongst partners and Stanley Sporkin as senior counsel. Sporkin is a retired Federal judge who earlier served as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement and as general counsel to the Central Intelligence Agency.

Freeh was hired by Nasser Kazeminy to conduct an independent investigation into alleged financial improprieties in the relationship between Kazeminy and former Senator Norm Coleman that surfaced during the final week of the 2008 Minnesota Senate race. At the time, Freeh was serving on the board of the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO), whose chairman was Kazeminy. Although Coleman had received roughly $100,000 in gifts from Kazeminy over the years, Freeh's investigation cleared both Coleman and Kazeminy of any wrongdoing in 2011. The Intercept, questioning Freeh's impartiality, reported that nine days after Freeh's investigation cleared Kazeminy of wrongdoing, Freeh's wife received a one half ownership stake from Kazeminy in a Palm Beach property valued at $3 million.

In 2009, Louis Freeh was hired by Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar bin Sultan as his legal representative on issues surrounding the Al-Yamamah arms deal, appearing April 7, 2009, on the PBS series Frontline's episode "Black Money".

In late May 2011, Freeh was retained as an independent investigator by the FIFA Ethics Committee in the bribery scandal centering on Mohammed bin Hammam and Jack Warner. However, the Court of Arbitration of Sports subsequently rejected Freeh's report as consisting of little more than speculation.

In November 2011, Pennsylvania State University announced that Freeh would lead an internal investigation into the Penn State child sex abuse scandal involving Jerry Sandusky and several high-ranking university officials. He announced that the team assisting him in his investigation would include former FBI agents and federal prosecutors. As the Sandusky trial proceeded toward conviction in June 2012, the university said Freeh would report in the summer and the report would "be released to the trustees and the public simultaneously without being reviewed by the school's general counsel's office". The report was released on July 12, 2012. The 267-page report from Freeh's law firm was characterized as deeply critical of the administration of former university president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley, late coach Joe Paterno and former university vice president Gary Schultz. A commentary at Sports Illustrated's website characterized the report's accusations against Paterno as "damning and sweeping" and the findings about Spanier, including a 2001 e-mail in the wake of the 2001 shower incident purportedly witnessed by graduate assistant Mike McQueary, as "most damning". A number of sources have questioned if not outright disputed the accuracy of Freeh's findings, pointing to the lack of hard evidence to support his "reasonable conclusions." A year after the report's issuance, the chairman of the Penn State Board of Trustees, which had originally commissioned the report, said that Freeh's conclusions amounted to "speculation." In a January 2015 interview with the Associated Press, Penn State President Eric Barron said, "I have to say, I'm not a fan of the report. There's no doubt in my mind, Freeh steered everything as if he were a prosecutor trying to convince a court to take the case."

On February 10, 2013, a report authored by former United States Attorney General and former Governor of Pennsylvania Dick Thornburgh, whom the Paterno family retained to conduct its own investigation, concluded that the Freeh report was "seriously flawed, both with respect to the process of [its] investigation and its findings related to Mr. Paterno". Graham Spanier is suing Freeh for defamation and tortious interference and Penn State University for breach of contract.

The Freeh Report had far-reaching outcomes for Penn State. The NCAA used the Freeh Report in lieu of its own investigation to impose sanctions on the Penn State football program. On July 23, 2012, the NCAA imposed a $60 million fine, four-year postseason ban, scholarship reductions, and vacated all victories from 1998 to 2011. These sanctions were considered to be among the most severe ever imposed on an NCAA member school. NCAA President Mark Emmert stated that the sanctions were levied "not to be just punitive, but to make sure the university establishes an athletic culture and daily mindset in which football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people." The Big Ten Conference subsequently imposed an additional $13 million fine.

An investigation led by former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, who was retained by the Paterno family to review the Freeh report, concluded that the report that placed so much blame on Penn State and Paterno was a "rush to injustice" that could not be relied upon. He found that not only did the evidence "fall far short" of showing Paterno attempted to conceal the Sandusky scandal, but rather that "the contrary is true". In January 2013, State senator Jake Corman and state treasurer Rob McCord launched a lawsuit against the NCAA to overturn the sanctions on Penn State on the basis that Freeh had been actively collaborating with the NCAA and that due process had not been followed. In November 2014, State senator Corman released emails showing "regular and substantive" contact between NCAA officials and Freeh's investigators, suggesting that the Freeh conclusions were orchestrated. As part of the settlement, the NCAA reversed its decision on January 16, 2015, and restored the 111 wins to Paterno's record.

In August 2018, Freeh hired attorney Rudy Giuliani to lobby the Romanian government calling for amnesty for Freeh's clients in a corruption probe.

In 2019 Freeh and his friend Alan Dershowitz lobbied the U.S. government of behalf of Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler. Gertler was accused of corruption by the U.S. government and was facing sanctions by the Trump administration for his business deals with the Dominican Republic. In the last days of Trump's presidency, the sanctions were lifted.

In November 2011, Freeh was named trustee for the MF Global bankruptcy case, the largest Wall Street bankruptcy since Lehman Brothers' in September 2008. He was appointed by U.S. Trustee Tracy Hope Davis working under the authority of U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Martin Glenn.

On February 5, 2013, Freeh was named Chair of the law firm Pepper Hamilton LLP. He resigned the chairmanship earlier than slated, in October 2014.

An editorial by Louis Freeh critical of the 9/11 Commission appeared in the November 17, 2005, edition of the Wall Street Journal.

In 2005, Freeh (with Howard Means) published a book about his career in the FBI entitled My FBI: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror. It is highly critical of both President Clinton and former counter-terrorism advisor Richard A. Clarke. On October 19, 2005, Freeh made an appearance on The Daily Show to promote the book. A New York Times review called it "A strangely shallow offering by a man who is anything but...".

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