PHILADELPHIA — Penn State's disgraced former president is trying to convince the public he had no idea that Jerry Sandusky was a child molester — and that he most certainly did not protect one.

With a network TV appearance, a magazine interview and a news conference held by his lawyers, Graham Spanier portrayed himself Wednesday as the innocent victim of a witch hunt and a rush to judgment by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, whose university-commissioned report on the sex-abuse scandal prompted the NCAA to hit Penn State with a $60 million fine and other sanctions.

Freeh, hired by Penn State trustees to conduct an internal probe of the scandal, released a report last month that accused Spanier, Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno and other top university officials of concealing a 2001 abuse allegation against Sandusky to protect the university from bad publicity.