Curley, Schultz and Spanier then agreed to report the incident to both the Department of Public Welfare and the Second Mile if Sandusky did not cooperate and get professional help (i.e., rather than not reporting the incident to authorities outside the university, reporting to the Department of Public Welfare was still part of the plan). In his press release, Freeh wrote to the contrary that "the only known, intervening factor between the decision made on February 25, 2001 by Messrs. Spanier, Curley and Schulz to report the incident to the Department of Public Welfare, and then alleged by Freeh agreeing not to do so on February 27th, was Mr. Paterno's February 26th conversation with Mr. Curley." Freeh's mischaracterization of the February 27 email was widely inferred by the press to mean that Paterno had persuaded Curley (and Schultz and Spanier) not to report the incident to authorities outside the university.