Good line - but in Gene's defense - he was retained to defend the accused after the accused's head was already on the chopping block and the executioner had started his back swing.
A9 report out in the open
- Thread starter TenerHallTerror
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Good line - but in Gene's defense - he was retained to defend the accused after the accused's head was already on the chopping block and the executioner had started his back swing.
And one thing you can be sure of is that the vast majority of these "journalists", talk show hosts, etc who negatively comment on the report will not have even read it.
One thing you definitely want on a not-for-profit board is people who "can give and can get" donor dollars. Educators are rarely in a position to give major gifts or get major gifts from peers. That's why you want a good representation of business people on a board. For an educational institution, it's usually a mix of business executives ($$) and educators (program). A program dominated board is a significant liability when it comes to fundraising.
Helping to raise money is part of a board's fiduciary responsibility. I have a lot of issues with the way the PSU BoT is structured and how it conducts its business, but not with the simple fact that there are business people on the BoT.
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Guest
Wonder if Fina lied or Freeh fabricated a quote?
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Guest
Dunno. But where was Jay saying this six years ago? Seems like I’d want to see the interview transcript where this was supposedly said.
I have not seen this mentioned in this thread, but.....
Any thoughts on the timing of the A7 Report's leak and the announcement that PS4RS won't endorse anyone in the BOT election this year? (All 3 incumbents looking to get re-elected are part of the A7.)
Any thoughts on the timing of the A7 Report's leak and the announcement that PS4RS won't endorse anyone in the BOT election this year? (All 3 incumbents looking to get re-elected are part of the A7.)
[/QUOTE]
Jay's tweet seems to align with what he said during the talk show after his book was released. I think he said in response to a question of whether Joe knew about 1998, that there were 5 people who stated he did not know.
Jay's tweet seems to align with what he said during the talk show after his book was released. I think he said in response to a question of whether Joe knew about 1998, that there were 5 people who stated he did not know.
Sweet Jeebzus.
So, how much should it cost to buy a seat on a governance board?
(And what fraction of the millions of dollars that Lubert has sucked off of the PSU teat should he give back? In order for everything to be "good"?)
I would bet dollars to donuts that being a PSU trustee has been a positive NPV project for Lubert and Dambly despite whatever money they have donated....
Per the alumni report, there are no transcripts. One investigator asked questions and the other took notes. The alumni report also notes quotes attributed to Spanier in the Freeh report are no where to be found in his interview summary worksheet(s).
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
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I don't know what PS4RS's motive is by electing not to endorse BOT candidates/incumbents this year, but their release suggested they realize it's a lost cause and maybe not worth the effort. My guess is they're disappointed by the efforts of those elected too, but since they endorsed nearly all of them, I don't really know...
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Guest
And no signatures -- interviewees were not permitted to review the interview notes for accuracy. And THEN those unapproved notes were compressed by yet another author into interview summaries.HA HA HA HA HA!!!! No transcripts? No audio? Well done!!
When did this info become public domain? You may recall the Paterno family's suit against the NCAA required them to (also) sign NDA's.
Jay's tweet seems to align with what he said during the talk show after his book was released. I think he said in response to a question of whether Joe knew about 1998, that there were 5 people who stated he did not know.[/QUOTE]
Ha - Fina is the pink elephant!
Fina, anticipating attorney-client issues down the road, has said he was willing to take that risk to get Baldwin's testimony on the record because he was convinced of the rightness of his position, Kittredge noted.
But Pennsylvania's rules of professional conduct for attorneys say "we're not going to take a risk (with something as close to the heart of the legal system as attorney-client privilege) until a judge.., with an opportunity to hear from both sides, determines that question," Kittredge told the board.
"We cannot have a system where our clients are going to have to worry that some day we (their lawyers) are going to turn against them," Kittredge continued. "And we don't."
Fina's attorney Joe McGettigan, in an emotional close of his own, stressed that the question to let Baldwin testify was in fact sanctioned by Feudale prior to, and by Dauphin County Judge Todd Hoover after, the event.
McGettigan also asked the panel to remember that Fina and his team were uncovering what would come to be called a "conspiracy of silence" at Penn State only through the course of the investigation.
Baldwin, a dedicated Penn Stater who knew Spanier, Curley and Schultz as a former Alumni Association president, a former trustee and finally, as a peer in senior leadership, unwittingly became a tool in that conspiracy.
"They viewed Justice Baldwin as a perfect vehicle," McGettigan said. "She was very loyal to the university. She was very loyal to them, as people... And they played on that."
McGettigan argued the PSU administrators, through proxies who filed this complaint, are still playing the Baldwin card, having claimed she was their personal lawyer only after the publicly-issued Freeh Report exposed emails, notes and billing records that put their knowledge of the Sandusky situation in a new light.
The complaint against Fina was based, in part, on complaints from two PSU alums, Wendy Silverwood and Janet Kudravetz.
Both have long been active in groups who believe the university's Paterno Era and several of its key figures were unfairly offered up as sacrificial lambs in the Sandusky case by those desperate to turn the page and "move on."
Fina and Baldwin have been frequent targets of those groups because of their central roles in the Penn State cover-up narrative.
Even if the panelists conclude Baldwin owed a duty of confidentiality to Spanier, Curley and Schultz, McGettigan argued, it would be rendered null and void by their participation in that cover-up.
As Fina's expert witness, former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron Castille put it, "you can't lie to your lawyer and expect your lawyer to be your counsel... It's as simple as that, and that's what they tried to do."
Am I remembering correctly that interviewees were forbidden from taking notes or recording their own interviews?
Could be, except the details match nothing.
The Freeh Report was originally deemed an independent investigation commissioned by Penn State in 2012 and led by former FBI director Louis Freeh. This new confidential report initially released to university and board officials in July 2018 details how outside influences such as the NCAA and former Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett allegedly impacted that autonomy.
At different portions of the review, the NCAA was blamed for attempting to secure findings to punish Penn State outside of its jurisdiction, while Corbett allegedly made decisions based on what it would mean for his legacy and took pride in his role in former university president Graham Spanier’s demise.
The review suggests that the Freeh Group worked to please the NCAA in hopes of becoming a consistent figure in its investigative matters. Corbett, meanwhile, was allegedly able to influence the Freeh Group as a key figure in hiring these investigators for the report.
Because of this lack of independence, the review claims the Freeh Group had an agenda before the investigation even began, noting that “football culture” was first addressed by investigators instead of interviewees.
One such instance was brought up after Freeh Group emails showed its interest in the help of Kathleen McChesney, the co-leader of the investigative team, who had expertise in the Catholic Church’s coverup of sexual assault and noted the similarities between the two cases.
“In summary, our document review revealed numerous indications that the Freeh Group lacked neutrality from the very beginning of their investigation, as they expected to find indications of cultural deficiencies at Penn State that had led to covering up for a pedophile, consistent with the situation in the Catholic Church,” the report reads.
Once the investigation did begin, the trustees’ commissioned report claims that the Freeh Group’s bias crept in.
Interviews of subjects were done with the FBI’s “302 Reporting” methodology, which relies on hand-written summaries instead of recordings or full transcripts.
“Critical players” in the case like Jerry Sandusky, Mike McQueary, and former athletic director Tim Curley were not interviewed, and the more than 430 individuals who were interviewed may have had certain quotes “cherry picked” out of context instead of the report relaying their full stories. Only a quarter of the initial interviews were cited in the final Freeh Report, according to the trustees.
The review explains that there were multiple drafts of interview notes from the investigative team and alleges that in some cases significant revisions had been made from draft to draft. In one case, a subject claimed in the report that upon review of the Freeh Group’s notes from his interview, major portions were left out and very specific details that worked for its story were included.
Another instance of quote cherry picking came during janitors’ interviews. The Freeh Report made a claim that a Penn State athletics janitor who witnessed Sandusky abusing a victim may have felt fear of losing his job if he reported, but supposedly used data from only one of the eight janitors interviewed.
“Most of the Lasch Building janitors did not believe that they would lose their jobs for reporting a problematic incident involving Sandusky,” the report reads.
No matter. One lies the other swears to it.
Sounds like a grand jury presentment.
It's not an "or". There is no need to wonder either.
It is an "and". Fina lied and Freeh fabricated. 100% True!
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Yes. IIRC those interviewed were forced to cooperate with the threat of losing their jobs if they refused.
They were not allowed to bring a lawyer in with them.
There was no exact transcription of what they said- just notes and ‘gestalt’ opinion of the Freeh interviewers.
The people questioned were not allowed to see the notes of their interview so they could not confirm accuracy or clarify issues. They did not receive a printed copy of their interviews.
After hearing Freeh attributed quotes to Spanier that reportedly were not in the interview notes and Jay Paterno now denies a quote attributed to him by Freeh, anyone interviewed should demand to see the notes of their interview for accuracy.
The Freeh group apparently shared these notes with the PA Attorney General office. I’m still shocked no one has raised the concern (much less sued) over being forced to testify while being denied legal representation.
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The fact that our university allowed this to happen is unfathomable. You would think it was a third world country, but alas, it's Penn State that allowed it. Next they'll start banning certain speakers from universities. Oh wait...
Nobody was going to be locked up if they didn't submit to interrogation. They'd be in the unemployment line, but nobody was threatened with having their freedom taken away. All good. That would be the justification, anyway. Hey, you had a choice. Nobody had a gun to your head.
Given Penn State's impressive record of defending itself from civil litigation throughout all this, one wonders how a wrongful termination suit would have gone for them. Nobody knew at the time they were going to hand out cash by the boxcar full or maybe somebody would have tried it. Understandably, people would rather have their jobs. There was some twisted genius behind all this, I gotta give them credit. Some cranky employee with nothing to lose might have said "You know what, I'm not sitting down with you clowns, go to hell. Fire me. I dare you." That was a risk the Freehloaders were going to take. Likely they carefully avoided any such interviewee. Also begs the question if anybody did refuse to be interviewed and got canned.
Well, to be fair, we did have Vicky Triponey running the Student Affairs Department which meted out justice. How’s that for third world?
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The slapknutts who arranged police protection for Bicycle Bernie tells you all you need to know.
The crazy thing to me is he wrote that report about them without speaking to any of them. I mean he threw Spanier a courtesy interview days before it was released IIRC, but that report was already written. How do you write an objective report without talking to the players actually involved?
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Just FYI it would not be standard practice to receive a copy of the meeting notes in a case of this sort. However it WOULD be standard practice for the interviewee to review and affirm their accuracy.
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Guest
The point being, who would think people would be threatened in an interview on a college campus or speakers would be banned from universities? We're talking about people losing their jobs by folks that don't even have subpoena power. They literally have no power over an employee. Any employee could have simply said I'm not being interviewed. Last I checked this is still America and people still have individual rights.
"One individual indicated he was fired for failing to tell the interviewers what they wanted to hear; this is confirmed in a notation in the Freeh Group diary of an interviewee contemporaneously reporting his firing to the investigators." p. 22
K. Must have missed that. Skimmed it but didn't read everything. Thanks.
But here a guy played ball and got canned anyway. Hell of a spot to be in. You will appear and be questioned, or be fired. Or you might be fired anyway. Have a nice day. #oneteam
Penn State....."Comprehensive Excellence."
It would appear, many of the BOT may have a lot to answer for if this gains any traction.
But who will force them to answer?....in this life, I mean
There's so much in there that blows your mind, it's hard to keep track of and remember it all.
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