OAG ties Jerry Sandusky cover-up prosecution to Catholic church sex-abuse case
Here we go my fellow siblings...the new OAG "play" is in motion.
“I'll have grounds
More relative than this—the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King”.
Attorney General ties Jerry Sandusky cover-up prosecution to Catholic church sex-abuse case
Gary Schultz, left, is Penn State's former vice president; Graham Spanier, center, is the university's former president; and Tim Curley is the former director of athletics.
(AP File Photo)
By
Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com The Patriot-News
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on August 24, 2016 at 5:54 PM, updated August 25, 2016 at 6:40 AM
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Penn State and Jerry Sandusky
State prosecutors are asking a trial judge to proceed with child endangerment charges against three former Penn State administrators charged as a result of the
Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
The state's response, filed last Tuesday under seal, was made public Wednesday by Dauphin County court officials.
Prosecutors say the remaining counts against former Penn State President Graham Spanier and two of his top aides are justified by precedents set in the
2012 conviction of a high-ranking Catholic church official in Philadelphia.
In that case, former Msgr. William Lynn was found guilty of child endangerment because he had reassigned priests who'd had credible sexual abuse allegations lodged against them to new jobs where they could continue to prey on children.
Lynn's conviction was seen as a landmark in sexual abuse cases, because he was the first high-ranking church official in the United States to be convicted based on the actions of his subordinates.
But the monsignor,
the Penn State defendants argued in motions to kill their cases last month, was, by virtue of his duty to investigating misconduct by priests and decide on their punishment and/or treatment, directly responsible for the actions of those priests.
That nexis, the defendants' attorneys have argued, doesn't necessarily apply to the former Penn State leaders, who had no direct role in investigating allegations of child abuse.
Spanier, former Athletic Director Tim Curley, and former Senior Vice President Gary Schultz also did not have the same level of supervision over Sandusky, who at the time in question was a retiree with access to campus facilities, the defense attorneys said.
Chief Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka, however, pointing to
February 2001 emails threads that show the three men collaborating on a plan to not report an eyewitness's report against Sandusky to police or child welfare officials, argued they had a direct opportunity to catch a predator right then, and passed.
Sandusky went on to sexually abuse several more boys after 2001, and his access to Penn State teams, athletic events and facilities is considered a major factor in helping to lure them in.
When the administrators decided to handle
the Mike McQueary report in-house, Ditka wrote, "they assumed the duty to ensure the matter was handled thoroughly and correctly and cannot now shrug off the responsibility that they chose to assume."
Whether Sandusky was still an employee at Penn State or not, she added, the administrators collectively "still had the duty to ensure that the allegations of sexual improprieties... were fully investigated and that sexual predators were excluded from the facilities for which they were responsible."
(The Lynn conviction, ironically, has since been reversed on other grounds, though state Supreme Court findings that Lynn as a supervisor could be held criminally liable for the actions of his subordinates are still intact.)
The prosecution also argues that it doesn't matter that Pennsylvania's child endangerment statute did not include supervisors of those who have committed bad acts until 2006, five years after the McQueary report.
Because the 2001 charge against Sandusky was never reported and Sandusky still enjoyed access to Penn State facilities after the law was broadened, the endangerment was ongoing and the defendants are properly charged, Ditka argues.
On a third point, the prosecution asserts a companion count of failure to report suspected child abuse is not time-barred - even if the triggering event occurred in 2001 - because if the report is never made, the failure to report is also an ongoing course of conduct.
The court can make these findings, the prosecution asserts, because of precedents holding that laws concerning child abuse are protective in nature, and should be applied in the context of their "broad purpose of sheltering children from harm."
In her latest filing, Ditka is trying to preserve what's left of a long-running case that took a major blow this winter, when a Superior Court panel
tossed perjury and obstruction of justice charges against Spanier, Curley and Schultz, ruling that mistakes made during the 2012 grand jury testimony of the Penn State officials violated attorney / client privilege rules.
Then, in a decision that rankled several prosecutors who had worked on the Penn State probe, then-Attorney General Kathleen Kane's Solicitor General, Bruce Castor, opted not to appeal the Superior Court decision to the state Supreme Court.
The remaining child endangerment and failure to report counts, however, are still significant to all sides in the Sandusky case.
Spanier and his former aides are doing everything they can to be completely exonerated from criminal liability in the sordid Sandusky scandal.
They've maintained they had no idea about the scope of Sandusky's alleged abuses, and believe the record shows they made a thoughtful attempt to deal seriously with a bad situation.
Meanwhile many of Sandusky's victims, and victim's right groups more generally, are interested in seeing that anyone with direct responsibility for Sandusky's long run as a serial predator is held accountable.
The next set of decisions in the case is up to a new face in the Sandusky case, retired Berks County Judge John Boccabella. Boccabella was appointed to the Penn State administrators' case earlier this summer after Dauphin County judges recused themselves.
Link:
http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/08/attorney_generals_office_hinge.html
