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FC: ESPN takes on Penn State once again

Nice buying into a narrative that is the equivalent to believing monkeys can fly.
By "buying into a narrative", you mean reading emails from people like Curley and Spanier and Schultz that show clear as day that even THEY believed Sandusky was a problem? Emails that demonstrate that Joe knew about the 1998 naked showering incident? Emails that demonstrate that they collectively knew as early as 1998 that Sandusky was behaving inappropriately?

If that's the "narrative" I'm buying into -- guilty as charged. I can, in fact, read :)

But tell me more about why CJF is the bad guy for not speaking about Paterno during a pre-Rutgers presser. Ah yes, he must the villain in all of this.
 
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1) Joe should have never called Karen. It was totally inappropriate and potentially illegal. On the other hand, the author elicited comments from Karen (could have a different victim, not sure) where she complained that no one from the program contacted her. Damned if you do…damned if you don’t.

2) Joe should not have said anything except cooperate and tell the truth to his players. If he crossed the line with Cappozoli, inappropriate and possibly illegal. On the other hand, if he thought Cappozoli was going to lie for his childhood friend, then…what would you do?

My wife worked in student affairs back in those days at another university. She said the only common thread was that every incident was handled incorrectly. Protect the program, protect the young player, making sure the incident was handled properly, etc. no matter the motivation, someone always stuck their nose in inappropriately. PSU was no better and probably no worse. No one expects to encounter a Hodne or a Sandusky in their lifetime. Hence, no one expects to handle evil on this scale and small mistakes become large mistakes.
Your last paragraph is spot on.
 
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By "buying into a narrative", you mean reading emails from people like Curley and Spanier and Schultz that show clear as day that even THEY believed Sandusky was a problem? Emails that demonstrate that Joe knew about the 1998 naked showering incident? Emails that demonstrate that they collectively knew as early as 1998 that Sandusky was behaving inappropriately?

If that's the "narrative" I'm buying into -- guilty as charged. I can, in fact, read :)

But tell me more about why CJF is the bad guy for not speaking about Paterno during a pre-Rutgers presser. Ah yes, he must the villain in all of this.
The emails are not clear as day. In fact, you are reading them wrong.
 
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The emails are not clear as day. In fact, you are reading them wrong.

Ah yes, that must be it.

All those emails in which seniors write openly about their concern about not going to the authorities......their concern about Jerry's behavior.......about keeping Paterno updated on the latest......about dealing with Sandusky the "humane" way rather than going to the cops.......about Curley's talk with Joe and subsequent decision NOT to go to child welfare services and instead deal with Jerry directly.......about their admission that Jerry needs help.......about their clear-as-day knowledge of Jerry's 1998 incident.......

All just a misunderstanding and a misreading I guess. Got it.
 
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Ah yes, that must be it.

All those emails in which seniors write openly about their concern about not going to the authorities......their concern about Jerry's behavior.......about keeping Paterno updated on the latest......about dealing with Sandusky the "humane" way rather than going to the cops.......about Curley's talk with Joe and subsequent decision NOT to go to child welfare services and instead deal with Jerry directly.......about their admission that Jerry needs help.......about their clear-as-day knowledge of Jerry's 1998 incident.......

All just a misunderstanding and a misreading I guess. Got it.
Did you listen to any of the interviews that Schultz and Spanier have given subsequently? If not, please listen to those as they clear up your concerns.

If you have listened to them and you STILL think these emails are damning, then you are a member of the morass of people who have a narrative that will never change no matter how much new information is available that discredits that narrative.
 
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Ah yes, that must be it.

All those emails in which seniors write openly about their concern about not going to the authorities......their concern about Jerry's behavior.......about keeping Paterno updated on the latest......about dealing with Sandusky the "humane" way rather than going to the cops.......about Curley's talk with Joe and subsequent decision NOT to go to child welfare services and instead deal with Jerry directly.......about their admission that Jerry needs help.......about their clear-as-day knowledge of Jerry's 1998 incident.......

All just a misunderstanding and a misreading I guess. Got it.
What information were they working with from the ear witness?
Did they not know at the time that 1998 was an unfounded allegation?

Try not to use hindsight bias here
 
What information were they working with from the ear witness?
Did they not know at the time that 1998 was an unfounded allegation?

Try not to use hindsight bias here

The 1998 incident was not unfounded -- Jerry did in fact shower naked with an 11-year old boy and hugged him in the shower. Jerry even admitted it was wrong. The kid's mother tried to make him promise to stop, but Jerry refused. The police ultimately found no illegality in the act (or at least couldn't produce the evidence to warrant a criminal charge), but police advised him to knock that shit off.

Curley, Paterno, and others knew about the 1998 incident. That's crystal clear.
 
The 1998 incident was not unfounded -- Jerry did in fact shower naked with an 11-year old boy and hugged him in the shower. Jerry even admitted it was wrong. The kid's mother tried to make him promise to stop, but Jerry refused. The police ultimately found no illegality in the act (or at least couldn't produce the evidence to warrant a criminal charge), but police advised him to knock that shit off.

Curley, Paterno, and others knew about the 1998 incident. That's crystal clear.
So what you mean by "knew about the 1998 incident" is that they knew there was an investigation and no charges were filed. That last part is key.

If anything that knowledge might bias them *against* taking stronger action in 2001 rather than the other way around (I don't think it biased them either way, but your logic is twisted).
 
So what you mean by "knew about the 1998 incident" is that they knew there was an investigation and no charges were filed. That last part is key.

If anything that knowledge might bias them *against* taking stronger action in 2001 rather than the other way around (I don't think it biased them either way, but your logic is twisted).

Regardless of whether charges are filed, do you think it's okay for a grown ass man to be showering naked and touching young boys? Particularly when parents are upset about it? If you knew that your employee had a thing for showering naked with young boys, would you continue to permit that employee -- or by 2001, ex-employee -- to use your shower facilities to shower with young boys?

It's unfortunate that all Jerry had to deal with was an angry mother and not an angry father willing to whoop his ass. Perhaps a good ass whooping was what Jerry needed to knock that off. But clearly his bosses didn't take the matter seriously enough. To them, he was probably just a creepy dude -- even if not a rapist (in their eyes), but definitely creepy and inappropriate. And they took no action. Period.

You'd think that when confronted with yet another example of shower activity, enough would be enough. But nope. They had to handle the matter in-house. Because after all, they couldn't fathom the thought that good old Jerry was a rapist. Nah, just horseplay. As if naked horseplay with young boys wasn't alarming enough.

The mental gymnastics that many PSU fans go through to make this a nothing-burger is quite incredible.
 
Regardless of whether charges are filed, do you think it's okay for a grown ass man to be showering naked and touching young boys? Particularly when parents are upset about it? If you knew that your employee had a thing for showering naked with young boys, would you continue to permit that employee -- or by 2001, ex-employee -- to use your shower facilities to shower with young boys?

It's unfortunate that all Jerry had to deal with was an angry mother and not an angry father willing to whoop his ass. Perhaps a good ass whooping was what Jerry needed to knock that off. But clearly his bosses didn't take the matter seriously enough. To them, he was probably just a creepy dude -- even if not a rapist (in their eyes), but definitely creepy and inappropriate. And they took no action. Period.

You'd think that when confronted with yet another example of shower activity, enough would be enough. But nope. They had to handle the matter in-house. Because after all, they couldn't fathom the thought that good old Jerry was a rapist. Nah, just horseplay. As if naked horseplay with young boys wasn't alarming enough.

The mental gymnastics that many PSU fans go through to make this a nothing-burger is quite incredible.
"The only way to exonerate Joe is to exonerate me" - Jerry Sandusky
 
We all talk about the MM incident and the fact that what he reported to Joe wasn't explicitly of a sexual nature -- aside from "sexual noises" and Sandusky emerging from the shower room, which itself should have raised concerns. I get it -- there was reasonable ambiguity as to what Jerry was actually doing.

But then there's the 1998 incident that Joe apparently conveniently forgot. Jerry hugging an 11-year-old boy while naked in the shower. Who the hell does that? No charges filed, but clearly PSU leadership was made aware. And clearly it didn't bother them enough to do anything. And when they're informed of potential issues in 2001, still not enough for them to go to the police about it.

We all have the benefit of hindsight here, but it's also clear that as early as '98 we knew that Jerry had issues and was behaving in ways that warranted closer scrutiny than what he got. It was an enormous blindspot -- it happens, even to good people. But can't ignore that it did in fact happen.
Fair point - but consider this question. The 1998 incident was investigated by the police and Ray Gricar (as much a straight shooter as there has ever been) and it was determined that Jerry did nothing wrong...or at least nothing criminal. If you know this a few years later, are you more or less inclined to think he's a pedophile? I think it's not unreasonable that one may see the '98 incident as reinforcing the idea that he's just a goofy guy with boundary issues.
 
Regardless of whether charges are filed, do you think it's okay for a grown ass man to be showering naked and touching young boys?
Showering in a large group shower after a workout is not, by itself, illegal. It does not seem to me to be best practices for an organization like TSM, but you may be viewing this through a modern lens. It used to be somewhat common for high school coaches/gym teachers to shower (again, in large group showers) with students, and the co-mingling of adults and children in large group showers certainly used to occur at gyms (like the YMCA) and public pools.
If the touching is horseplay, again that is not illegal, but I would not think it would be best practices. Seems like a TSM issue.
Particularly when parents are upset about it? If you knew that your employee had a thing for showering naked with young boys, would you continue to permit that employee -- or by 2001, ex-employee -- to use your shower facilities to shower with young boys?
Please remind everyone of the documentation that shows exactly what C/S/S/P knew about 1998 beyond that there was an incident in the shower that was no prosecuted.
But clearly his bosses didn't take the matter seriously enough.
Disagree, based on LE's response to the incident.
To them, he was probably just a creepy dude -- even if not a rapist (in their eyes), but definitely creepy and inappropriate.
Well, he's not a rapist, so there's that.
And they took no action. Period.
Again, makes total sense based on LE's actions.
You'd think that when confronted with yet another example of shower activity, enough would be enough. But nope. They had to handle the matter in-house.
It wasn't handled in house. They reported it to TSM. The eye witness had every opportunity to talk to the police and declined to. The eye witness also did not say (upon initial report) that anything sexual occurred.
Because after all, they couldn't fathom the thought that good old Jerry was a rapist. Nah, just horseplay. As if naked horseplay with young boys wasn't alarming enough.
See above. He's not a rapist.
The mental gymnastics that many PSU fans go through to make this a nothing-burger is quite incredible.
The mental gymnastics that people go through to not have to admit that they were wrong about all this is quite incredible.
 
"The only way to exonerate Joe is to exonerate me" - Jerry Sandusky
I don't think that's totally true, although because people are so invested in the false narrative this is probably the easiest way to exonerate Paterno.
 
Further evidence for why Joe was a great man who did many great and noble things that should make us proud.

But ultimately, nobody here will ever definitively know what Joe truly knew or what he didn't. Neither his supporters nor his detractors. I think it's very plausible that Joe and others knew that Sandusky was behaving inappropriately but perhaps not to the level of rape, and rather than involve the police they decided to handle it in-house. Alternatively, perhaps they knew rape was occurring and figured they could get through to Jerry without bringing in the police. It's ultimately impossible to say. But good people are very capable of having lapses in moral judgment or miscalculating based on what they know to be true. Particularly when confronted with allegations against a close friend that are so shocking that it defies belief. Addressing the issue in-house is a response that many good and decent people would select. And it's the wrong response.

Regardless, it's a stain that will forever adorn Joe's legacy. Even if his decisions were well-intentioned, clearly not enough was done.

You are full of shit. We DO definitely know that Joe was not aware of what Sandusky may or may not have been doing because Joe said so before he died, and I believe him.
 
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We all talk about the MM incident and the fact that what he reported to Joe wasn't explicitly of a sexual nature -- aside from "sexual noises" and Sandusky emerging from the shower room, which itself should have raised concerns. I get it -- there was reasonable ambiguity as to what Jerry was actually doing.

But then there's the 1998 incident that Joe apparently conveniently forgot. Jerry hugging an 11-year-old boy while naked in the shower. Who the hell does that? No charges filed, but clearly PSU leadership was made aware. And clearly it didn't bother them enough to do anything. And when they're informed of potential issues in 2001, still not enough for them to go to the police about it.

We all have the benefit of hindsight here, but it's also clear that as early as '98 we knew that Jerry had issues and was behaving in ways that warranted closer scrutiny than what he got. It was an enormous blindspot -- it happens, even to good people. But can't ignore that it did in fact happen.

If you knew that Jerry had issues as early as 1998, why didn't YOU do anything?
 
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Fair point - but consider this question. The 1998 incident was investigated by the police and Ray Gricar (as much a straight shooter as there has ever been) and it was determined that Jerry did nothing wrong...or at least nothing criminal. If you know this a few years later, are you more or less inclined to think he's a pedophile? I think it's not unreasonable that one may see the '98 incident as reinforcing the idea that he's just a goofy guy with boundary issues.
Determining that he did nothing wrong, or criminal isn't the same as we do not have enough to prosecute.
 
I think you are being quite disingenuous. Penn State football had zero to do with Jerry Sandusky's pedophilia. he was an employee who turned out to be a criminal. What you are describing is analogous to a player being arrested at age 30 and somehow their football program being at fault. Paterno did exactly as he should have done by NCAA rules then, and now (after a several-year investigation). You report it to your boss and to someone outside the sports reporting structure.
They knew about Jerry as of 1998 for certain, so yeah it does have a lot to do with PSU football.
 
Determining that he did nothing wrong, or criminal isn't the same as we do not have enough to prosecute.
Please provide the documentation that C/S/S knew the details of why it wasn't prosecuted. They only knew that it was investigated and no charges were filed. Most people would assume that means nothing criminal occurred (even though you are correct that it COULD mean they didn't have enough to prosecute).
 
They knew about Jerry as of 1998 for certain, so yeah it does have a lot to do with PSU football.
They knew he had been accused by a mother, that the son didn't collaborate it, that one shrink said he was a groomer, the other shrink said he was not, they did two sting operations to entrap him (both failed) and the DA chose not to pursue it. That is what they knew.

In the meantime, he was part of a national narrative on how coaches can help kids along with his charity named The Second Mile. it had an SI feature along with several other accolades.

So yeah, if you've ever been around anyone who has a very public profile, you will get all kinds of rumors and whispers. You put it into the hands of law enforcement...which is exactly what was done when JS in the 90's. The 2001 event, Joe escalated it exactly as the NCAA recommends and what the NCAA recommended in 2014 after years of research motivated by the PSU incident.
 
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They knew he had been accused by a mother, that the son didn't collaborate it, that one shrink said he was a groomer, the other shrink said he was not, they did two sting operations to entrap him (both failed) and the DA chose not to pursue it. That is what they knew.

In the meantime, he was part of a national narrative on how coaches can help kids along with his charity named The Second Mile. it had an SI feature along with several other accolades.

So yeah, if you've ever been around anyone who has a very public profile, you will get all kinds of rumors and whispers. You put it into the hands of law enforcement...which is exactly what was done when JS in the 90's. The 2001 event, Joe escalated it exactly as the NCAA recommends and what the NCAA recommended in 2014 after years of research motivated by the PSU incident.
They knew more than that. They were fully aware of the accusations against Jerry.
 
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Please provide the documentation that C/S/S knew the details of why it wasn't prosecuted. They only knew that it was investigated and no charges were filed. Most people would assume that means nothing criminal occurred (even though you are correct that it COULD mean they didn't have enough to prosecute).
Please go look at the trial transcripts. Everything is laid out in the trial, as for other evidence that Joe knew it was irrelevant for the most part since he was not on trial. Those trials were not conducted to exonerate or convict Paterno.
 
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They knew more than that. They were fully aware of the accusations against Jerry.
...and, as I said, none of them could be quantified. None of them were illegal. And most of them were cloaked in his work with the charity. He kept telling people his close relationships were part of the therapy.

You may notice a distinct lack of men in elementary education and in youth therapy. Ever wonder why that is? I can tell you if you don't know. The dirty secret is that if you are a male in those fields, you WILL BE accused of sexual assault on more than one occasion. Fact. And like being accused of "date rape", there is no defense. Your only hope is that they can't prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. But you'll never totally clear your name, ever.

My point is that these rumors didn't make JS exceptional. It made him normal in that field of work.
 
You may notice a distinct lack of men in elementary education and in youth therapy. Ever wonder why that is? I can tell you if you don't know. The dirty secret is that if you are a male in those fields, you WILL BE accused of sexual assault on more than one occasion. Fact. And like being accused of "date rape", there is no defense. Your only hope is that they can't prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. But you'll never totally clear your name, ever.
My point is that these rumors didn't make JS exceptional. It made him normal in that field of work.
1. Alycia Chambers is a PhD psychologist. Seasock was only a counselor. Why would psu risk their reputation on someone that ill equipped to correctly evaluate things.
It's like letting your injury case in the hands of your massage therapist instead of your orthopedic surgeon .
2. It wasn't just rumors, they rigged it back then.
Again, think very hard. Why allow the report from a counselor be your go to vs a much higher trained competent psychologist. The answer is obvious, it was cover and damage control .
 
First Chambers was licensed psychologist with a PhD, Seasock was a licensed counselor. This is like comparing a narrative report from an orthopedic surgeon vs. a massage therapist in the case of apotential injury.

1. Alycia Chambers is a PhD psychologist. Seasock was only a counselor. Why would psu risk their reputation on someone that ill equipped to correctly evaluate things.
It's like letting your injury case in the hands of your massage therapist instead of your orthopedic surgeon .
2. It wasn't just rumors, they rigged it back then.
Again, think very hard. Why allow the report from a counselor be your go to vs a much higher trained competent psychologist. The answer is obvious, it was cover and damage control .
none of that means jack squat. "grooming" is not illegal. Simply not actionable. I don't care if jesus said something, until it breaks a law it means zero. And that isn't Penn State, it was the govt prosecutors. To make matters more difficult, a lot of this data is to be kept secret by law. Worse yet, much of it is destroyed by law because even the hint of it getting out could ruin somebody's life.

Point is, these accusations are not to be taken lightly. And, in that regard, are very difficult to track and operationalize. This gives human trafficers a lot of room to operate. This means Jerry. It also means people like Epstein, Cosby, Pulanski, Priests and school teachers.

Clemente said that JS was one of the most difficult cases because of who jerry was, the charity, and the rural nature of Central PA. I believe him.
 
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Reading this makes me think of an old quote:

"You know, the powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.
They don't alter their views to fit the facts.
They alter the facts to fit their views."

Doctor Who
 
See above. He's not a rapist.
And there you have it.

So caught up in the desire to exonerate Joe that we've reached the point of denying that Jerry Sandusky was a child sex predator.

Fans that throw the Sandusky stuff in our face are true assholes. But when I see stuff like this, it's not hard to see why those taunts happen.

And it's clear in this thread that many of you are angrier about those who dare to point the finger at certain PSU failings than the guy who actually abused children.
 
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That's a very distinct possibility.

I don't buy into the narrative that all these evil forces aligned against Joe and Sandusky and Penn State to fix a case against them. I also don't necessarily believe that Joe or Penn State covered up what they knew to be sexual abuse.

But the 1998 incident leaves some serious unanswered questions. And the fact that the investigation died as quickly as it did is certainly curious.

The argument here seems to be "no charges were filed = nothing to see here". We know through countless of other examples in life that argument doesn't hold water. Jameis Winston wasn't charged with any wrongdoing at FSU either, but look at how the Tallahassee PD handled that case.

Again, the mental gymnastics here is astounding. Not a damn person here would -- if in the shoes of a parent of one of these children -- accept the idea that Jerry was doing no wrong and authority figures did all they could. Not a chance.
nope.

My wife was a forensic psych for several years. Their psych profiles mean very little to nothing except to get more research funded (more investigation) and to be a witness if charges are filed. IIRC, Seasock and Chambers were used to get the sting operations. The detectives ran TWO sting operations when they tried to get JS to incriminate himself. That didn't work. At the same time, the child was questioned and stated he was not abused (by the legal standard). So you have a mom, concerned, who called the police. The police investigated, the kid recanted. They hired to Forensic psychs. They then had detectives run TWO sting operations. And somehow, you think the police didn't do enough and, perhaps, covered it up with PSU?

I don't know what else they could have done, to be honest.
 
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And there you have it.

So caught up in the desire to exonerate Joe that we've reached the point of denying that Jerry Sandusky was a child sex predator.

Fans that throw the Sandusky stuff in our face are true assholes. But when I see stuff like this, it's not hard to see why those taunts happen.

And it's clear in this thread that many of you are angrier about those who dare to point the finger at certain PSU failings than the guy who actually abused children.
It's not "denying", it's looks at the facts. You have apparently NOT looked at the facts.

I'm never afraid to look at all available data even if it leads me to uncomfortable or unpopular opinions. I suggest you adopt the same approach.

Enjoy your weekend.
 
And there you have it.

So caught up in the desire to exonerate Joe that we've reached the point of denying that Jerry Sandusky was a child sex predator.

Fans that throw the Sandusky stuff in our face are true assholes. But when I see stuff like this, it's not hard to see why those taunts happen.

And it's clear in this thread that many of you are angrier about those who dare to point the finger at certain PSU failings than the guy who actually abused children.
Even for many of those that consider him guilty of his crimes, Jerry is the last person that gets the finger pointed at him. They will hurl unlimited insults and wish unspeakable misery upon any number of individuals involved to any degree yet cannot even consider that it all starts with Jerry. Strikes me as odd, preaching about the wonders of the all-magnificient Joe and at the same time spewing vile hatred against those they think "done him wrong". Obviously they didn't learn anything meaningful from this paragon of virtue, it is all justified in their eyes.
 
Even for many of those that consider him guilty of his crimes, Jerry is the last person that gets the finger pointed at him. They will hurl unlimited insults and wish unspeakable misery upon any number of individuals involved to any degree yet cannot even consider that it all starts with Jerry. Strikes me as odd, preaching about the wonders of the all-magnificient Joe and at the same time spewing vile hatred against those they think "done him wrong". Obviously they didn't learn anything meaningful from this paragon of virtue, it is all justified in their eyes.

Yep. It's amazing. And it all stems from the notion that if you allow yourself to believe that Jerry was in fact a child sex predator -- and it sure seems a jury of his peers would agree with that, to the count of convictions on 45 counts -- then it begs uncomfortable questions about whether Joe and others failed to do more.

And we can't have that. It becomes all-or-nothing. Gotta hold the line, and that starts with either ignoring what Jerry did, or denying that he did anything wrong in the first place.

Those who criticize PSU's handling of the matter are more reviled than Jerry himself. A serial child rapist. Amazing.
 
They knew more than that. They were fully aware of the accusations against Jerry.
Aware of "accusations". Ok. I'll agree.

Then what? Apparently they were then aware that nothing came from it. What do you think they thought of that?
 
There are three clowns in the thread that need to be put on ignore.


Probably for the best.......divergent opinions can be dangerous, especially about poor Jerry. Definitely need to protect yourself from them at all costs. I hear safe spaces work wonders for these kinds of things. :)
 
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By "buying into a narrative", you mean reading emails from people like Curley and Spanier and Schultz that show clear as day that even THEY believed Sandusky was a problem? Emails that demonstrate that Joe knew about the 1998 naked showering incident? Emails that demonstrate that they collectively knew as early as 1998 that Sandusky was behaving inappropriately?

If that's the "narrative" I'm buying into -- guilty as charged. I can, in fact, read :)

But tell me more about why CJF is the bad guy for not speaking about Paterno during a pre-Rutgers presser. Ah yes, he must the villain in all of this.







Keep in mind, McQueary wrote Eshbach, while copying Agent Anthony Sassano, "I feel my words are slightly twisted and not totally portrayed correctly in the presentment."

"I cannot say 1000 percent sure that it was sodomy. I did not see insertion," McQueary wrote. "It was a sexual act and or way over the line in my opinion whatever it was."

McQueary also complained about the media attention he was getting.

"National media, and public opinion has totally, in every single way, ruined me," McQueary wrote. "For what?"

Later that same day, McQueary wrote a second email to Eshbach and Sassano.

"Also," McQueary wrote, "I never went to Coach Paterno's house with my father . . . It was me and only me . . . he was out of town the night before . . . never ever have I seen JS [Jerry Sandusky] with a child at one of our practices . . . "

The reference about his father not accompanying him to a meeting with Joe Paterno was probably McQueary's attempt to correct a mistake in a Nov. 5, 2011 Sara Ganim story about the grand jury presentment that ran in the Harrisburg Patriot News.

In her story, Ganim wrote that according to the indictment, "On March 1, 2002, the night before Spring Break, a Penn State graduate assistant walked into the Penn State football locker room around 9:30 p.m. and witnessed Sandusky having sex with about 10 years old . . . The next morning, the witness and his father told head football coach Joe Paterno, who immediately told athletic director Tim Curley."

Then, McQueary returned to the subject of the bad publicity he was getting over the grand jury report.

"I am being misrepresented in the media," McQueary wrote. "It just is not right."

That's what prompted Eshback to write, "I know that a lot of this stuff is incorrect and it is hard to to respond. But you can't."

Former NCIS and FIS Special Agent John Snedden, a Penn State alum, was blown away by Eshbach's email response to McQueary.

"It's incredible, it's evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, trying to steer a witness's testimony," Snedden said. "It shows that the prosecution's manipulating the information, throwing out what they don't want and padding what they do want . . . It very strongly suggests a fictitious presentment."

During the defamation suit McQueary filed against Penn State, Eshbach was sworn in as a witness and asked to explain what she meant by telling McQueary not to talk.

"My advice to Mr. McQueary not to make a statement was based on the strengthening of my -- and saving of my case," Eshbach testified. "I did not want him [McQueary] making statements to the press at that time that could at some time be used against him in cross-examination. He [McQueary] was perfectly free to make a statement, but I asked him not to."

There's another angle to the prosecutorial misconduct story line -- this email exchange between McQueary and Eshbach that was reported on by Blehar was not turned over by the prosecution to defense lawyers during the Sandusky trial and the trial of former Penn State president Graham Spanier.

While we're on the subject of prosecutorial misconduct, at the Spanier trial, it was McQueary who testified that during the bye week of the 2011 Penn State football season, he got a call on his cell phone from the attorney general's office, tipping him off that "We're going to arrest folks and we are going to leak it out."

The fact that Mike McQueary didn't see a naked Jerry Sandusky having anal intercourse in the showers with a 10-year-old boy isn't the only erroneous assumption that came out of that shoddy 2011 grand jury report, Blehar wrote.

"The Sandusky grand jury presentment of Nov. 4, 2011 provided a misleading account of what eyewitness Michael McQueary reported to Joe Paterno about the 2001 incident," Blehar wrote. "Rather than stating what McQueary reported, it stated he reported 'what he had seen' which led the media and the public to erroneously conclude the specific details were reported to Paterno."

Keep in mind what the grand jury report said McQueary had seen -- a naked Sandusky having anal intercourse in the showers with a 10-year-old boy -- never actually happened, according to McQueary.

The grand jury report said:

"The graduate assistant went to his office and called his father, reporting to him what he had seen . . . The graduate assistant and his father decided that the graduate assistant had to promptly report what he had seen to Coach Joe Paterno . . . The next morning, a Saturday, the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno and went to Paterno's home, where he reported what he had seen."

Blehar cited the words of Joe Paterno, who issued a statement on Nov. 6, 2011, saying that McQueary had "at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the grand jury report."

McQueary agreed.

On Dec. 6, 2011, McQueary was asked under oath whether he had ever used the term "anal sodomy" in talking to Paterno.

"I've never used that term," McQueary said. "I would have explained to him the positions they were in roughly, but it was definitely sexual, but I have never used the word anal or rape in this since day one."

So what exactly did you tell Paterno, the prosecutor asked McQueary.

"I gave a brief description of what I saw," McQueary testified. "You don't -- ma'am, you don't go to Coach Paterno or at least in my mind and I don't go to Coach Paterno and go into great detail of sexual acts. I would have never done that with him ever."

Blehar also points out that not even the jury in the Sandusky case believed that Sandusky had anally raped Victim No. 2 in the Penn State showers, because they came to a not guilty verdict on the count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.

Blehar then cites four other witnesses in the case who also testified that McQueary never used sexual terms in describing what he had allegedly seen in the shower.

"Subsequent testimony in numerous proceedings from 2011 through 2017 by John McQueary, Dr. [John] Dranov, [former Penn State Athletic Director Tim] Curley and [former Penn State VP Gary] Schutz confirmed that no explicitly sexual terms were used by McQueary when he described what he actually saw," Blehar wrote.

In his second email to Eshbach, McQueary stated, "I never went to Coach Paterno's house with my father . . . It was me and only me . . . he was out the night before . . ."

In the email, McQueary doesn't say who the he was who was out the night before. In his blog post, Blehar takes the he as a reference to McQueary's father.

"Wait, what?" Blehar writes. "Paterno was in State College on Friday night. If this statement is true, then Mike did NOT meet with his father (and Dr. Dranov) immediately after the incident(because John Sr. was 'out of town.')"

"Another fabrication?" writes Blehar. "And the AG knew it."

In handwritten notes written in 2010, McQueary doesn't mention any meeting with his father and Dr. Dranov. Instead, he writes that he "drove to my parents' house" and "spoke with my father about the incident and received advice."

He also reiterates, "to be clear: from the time I walked into the locker room to the time I left was maybe one minute -- I was hastened & a bit flustered."

A hazy one-minute memory that McQueary himself admitted he had no idea "whatever it was" he had actually witnessed.

But it was a hazy, one-minute memory that the AG's office wrote an entire grand jury presentment around. How weak is that?

It was flimsy evidence like this that led Special Agent Snedden to conclude that McQueary was not a credible witness back in 2012 when Snedden was investigating whether former Penn State President Spanier deserved to have his high-level security clearance with the federal government renewed. Snedden wrote a recently declassified 110-page report that concluded there was no cover up at Penn State because there was no sex crime to cover up.

Because McQueary gave five different accounts over the years of what he supposedly witnessed during that one minute in the Penn State showers.

"I'd love to see McQueary's cell phone records, absent whatever dick pics he was sending out that day," Snedden cracked, referring to the day McQueary witnessed the shower incident, and then called his father to figure out what to do.

"Did he even call his dad?" Snedden wondered.

Snedden renewed his call for an independent investigation of the entire Penn State scandal, and the attorney general's role in manipulating evidence in the case.

"Anybody who cares about justice needs to be screaming for a special prosecutor in this case," Snedden said.

John Ziegler, a journalist who has covered the Penn State scandal since day one, agreed.

"This seems like blatant OAG misconduct and an indication that they were acutely aware their case had major problems," Ziegler wrote in an email. "Eshbach's response is stunning in that it admits errors in grand jury presentment and tells Mike to shut up about it."

Ziegler said the possibility that Mike McQueary never met with his father and Dr. Dranov, his father's boss, in an emergency meeting, if true, was big news.

"This is HUGE for several reasons," Ziegler wrote. The meeting, which supposedly occurred on the night McQueary witnessed the shower incident was the "ONLY piece of evidence that has EVER been consistent with Mike witnessing something horrible/dramatic" in the Penn State showers. And that's why "Dranov was brought in to meet with him [Mike McQueary] late on a Friday night in February," Ziegler said.

The AG's office, Ziegler speculated, "is desperate for evidence that Mike did something dramatic in reaction to" witnessing the shower incident.

And if the he McQueary was referring to in the email to Eshbach wasn't his father but was really Joe Paterno, Ziegler said, then that's another problem with the official Penn State story line. Because according to his family, Joe Paterno was in town that night and presumably available for an emergency meeting with a distraught assistant who had just witnessed a horrible sex crime in the shower.

If he really did see an anal rape ongoing in the shower, however, does the McQueary story, in any of its versions, make any sense?

McQueary didn't rush into the shower and try to save a helpless, 10-year-old boy.

He didn't call the police.

Like Elvis, he just left the building.
 
Did Nike ever put Joe's name back on their daycare facility?
Very good question/point.. Mark Parker then CEO NIKE and Penn State Alumni made the decision to take Joe’s name off of the Child daycare ? Center building after the Freeh report was released …Paterno and I believe Lance Armstrong have been the only two figures where NIKE buildings have been renamed after recognizing them years earlier.

certainly the controversy around Paterno and having a childrens building named after him creates an awkward situation .. it just does .

Even Penn State has done zero to address the wrongdoing done to Joe…I can’t fault NIKE for taking his name off of a Childrens center …maybe another building but unfortunately not a Childrens center.
 
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