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FC: ESPN takes on Penn State once again

You have either not told me in a way that is specific enough to be useful (independently verifiable is too vague) or when you told me I didn't see it (you have posted reams of nonsense...I'm sure I've skipped some of your posts completely).
Stand and deliver. The ask is not vague. Whether or not it involves PII is not relevant to me. I thought you were a genius? LOL
Provide an example of how my morals have been inconsistent.
You have no morals so you are consistently inconsistent.
So who tells you what your morals should be? If you did not arrive at your own set of morals, then you are a sheep.
If you make up your own "morals" then you have none.
This is not the definition of morals.

Here is the relevant definition:
"a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do."
The source of the morals must be objective or they are not morals.
There is no requirement for it to be objective (although I think you are misusing the term objective in this instance) or even static (although mine are). There is no suggestion that a person cannot set their own morals.
There is
I am not a scholar of Stalin but if he was up front about his morals (e.g. if he was open about saying he thought murder was OK), then he could be moral even though his morality would be rejected by most people.
He was certainly not moral but he was up front about what he intended to do. I would compare his behavior in action like yours of defending a pedophile and his enablers. Most people would reject your morals as reprehensible particularly your hatred of children and people in general. This is why I think your crusade will go nowhere.
You have a recurring problem where you think that anyone who is different from you is wrong. That's a pretty scary position to take.
No, I take the position that Joe and CSS were morally wrong to enable and cover up Sandusky's crimes. You take the other side of that because you worship PSU and Joe.
 
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This is an absurd statement even beyond the fact that there is no cult involved here. You do not know the definition of a cult, apparently.
Checklist of Characteristics
So, here again you are cherry picking criteria you "think" makes your point. I will refute and offer some more.
  • The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment. NOPE
False criteria. Scientology is a cult and it's leader L Ron Hubbard has been dead for decades so living or dead leaders make no difference and cults exist with dead leaders. The fact that you persist on here and in other media forums defending a pedophile and his enablers shows excessive zealotry and your refusal to accept evidence that proves their guilt shows your unquestioning commitment. So a big YEP
  • The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members. NOPE
YEP. That's why you persist in trying to indoctrinate others on obscure social media with conspiracy theories regarding the scandal which was actually a quite common type scandal.
  • The group is preoccupied with making money. NOPE
False criteria. Maybe Ziegler?
  • Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. NOPE
OH HELL YES YEP The wrath of the faithful JoeBot is quite well known. Harassing media folk and government officials even former employee's of PSU who dare to question the holiness of Joe and PSU. That's why Freeh had to guarantee anonymity for those who he questioned.

The Dynamics of Happy Valley

The Penn State Football Cult

Take a read . It'll help you grow in this.
 
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LOL..you tried to apply a 2006 law to a 1998 incident. If you don't feel like an idiot, you should.
You said it was not against the law to groom. I showed you were wrong. I think you should feel like an idiot.
 
You said it was not against the law to groom. I showed you were wrong. I think you should feel like an idiot.
You tried to use grooming laws against C/S/S when it wasn't even a law!!!

And it isn't applicable unless someone is abused. If that were the case, a third-grade teacher talking about sexual orientation would be a felony.
 
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You tried to use grooming laws against C/S/S when it wasn't even a law!!!
Wut? CSS had nothing to do with grooming. Try to keep up. Sandusky was grooming that kid in 1998 and the PhD reported it.
And it isn't applicable unless someone is abused. If that were the case, a third-grade teacher talking about sexual orientation would be a felony.
BS
 
except it isn't true. unfortunately, these people have to make decisions based on facts. Please note that the facts of the case are that the mother suspected something was going on but had no direct evidence other than her son was showering privately with a grown man (this is not illegal). The second piece of evidence is that the boy said that he was NOT molested or abused in any way. The third piece of evidence were two sting operations that the mother and investigators executed that were inconclusive (other than JS agreed that he should not have been showing with the kid without others present but stated that this is part of his strategy to give the young man a stong male presence along with a feeling that they were loved and appreciated).
Sometimes pressure (by whatever definition) is applied to people to put certain things in or leave out others in various reports. That's the rigging part. And what do I know, but....

I recommend reading Murder in the Stacks where it's quite believably laid out how PSU handled that one in 1969. Bad pub was nothing PSU wanted. PSU the idyllic institution wasn't interested in drawing a lot of attention to that incident and did the Aardsma family no favors according to DeKok the author. I can certainly believe a similar route would be taken 30 or 40 years later with Sandusky. Just recognize we're not ever going to be told the whole story. My beef was always with how PSU kicked the fans and alums to the curb in the aftermath. What did we do wrong? Go to the games and cheer?

If outcomes were manipulated in 1998 then 2011 makes more sense. That's all I'm saying because in a vacuum 2011 makes zero sense at all. I'm not calling out who was responsible or who called the shots. I'd be interested to read Spanny's book but I'm not pre-ordering it or anything like that.
 
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I understand completely. The problem is it should never be taken this lightly. The truth is it still is not taken seriously even to this day. Just ask any women serving in the military.




Exactly.

Some background.

Lawrence J. Fox, a longtime Philadelphia lawyer who's a visiting lecturer at the Yale Law School, is an expert on teaching legal ethics and professional responsibility.

And Fox has harsh words for the conduct of former Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina, the lead prosecutor in the Jerry Sandusky case, as well as for Cynthia Baldwin, the former Penn State counsel who represented three top Penn State officials before the grand jury investigating Sandusky. That was before Baldwin flipped, at the behest of Fina, to become a prosecution witness, and testify against her former clients, an act of betrayal that horrified Fox.

"When lawyers feign representation, but in fact abandon their clients, and worse yet, become instrumentalities of the state, aiding the prosecution of their clients, the entire system of justice is systematically destroyed," Fox wrote in a 2013 filing recently unsealed in Dauphin County Common Pleas Court.

Tomorrow at 10 a.m. in Philadelphia, Fox will testify as an expert witness on behalf of the state Supreme Court's Disciplinary Board, to make the case that former prosecutor Fina is guilty of professional misconduct. But for those who can't wait for the hearing, Fox's scathing opinions of the alleged legal sins of Fina and Baldwin are laid out in the recently unsealed filing that has been completely ignored by reporters from the mainstream media; the same reporters who sought to have these documents unsealed. So it goes in the Penn State case, where media malpractice has been the norm.

"It is the Commonwealth whose lawyers were fully aware of the conflicts under which Ms. Baldwin was laboring at the time of the grand jury proceeding," Fox wrote, clearly referring to Fina, who questioned Baldwin in the grand jury after she flipped.

Fina was aware that Baldwin had a conflict of interest, Fox wrote, namely her decision to betray her former clients. Yet, Fina and his fellow prosecutors "stood silent," Fox wrote, and "took full advantage of the conflicts" to gather information to make a conspiracy and obstruction of justice case against those clients. But as part of his mission to seek the scalps of the three Penn State administrators, Fina had to mislead the grand jury judge, Fox wrote.

The prosecutors "never informed the court of the nature and extent of the conflicts" of interest posed by Baldwin's dual role in the case, Fox wrote. So that the court could fulfill its duty of assuring that the "rights of Messrs. [former Penn State vice president Gary] Schultz and [former Penn State athletic director Tim] Curley to effective representation were not systematically violated in the extreme."

In the unsealed filing, Fox ripped the Commonwealth's defense of Fina's actions.

"The Commonwealth actually asserts that because Messrs. Schultz and Curley were aware that Ms. Baldwin was general counsel for Penn State, they should have understood that they were merely second-class clients, and, as a result, are entitled to no attorney-client privilege whatsoever," Fox wrote.

But the Rules of Professional Conduct do not mention "a watered-down second-class version of clienthood," Fox wrote; the rules of Professional Conduct only define "one form of clienthood" that's subject to the attorney-client privilege.

Before she flipped, Fox wrote, Baldwin announced to "Schultz and Curley, the court, the grand jury, as well as the Commonwealth's lawyers" that she represented Schultz and Curley. But as their lawyer, Fox wrote, Baldwin was "required, in fact, to represent both of them to the full extent required by her fiduciary duties . . . the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct, the Pennsylvania statutory provisions covering the right to counsel before a grand jury" as well as the U.S. Constitution.

But in reality, Fox wrote, while Baldwin was representing her clients, "her fingers were crossed behind her back, and she never fully intended to fulfill that obligation, let alone warn them they would not receive the benefit of attorney-client privilege because of their second-class status."

"The law governing the attorney-client privilege in a joint representation is clear," Fox wrote. "There can be no waiver of the privilege unless each client has given his or her informed consent . . . to waive the privilege."

But the record of the case "demonstrates that there never was so much as a telephone call" to let Schultz and Curley know that the Commonwealth was seeking a waiver of the attorney-client privilege, and that Baldwin was planning to testify against her clients, Fox wrote.

By not telling her former clients she was about to stab them in the back, Fox wrote, Baldwin "turns the law of privilege literally upside-down, rendering it a false protection and leaving the clients helpless before the power of the Commonwealth."

That certainly was OK with Frank Fina. As for Baldwin, Fox wrote, her "sins here are both manifold and manifest. Turning against one's client is the greatest betrayal a lawyer can commit."

"But that is what Ms. Baldwin did here, stripping the clients of any opportunity to object to her misdeeds," Fox wrote. "Either she was subpoenaed to the grand jury or she voluntarily agreed to appear. Either way, she ran right through the red light by, in fact, testifying before the grand jury without notice to her former clients."

"No lawyer is permitted to disclose confidential information without the informed consent of the client," Fox wrote. "As a result of Ms. Baldwin's misconduct, Messrs. Schultz and Curley went six months without being aware of Ms. Baldwin's betrayal, and only learned of her shocking abandonment of her former clients when the new indictment was issued. Ms. Baldwin's conduct in this regard cries out for relief."

Fox labeled Baldwin's conduct as a "blatant betrayal . . . unprecedented in the annals of lawyer representation of clients."

And according to the disciplinary board's petition against Fina, it was Fina who set up that blatant betrayal by hoodwinking Judge Barry Feudale, then presiding over the grand jury investigating Sandusky.

On Oct. 22, 2012, Fina and Baldwin appeared before the judge in a conference to discuss Schultz and Curley's claim of attorney-client privilege in light of Baldwin's imminent appearance before the grand jury where the Commonwealth planned to have Baldwin testify against her former clients.

The petition notes that lawyers for Schultz, Curley, as well as former Penn State President Graham Spanier, who was also formerly represented by Baldwin, were not invited to the conference. At the conference, the petition says, Fina told the judge regarding the attorney-client privilege that he intended to "put those matters on hold" until the judge made a decision regarding the privilege, and "we can address that later on."

Penn State's counsel then argued that the judge should make a ruling on the attorney-client privilege first, before Baldwin testified. But Fina told the judge, "We need not address the privilege issue," because "we are not going to ask questions about" the grand jury testimony of Schultz and Curley, "and any preparation for, or follow-up they had" with Baldwin, Fox wrote.

Fina asked the judge to keep Baldwin's testimony secret so "We can address this privilege matter at a later date." That prompted the judge to tell Fina to proceed under the assumption that "you're not going to get into any inquiry as to [Baldwin's] representation" of her former clients.

But Fina double-crossed the judge, as well as broke the rules of professional conduct. And that's not only Fox's opinion, but it was also the ruling of the state's Superior Court, when they threw out eight charges Fina filed against Spanier, Schultz and Curley.

On Oct. 26, 2012, Fina questioned Baldwin in front of the grand jury, and "did elicit" what the disciplinary board described as "extensive . . . attorney-client privileged communications between Baldwin and Curley, Schultz, and Spanier" as well as "confidential information" pertaining to the three former clients.

Fina's questioning of Baldwin was "calculated," the disciplinary board wrote, to solicit damaging information that would attack the credibility of Baldwin's three former clients. In the petition, the disciplinary board proceeded to list 73 examples from the grand jury transcript where Fina elicited confidential testimony from Baldwin that violated the attorney-client privilege, according to the petition filed by Paul J. Killion, chief disciplinary counsel, and Amelia C. Kittredge, disciplinary counsel.

That's 73 examples folks, of Fina bending the rules, and the judge going along with it. Without a defense lawyer in the secret chambers of the grand jury to say a word of protest on behalf of Baldwin's three former clients.

The actions of Fina and Baldwin in the grand jury were so egregious it prompted the state Superior Court to throw out a total of eight charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and conspiracy against Schultz, Curley and Spanier.

Baldwin has already been called to task for her alleged ethical lapses. At a two-hour disciplinary hearing on May 23 in Pittsburgh, Baldwin, a former state Supreme Court justice, contended she wasn't guilty of any misconduct. She testified that after she received grand jury subpoenas for Curley and Schultz, she allegedly told them, as well as Spanier, that she couldn't be their personal lawyer because she was representing Penn State. Baldwin also asserted that she told the Penn State officials their communication with her wouldn't remain confidential, and that they were free to get outside lawyers to represent them.

"Don't be nervous. Just tell the truth," Baldwin testified that she advised Curley.

Baldwin testified that both Curley and Schultz described a shower incident allegedly witnessed by whistleblower Mike McQueary back in 2001 involving Sandusky and a naked boy as "horseplay." Baldwin also contended that she asked the Penn State officials if they knew of any documents describing that incident that had been requested by a subpoena from the attorney general's office, and that her clients replied that they didn't know about any such documents.

Baldwin testified she felt "duped" when months later, a file kept by Schultz documenting the shower incident involving Sandusky was turned over to investigators.

In court records, Baldwin's former clients, however, tell a different story. They contend that Baldwin did not inform them of the risks of appearing before the grand jury, and misled them about the grand jury's mission. Schultz also stated that he told Baldwin about the file he kept on Sandusky.

Baldwin's former clients contend in affidavits that because of her inept representation, and outright deception about the grand jury's true mission, Baldwin transformed her clients into sitting ducks for Frank Fina.

"Ms. Baldwin informed me that the grand jury investigation focused on Jerry Sandusky, not on me or PSU, and that I was being called purely as a witness," Schultz wrote in an affidavit recently unsealed in Dauphin County. "Ms. Baldwin told me that neither I nor PSU were under investigation," Schultz wrote. "She told me that I could have outside counsel, if I wished, but at that point, seeing all the stories [of the Penn State officials] are consistent, she could represent me, Tim Curley and Joe Paterno as well."

Schultz said he told Baldwin he might have a file on Sandusky still in his office, and that it "might help refresh my memory" to review its contents. But Schultz said that Baldwin told him not to "look for or review any materials."

"Ms. Baldwin also told me that PSU and I were not targets of the investigation and that I would be treated as a witness," Schultz wrote. "There never was any discussion of the Fifth Amendment privilege or the risk of self-incrimination."

"I believed that Ms. Baldwin was representing me in connection with the grand jury proceedings and that she was looking out for my interests," Schulz wrote. "Based on her representations, I did not believe I needed a separate lawyer."

In his affidavit of Oct. 25, 2012, Schultz wrote that Baldwin only told him he needed a separate lawyer "approximately one week before the charges were filed against me."

Former Penn State University President Graham Spanier made similar, disturbing claims about the actions of Baldwin.

In a Jan. 16, 2013 affidavit, Spanier wrote that prior to his grand jury appearance, Baldwin "did not reveal that I had been subpoenaed, and I believed that I was going voluntarily. She did not inform me that Penn State and I were targets of the investigation. As far as I knew, the investigation focused solely on Sandusky."

When Spanier appeared before the grand jury in 2011, "I believed that Ms. Baldwin was representing me during and in connection with the grand jury proceedings and that she was acting in my best interests," Spanier wrote. " Although Ms. Baldwin mentioned that I was entitled to a separate attorney, she did not encourage me to retain one, or explain why I might want one. Based on her representations, I did not believe I needed a separate lawyer."

"On the day of my grand jury testimony, Ms. Baldwin accompanied my swearing in" before the judge, and "stated that she was representing me in connection with my testimony," Spanier wrote. "And I had no reason to think otherwise."

"Ms. Baldwin sat with me in the grand jury room," Spanier wrote. "I was asked by the OAG attorney whether I was represented by counsel. I responded that I was, and identified Ms. Baldwin. She did not say anything."

"Ms. Baldwin first told me that I should retain a separate attorney on Nov. 8, 2011, after Sandusky, Schultz and Curley had been indicted," Spanier wrote. "At no point did I waive my right to confidentiality in my communications with Mrs. Baldwin or otherwise waive attorney-client privilege."

Tomorrow, it will be Fina's turn to answer those charges of misconduct.

In a response to the disciplinary board's accusations, Fina's lawyers, Dennis C. McAndrews and Joseph E. McGettigan 3d, contend that Fina "has not violated any rule of conduct" and they request that the board dismiss the charges against him.

In attempting to extricate Fina from his ethical dilemma and blatant misconduct in flipping the pliable Baldwin, Fina's lawyers resorted to wrapping themselves up in the flag of righteousness in the Sandusky case. They did that by pointing out the jury verdict, the pretrial demonization of Sandusky by a hysterical media, and the actions of pliable judges in the case who kept giving the prosecutors nothing but green lights.

It's like the scene in Animal House, where Otter is confronted before a kangaroo student court with charges that he and his fellow frat brothers at Delta house "broke a few rules or took a few liberties with our female party guests."

"We did," Otter says, winking at Dean Wormer, an admission that Fina's lawyers won't be making tomorrow. Otter then asks the dean and the court if it's fair for them to hold "the whole fraternity system" accountable for the actions of "a few, sick, twisted individuals?"

And if they're going to indict the whole fraternity system, Otter asks, "isn't this an indictment of our educational systems in general," as well as "an indictment of our entire American society?"

"Well," an indignant Otter sniffs, "You can do whatever you want to us, but I for one am not going to stand here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!" Then he and the Deltas march out of the courtroom humming the Star-Spangled Banner.






In their filing, Fina's lawyers describe their client as "instrumental in convicting the most notorious serial child molester in American history." Fina, according to his lawyers, was also "developing evidence that administrators at [Penn State] . . . failed to act in accordance with their legal, professional and/or ethical responsibilities in taking steps to prevent future harm to the children of this Commonwealth by that predator."


The lawyers assert that Fina did nothing improper before the grand jury. To do that, they quote the Louis Freeh report, which has some serious credibility problems, and Judge Feudale, the grand jury judge subsequently removed by the state Supreme Court amid allegations of misconduct and an alleged loss of objectivity.

In remarks quoted by Fina's lawyers, the discredited judge concluded that nothing went wrong in his courtroom after Fina plainly lied to him about what he was planning to do with Baldwin. And that after "a careful review of the testimony of attorney Baldwin before the grand jury," Judge Feudale concluded that "Baldwin's testimony did not [in this court's review] violate any attorney-client or work product privilege."

Never mind those 73 damaging quotes contained in the court transcript.

Fina's defense, as laid out by his lawyers, seems pretty lame. According to our system of justice, every accused defendant, even a serial killer, deserves a lawyer in their corner who would at least tell them if they're the target of a grand jury investigation. Cynthia Baldwin flunked that basic test. And then she went out and sold her clients down the river, behind closed doors in the grand jury, and neglected to tell them about it.

And speaking of Frank Fina, why did he have to lie and cheat and break the rules during that secret grand jury proceeding, where he already had the judge on his side, and he held all the cards?
 
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I think you got your loons mixed up. You guys are the loons. MM saw the second most powerful man at PSU molesting a boy and reported it to Joe and CSS. They covered it up. I won't defend his choice of action but to claim that he "just witnessed a crime" without the proper context is BS. CSS deserved jail for it and Paterno gets the shame.
You are persistent. Admirable, but mistaken. A crime is a crime. See it, report it. Simple. End of story. You should be ashamed for siding with McQuery.
 
Because he was freaked out seeing a beloved member of the PSU family molesting a boy on the shower and as low man on the totem pole had to figure out what to do. He DID however, tell Joe and CSS enough to report to the police and they didn't. this is not hard.

That is not a theory but fact backed up by testimony.

Only in regards to graphic terms like rape. He gave Joe a report of CSA and Joe's testimony shows that.

Only if you are a JoeBot.
Mike tells one version to his father and Dr Dranov, and another to Paterno. So, Mike is a liar. Like you. Failure to tell the whole truth is lying.
 
You are persistent. Admirable, but mistaken. A crime is a crime. See it, report it. Simple. End of story. You should be ashamed for siding with McQuery.
Not siding with MM. The crime was not reporting it and covering it up. Slam MM all you want but the big wigs knew and did nothing. MM passed the buck maybe but the buck stopped with CSS and Joe
 
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Mike tells one version to his father and Dr Dranov, and another to Paterno. So, Mike is a liar. Like you. Failure to tell the whole truth is lying.
No, more like MM tells an incomplete story to Dad and Dranov because he was freaked out then gathers himself and tells Joe and others more who could do something about it. Wouldn't call that a lie.
 
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Sometimes pressure (by whatever definition) is applied to people to put certain things in or leave out others in various reports. That's the rigging part. And what do I know, but....

I recommend reading Murder in the Stacks where it's quite believably laid out how PSU handled that one in 1969. Bad pub was nothing PSU wanted. PSU the idyllic institution wasn't interested in drawing a lot of attention to that incident and did the Aardsma family no favors according to DeKok the author. I can certainly believe a similar route would be taken 30 or 40 years later with Sandusky. Just recognize we're not ever going to be told the whole story. My beef was always with how PSU kicked the fans and alums to the curb in the aftermath. What did we do wrong? Go to the games and cheer?

If outcomes were manipulated in 1998 then 2011 makes more sense. That's all I'm saying because in a vacuum 2011 makes zero sense at all. I'm not calling out who was responsible or who called the shots. I'd be interested to read Spanny's book but I'm not pre-ordering it or anything like that.
Yep. They weren’t sure if they had an idea or knew prior to 98, but they knew psu was aware of Jerry from at least then.
 
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Stand and deliver. The ask is not vague. Whether or not it involves PII is not relevant to me. I thought you were a genius? LOL
The ask is vague. Give me an example that would satisfy your requirements so I can finally shut you up about this.
You have no morals so you are consistently inconsistent.
That's incorrect. I do have morals; you just cannot grasp that they are different from yours and yet still just as valid.
If you make up your own "morals" then you have none.
This is ridiculous. Who tells you what your morals should be? Everyone should arrive at their own moral construct.
The source of the morals must be objective or they are not morals.
The source of your morals should be yourself. If other people are telling you what your morals should be, you are a sheep.
o, I take the position that Joe and CSS were morally wrong to enable and cover up Sandusky's crimes. Y
They didn't cover anything up, so this is a nonsensical statement.
 
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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.
Or it could be the other factors.

Like the trial itself.

"They made judgment calls," Silver repeated about Spanier, Curley and Schultz. "They did not engage in crimes; they did not engage in a conspiracy."

"They took the matter seriously," Silver said about the now familiar plot line of the Jerry Sandusky
sex scandal. "They did not stand by and do nothing."

Silver's announcement to the judge came as somewhat of a surprise. The day before, when the government rested its case, there was talk among Penn State loyalists that the defense was planning to call up to four witnesses. The defense case was supposedly built around expected testimony from John Snedden, a Federal Investigative Services special agent who had done a background check of Spanier for a top-security government clearance in 2012, and had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Spanier at Penn State.

But Silver made his own judgment call that the prosecution didn't prove its case. So he went right to his closing argument.

The defense lawyer began by going through the law regarding the crimes that Spanier is charged with: two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, and one count of conspiring to endanger the welfare of a child.

To find Spanier guilty of endangering the welfare of a child, Silver said, the jury would have to find that Spanier interfered with or prevented someone from making a report of suspected child sex abuse.

The problem with that, Silver said, was that the government did not present any evidence that Spanier was ever told that Jerry Sandusky "was engaging in sexual crimes with minors."


"Nobody told Graham Spanier," Silver said. The defense lawyer went through every one of the fifteen witnesses called by the government, who turned out to be the only witnesses in the case.

"Her witnesses," Silver said, referring to his courtroom rival, Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka. "Her witnesses made the defense case."

Silver returned to the language of the child endangerment statute. To find Spanier guilty, Silver said, the jury would have to conclude that the government had presented evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Spanier had "knowingly violated" his alleged duty of care to protect the welfare of children that he was supposedly supervising.

"Graham Spanier was not aware that children's welfare would be endangered," Silver said. To find Spanier guilty, the jury would also have to conclude that Spanier was supervising the welfare of Second Mile child victims abused by Sandusky, many of whom were visitors to the Penn State campus.

The jury would also have to find that Spanier had acted "knowingly, intentionally and recklessly" when he allegedly interfered with or prevented anyone from reporting a suspected crime of child sex abuse.

Another element to the crime of child endangerment, Silver said, was the jury would have to find that in the course of performing his official duties Spanier "came into contact" with the child that he had allegedly endangered, the boy in the showers. Because the child endangerment statute required that Spanier would have had to knowingly endangered the welfare of the child he was supervising.

But the government presented no evidence of that.

To find Spanier guilty of conspiracy, Silver said, the jury would have to believe that Spanier "agreed to enter into a conspiracy to commit endangering the welfare of a child." And that Spanier and his co-conspirators had "agreed to put children in danger," and took actions toward that goal.

To anybody who sat through the two days of fact-free testimony that constituted the government's case, any of those findings would be a stretch. But this is sex abuse we're talking about, Penn State style, starring naked good old boy Jerry Sandusky bumping and grinding in the shower with little boys. It's like dousing a house made of straw with a couple cans of gasoline and waiting for a spark to fly.

Silver talked about the government's cooperating witnesses, former Penn State Athletic Director Curley, and former Penn State Vice-President Gary Schultz.

"These were the stars of their show," Silver said about the government's cae. But going by their testimony, Silver said, neither Curley nor Schultz ever told Spanier that what Mike McQueary witnessed in the showers was sex abuse.

Silver repeated what Schultz told the jury: "Jerry was always horsing around," Silver quoted Schultz as saying. "Schultz told Spanier it was horseplay."

Of all the government's fifteen witnesses, Silver said, only two, Curley and Schultz, testified that they spoke directly to Spanier about what McQueary told them.

McQueary, Silver reminded the jury, never spoke directly to Spanier about what he witnessed in the showers.

There was no conspiracy at Penn State, Silver said, summing up. Nobody told McQueary, or anybody else, to "keep things quiet, to keep their mouths shut." On the witness stand, both of the government's star witnesses, Curley and Schultz, testified that took the matter seriously. They were trying to do the right thing, Silver said. And they also testified that they did not participate in any conspiracy to cover up, and not report the infamous shower incident.

"There is no evidence that Graham Spanier knowingly endangered the welfare of children," Silver said. He concluded by asking the jury to find his client not guilty.

When Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka stood up to give her closing, she wanted to clear up one thing right away.

"Gary Schultz and Tim Curley are not our star witnesses," she said, "They're criminals." And you can't count on criminals to tell you that they knowingly committed crimes.

With a paucity of facts to draw on, Ditka, Iron Mike's niece, turned to fireworks. Spanier, Curley and Schultz, she said, were all guilty of turning their backs on the welfare of children, in favor of protecting themselves and Penn State from scandal.

"Jerry Sandusky was left to run wild," she said.


She talked about the plan that Spanier, Curley and Schultz had agreed on. To confront Jerry Sandusky with the shower incident. And to inform Sandusky that he was no longer allowed to bring children onto Penn State property.

The PSU officials were hoping that Sandusky would admit to a problem and agree to seek help. If not, the PSU officials planned to report the shower incident to the child psychiatrist who led the Second Mile charity that employed Sandusky as a counselor. And also report the shower incident to the Department of Public Welfare, so they could investigate whether Sandusky's conduct amounted to sex abuse.

But there was a "downside" to that approach, as Ditka reminded the jury while she quoted from an email sent by Spanier. The downside was "if the message wasn't heard" by Sandusky, Spanier wrote to Curley and Schultz, then Spanier, Curley and Schultz "become vulnerable for not having reported it."

When you're conspiring to cover up sex abuse, it's not too smart to lay out the plot in an email chain that subsequently become a government exhibit. That's not usually how coverups work. But Ditka skipped over all that to blast the usual villains in the Penn State sex scandal narrative, starring that naked Jerry Sandusky cavorting in the showers with little boys.


"All they cared about was their own self interest," Ditka told the jury about Penn State's top officials. "Instead of putting him [Sandusky] on a leash," she said, "they let him run wild."

Ditka recounted to the jury the first incident Sandusky was ever accused of. Back in 1998, a mother went to the cops because Sandusky had allegedly given her 11-year-old son a naked bear hug in the shower. And he allegedly picked the boy up and stuck him under a shower head to allegedly wash the soap out of his ears.

The boy, a member of the Second Mile charity, had been lured into the showers by the promise of a pair of "Joe Paterno sox," Ditka reminded the jury. "The lure of Penn State football is strong."

Ditka spoke about what she described as the cover-up mode employed by those at the "top of the totem pole" at Penn State, namely Spanier, Curley and Schultz. And then she vividly contrasted it with the whistle blowing of Mike McQueary, whom she described as "the low man on the totem pole."

Ditka dove once more into all the salacious details of the McQueary shower story -- Sandusky's naked "body moving slowly," "slapping sounds," and "skin against skin."

"What do you think?" she asked the jury. "That's horseplay?"

If it's horseplay, she said, why was the Penn State president and two of his top officials meeting about it on the weekend? Why are Schultz and Curley sitting around Joe Paterno's kitchen table on a Sunday morning if it's just horseplay they're talking about, Ditka argued.

"Skin to skin, hips moving against a boy is not horsing around," she repeated. This is Penn State, she said, where they have ten thousand kids.

"Every time a towel is snapped," Ditka asked, do university officials gather at Graham Spanier's house?


They knew what they were doing, Ditka said about Spanier, Curley and Schultz. "They come up with
a plan," she said. "You have to keep it a secret."

That's why they waited ten days to interview whistle-blowing eyewitness McQueary, Ditka said. Because they didn't want to know the truth. They just wanted to keep the truth under wraps.

"They had a problem and they didn't want to deal with it," Ditka said. The result was, "They own it."

"They prevented a report of sex abuse," Ditka said. "They knew what they were dealing with."

Instead of tackling the problem head on, Ditka said, by hauling McQueary in and finding out exactly what had happened in the shower, PSU's top officials tried "to soft-shoe it."

And when time dragged by, Ditka said, Spanier assured a worried Gary Schultz that "It's taken care of."

Here, Ditka was taking some liberties with trial testimony. When asked on the witness stand who had told him that the shower incident had been investigated and "taken care of," Schultz couldn't remember.

"I can't say for sure that it was Graham Spanier," Schultz told the jury.

It was a quote that Silver had read to the jury. Then he warned that if Ditka tried to use that quote to prove Spanier was guilty, it fell far short of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

But that wasn't going to stop Ditka.

It was like the scene in Animal House when Bluto gave the speech to his frat brothers about the Germans bombing Pearl Habor. Otter wondered whether he should correct Bluto, but Boon told him, "Forget it, he's rolling."

Like Bluto, Ditka was rolling.

"Graham Spanier told him [Schultz] 'Its taken care of," Ditka yelled. Before she was done, Ditka would not only declare that it was Spanier who had told Schultz "It was taken care of." She would also ccuse Spanier of deliberately "lying to Schultz."

Next, Ditka reminded the jury that when the Penn State sex abuse scandal exploded, Spanier insisted on running on the university's website two letters of support for Curley and Schultz.

"I support Gary and Tim," Ditka recounted the statements as basically saying. "Not a thought about the kids," she lamented. "They didn't care about kids."

The most entertaining part of Ditka's closing argument was when she trashed both of her star witnesses.

"Tim Curley," she declared, was "untruthful 90 percent of the time."

"Gary Schultz, I would suggest to you was more truthful," Ditka told the jury. That's because he cried on the witness stand.

You can't stage a courtroom tragedy without tears.

"He was crying for a whole lot of reasons," Ditka told the jury. Such as having to appear in court to testify against his old friend, Graham Spanier. But to counter those tears in her courtroom soap opera, Ditka brought up the tears of Victim No. 5.

Victim No. 5 was another government witness brought into the courtroom with much fanfare and extra security. Victim No. 5 had testified about being abused by Jerry Sandusky in the same showers where McQueary had previously seen Sandusky frolicking with another naked boy.

Victim No. 5, Ditka told the jury, wakes up crying on "a lot of mornings."

Ditka's weakest moment came when she left her emotional appeals behind to delve briefly into the law in the case, which for her sake, was probably best left undisturbed.

"There's more than enough proof," she concluded. "They knew the animal they were letting loose on the world," she said. Then she asked the jury to "find him [Spanier] guilty."

By the time she sat down, it was quite a performance. If the jury goes strictly by the law, Spanier walks. But if the jury is swayed by emotion, Spanier is toast.

It's as simple as that.

And God help the defendant if the jury ignores the judge's instructions and tunes in to the media coverage of the case, where they're playing all the old familiar tunes in the Penn State scandal, as sung by the attorney general's office, Sara Ganim and Louie Freeh.

There's a reason why Curley and Schultz pleaded guilty. It's an uphill battle when you're fighting a story line that everyone thinks they know.

There are problems with defending Graham Spanier. The former PSU president comes off as an intellectual who's aloof. He also didn't take the stand in his own defense. Even though the judge told the jury that they should consider Spanier "an innocent man," some jurors may believe he's hiding something.

Spanier is also on trial before a Dauphin County represented by a button-down Philadelphia lawyer. That might be another problem.

Meanwhile, the prosecution has Iron Mike Ditka's folksy niece tossing red meat at the jury. And the problem of his two former co-defendants having already pleaded guilty.

Incited by Iron Mike's niece, a Dauphin County jury might just decide to teach Graham Spanier a lesson with some frontier justice.

Or they could see through all the hype and emotion, glimpse the law, and send Spanier on his merry way, so he can proceed with lawsuits against Penn State and Louie Freeh.

Today, after Judge John Boccabella went over the legalities of the charges in the case, the jury began deliberating. Within 15 minutes, they had a question for the judge. They subsequently had two more questions.

The jury asked the judge to give them the definition of a conspiracy. They wanted to know the definition of acting recklessly. They also asked in order to have a conspiracy, does a crime necessarily have to have been committed?

Absolutely, the judge said.

Ditka had to be seething over this. If only she could have gotten in front of the jury one more time for a rebuttal. She could have talked about the tears of Victim No. 5. And that animal named Sandusky that the guys at the top of the totem pole at Penn State had knowingly turned loose on helpless children that they didn't care about.

By 7 p.m., after dinner was brought in, the jury was still deliberating. One of the jurors asked the judge if they could take a vote on whether to retire for the night.

No, the judge said. He alone would decide when they were going home.
 
The ask is vague. Give me an example that would satisfy your requirements so I can finally shut you up about this.
Give me some information that I can look up independently and verify. You keep talking about how ****ing smart you are so figure it out. LOL
That's incorrect. I do have morals; you just cannot grasp that they are different from yours and yet still just as valid.
You do not. Like Stalin, most people would reject your morals as hateful and evil. You hate children, wish the human race to become extinct and are basically a nihilist. Since you can change your "morals" at your own will then you have none. You just do whatever you please.
This is ridiculous. Who tells you what your morals should be? Everyone should arrive at their own moral construct.
They must be objective
The source of your morals should be yourself. If other people are telling you what your morals should be, you are a sheep.
Is the source of your morals is just what you think then you have none. You are immoral.
They didn't cover anything up, so this is a nonsensical statement.
Yes they did.
 
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Again...please post any evidence you have to fortify your position.

If they wanted to brush this under the rug, why would they run two sting operations even after the kid stated that nothing ever happened to him?
Gricar was likely trying to elicit a confession so he could then confront Sandusky and force him into therapy. It would allow Gricar the ability to avoid filing charges but still deal with the problem in some manner. That's exactly how the incident with Mr. Weatherman played out a few years earlier. A confession was elicited and charges were not filed. It's a way for DAs to avoid charging prominent people in the community because they know these guys will have good lawyers at their disposal.
 
If the DA doesn't get all the facts, such as important information is withheld from him, he might not make the decision to prosecute ( which happened). The officers wanted to arrest him, they believed they had a enough but Gricar wasn't convinced and part of the doubt came from the Seasock report.
The doubt from the Seasock report may have had more to do with what it said about Victim 6 and not Jerry. Neither Seasock or Chambers report was admissible in court so it didn't hold any weight to Gricar in terms of any evidential value.

However, according to the book Game Over (whose primary source was likely Joseph Leiter, Corporal in the PSP) Gricar told Schreffler he wasn't filing charges because of problems with the Victim. Schreffler had stated he thought V6 was a strong witness...so there's a discrepancy.

Seasock's report was primarly providing a mental evaluation of V6 (which has been redacted), who did have issues (hence the reason he was seeing Chambers). The Seasock report highlighted those issues and gave Gricar a reason (excuse?) why he couldn't go forward.
 
The doubt from the Seasock report may have had more to do with what it said about Victim 6 and not Jerry. Neither Seasock or Chambers report was admissible in court so it didn't hold any weight to Gricar in terms of any evidential value.

However, according to the book Game Over (whose primary source was likely Joseph Leiter, Corporal in the PSP) Gricar told Schreffler he wasn't filing charges because of problems with the Victim. Schreffler had stated he thought V6 was a strong witness...so there's a discrepancy.

Seasock's report was primarly providing a mental evaluation of V6 (which has been redacted), who did have issues (hence the reason he was seeing Chambers). The Seasock report highlighted those issues and gave Gricar a reason (excuse?) why he couldn't go forward.
Yep.
 
Gricar was likely trying to elicit a confession so he could then confront Sandusky and force him into therapy. It would allow Gricar the ability to avoid filing charges but still deal with the problem in some manner. That's exactly how the incident with Mr. Weatherman played out a few years earlier. A confession was elicited and charges were not filed. It's a way for DAs to avoid charging prominent people in the community because they know these guys will have good lawyers at their disposal.
Interesting point. For most DAs the driving principle is to get the highest conviction rate possible. That is the measuring stick of their success and the guide to future public office. Seems most every DA wants to move up the ladder. So taking on prominent people with top attorneys is a threat to their record and ambitions. Better to deal with it with some kind of deal.
 
Interesting point. For most DAs the driving principle is to get the highest conviction rate possible. That is the measuring stick of their success and the guide to future public office. Seems most every DA wants to move up the ladder. So taking on prominent people with top attorneys is a threat to their record and ambitions. Better to deal with it with some kind of deal.
DAs are elected , and you don’t go after a guy like Jerry is 98 unless you’re 100% sure you have him dead to rights.
 
The doubt from the Seasock report may have had more to do with what it said about Victim 6 and not Jerry. Neither Seasock or Chambers report was admissible in court so it didn't hold any weight to Gricar in terms of any evidential value.

However, according to the book Game Over (whose primary source was likely Joseph Leiter, Corporal in the PSP) Gricar told Schreffler he wasn't filing charges because of problems with the Victim. Schreffler had stated he thought V6 was a strong witness...so there's a discrepancy.

Seasock's report was primarly providing a mental evaluation of V6 (which has been redacted), who did have issues (hence the reason he was seeing Chambers). The Seasock report highlighted those issues and gave Gricar a reason (excuse?) why he couldn't go forward.
IIRC, the mother called the police when her kid came home with wet hair and told her about his time with Jerry. The mom suspected something but the kid said nothing happened that was sexual in nature. If the kid denied anything happened, I am not sure why anyone would consider them to be a 'strong witness'. Hell, if the kid accused Jerry they wouldn't have needed two psych evals and two sting operations. A teen kid (or pre-teen kid) is a pretty compelling witness if his story holds up under cross examination. And the cross-examiner would have to be damned careful not to look like he's bullying a pre-teen who was a victim.
 
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DAs are elected , and you don’t go after a guy like Jerry is 98 unless you’re 100% sure you have him dead to rights.
Yes indeed. This gives lie to the idea that Jerry was exonerated in 1998. It was VERY hard to convict Jerry and only possible after MM and the others came out.
 
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The doubt from the Seasock report may have had more to do with what it said about Victim 6 and not Jerry. Neither Seasock or Chambers report was admissible in court so it didn't hold any weight to Gricar in terms of any evidential value.

However, according to the book Game Over (whose primary source was likely Joseph Leiter, Corporal in the PSP) Gricar told Schreffler he wasn't filing charges because of problems with the Victim. Schreffler had stated he thought V6 was a strong witness...so there's a discrepancy.

Seasock's report was primarly providing a mental evaluation of V6 (which has been redacted), who did have issues (hence the reason he was seeing Chambers). The Seasock report highlighted those issues and gave Gricar a reason (excuse?) why he couldn't go forward.
Nevertheless, while Gricar did not have a winnable case against a pillar of he community, PSU DID have knowledge of what Chambers said and SHOULD have taken action right then to limit his showering with kids alone on campus. That they did nothing shows coverup.
 
Nevertheless, while Gricar did not have a winnable case against a pillar of he community, PSU DID have knowledge of what Chambers said and SHOULD have taken action right then to limit his showering with kids alone on campus. That they did nothing shows coverup.
It shows coverup only if you're looking for a coverup. It's a possibility that it was a coverup. But I think it's equally or more likely that either the right people didn't see her report, or they saw that the other report fit more with their understanding of who Sandusky was and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Yet another non-criminal explanation would be garden variety incompetence. While I think everyone in a decision-making capacity was reasonably intelligent, I don't think any of them had experience dealing with pedophiles, especially one as masterful as Sandusky is alleged to be.

Let's be real. The so-called coverup, after dragging on for years and probably many millions of dollars in costs, resulted in single misdemeanor convictions for child endangerment based on a very tortured reading of the statute that was more likely meant for high school and elementary teachers and not college administrators who are unlikely to come across young kids in their day-to-day work. In a well-orchestrated coverup one would normally expect some felony convictions for conspiracy and obstruction of justice even if the underlying crime was a misdemeanor. The fact that Shapiro's running for governor should tell you all you need to know about how politically-motivated those cases were. Frank Fina lost his law license for his conduct along the way, but while he may have been singled out I think his poisonous attitude toward justice pervaded the AG's office. They were about winning, not justice.

Why is a Nole so fascinated with Penn State? What's the connection?
 
Yes indeed. This gives lie to the idea that Jerry was exonerated in 1998. It was VERY hard to convict Jerry and only possible after MM and the others came out.
He wasn’t exonerated of course. They didn’t somehow clear him so when MM reported they should have moved into high gear.
 
IIRC, the mother called the police when her kid came home with wet hair and told her about his time with Jerry. The mom suspected something but the kid said nothing happened that was sexual in nature. If the kid denied anything happened, I am not sure why anyone would consider them to be a 'strong witness'. Hell, if the kid accused Jerry they wouldn't have needed two psych evals and two sting operations. A teen kid (or pre-teen kid) is a pretty compelling witness if his story holds up under cross examination. And the cross-examiner would have to be damned careful not to look like he's bullying a pre-teen who was a victim.
He stated he was uncomfortable with the incident and that there was physical contact when Jerry picked him up. He was consistent in his statements through several interviews. His friend had the exact same story independently.

What they claimed happened was enough that indecent contact and corruption of minor charges could have been brought. Whether a jury would have found a guilty verdict on those charges is another matter but Gricar had enough to charge if he chose to.
 
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He stated he was uncomfortable with the incident and that there was physical contact when Jerry picked him up. He was consistent in his statements through several interviews. His friend had the exact same story independently.

What they claimed happened was enough that indecent contact and corruption of minor charges could have been brought. Whether a jury would have found a guilty verdict on those charges is another matter but Gricar had enough to charge if he chose to.
Yep, I can understand his hesitation.
 
He stated he was uncomfortable with the incident and that there was physical contact when Jerry picked him up. He was consistent in his statements through several interviews. His friend had the exact same story independently.

What they claimed happened was enough that indecent contact and corruption of minor charges could have been brought. Whether a jury would have found a guilty verdict on those charges is another matter but Gricar had enough to charge if he chose to.
OK, it is now illegal to pick a kid up? (or was in 1998) That is gong to suck for wrestling coaches.
 
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Quite the intelligent, mature response.

It's unfortunate that so many people like you become the face of Penn State fans. In complete denial that this program had indicators for years that Sandusky was a potential issue -- but did nothing. In complete denial. And why? Because you value the reputation of your football coach more than the urgency of protecting potential victims of a man who was clearly troubled.

And thank you. I had a great night!

Read Snedden antics and relax.


On the Penn State campus in 2012, with national security at stake, that's just what Special Agent Snedden did on behalf of the U.S. government. And instead of finding a sex scandal or a cover-up in the cold case he was investigating in Happy Valley, Snedden said he discovered ample evidence of a "political hit job."

Back in 2012, Snedden was working as a special agent for the Federal Investigative Services. His assignment against the backdrop of the so-called Penn State sex abuse scandal was to determine whether former Penn State President Graham Spanier deserved to have his high-level national security clearance renewed.

The focus was on Spanier, but to do that investigation properly, Snedden, a PSU alum himself, had to unravel a big mess at his old alma mater. To figure out whether Spanier could be trusted with access to the most sensitive national secrets.

So Snedden began his job by starting at the beginning. By going back eleven years, to 2001, when Mike McQueary made his famous trip to the Penn State locker room. Where McQueary supposedly heard and saw a naked Jerry Sandusky cavorting in the showers with a young boy.

But there was a problem. In the beginning, Snedden said, McQueary "told people he doesn't know what he saw exactly." McQueary said he heard "rhythmic slapping sounds" in the shower, Snedden said.

"I've never had a rape case successfully prosecuted based only on sounds, and without credible victims and witnesses," Snedden said.

"I don't think you can say he's credible," Snedden said about McQueary. Why? Because he told "so many different stories," Snedden said. McQueary's stories about what he thought he saw or heard in the shower ranged from rough horseplay and/or wrestling all the way up to sex.

Which story, Snedden asked, do you want to believe?

"None of it makes any sense," Snedden said about McQueary's tale. "It's not a credible story."

Back in 2001, Snedden said, Mike McQueary was a 26-year-old, 6-foot-5, 240-pound former college quarterback used to running away from 350-pound defensive linemen.

If McQueary actually saw Jerry Sandusky raping a young boy in the shower, Snedden said, he probably would have done something to stop it.

"I think your moral compass would cause you to act and not just flee," Snedden said.

If McQueary really thought he was witnessing a sexual assault on a child, Snedden said, wouldn't he have gotten between the victim and a "wet, defenseless naked 57-year-old guy in the shower?"

Or, if McQueary decided he wasn't going to physically intervene, Snedden said, then why didn't he call the cops from the Lasch Building? The locker room where McQueary supposedly saw Sandusky with the boy in the showers.

When he was a baby NCIS agent, Snedden said, a veteran agent who was his mentor would always ask the same question.

"So John," the veteran agent would say, "Where is the crime?"

At Penn State, Snedden didn't find one.

Working on behalf of FIS, Snedden wrote a 110-page report, all in capital letters, where he catalogued the evidence that led him to conclude that McQueary wasn't a credible witness.

In his report, Snedden interviewed Thomas G. Poole, Penn State's vice president for administration. Poole told Snedden he was in Graham Spanier's office when news of the Penn State scandal broke, and Penn State's then-senior Vice President Gary Schultz came rushing in.

Schultz blurted out that "McQueary never told him this was sexual," Snedden wrote. Schultz was shocked by what McQueary told the grand jury, Snedden wrote.

"He [McQueary] told the grand jury that he reported to [Schultz] that this was sexual," Schultz told Poole and Spanier.

"While speaking, Schultz shook his head back and forth as in disbelief," Snedden wrote about Poole's observations. Poole "believes it appeared there was a lot of disbelief in the room regarding this information."
"I've never had a rape victim or a witness to a rape tell multiple stories about how it happened," Snedden said. "If it's real it's always been the same thing."

But that's not what happened with McQueary. And Snedden thinks he knows why.
"In my view, the evolution of what we saw as a result of Mike McQueary's interview with the AG's office" was the transformation of a story about rough horseplay into something sexual, Snedden said.
"I think it would be orchestrated by them," Snedden said about the AG's office, which has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

In Snedden's report, he interviewed Schuyler J. McLaughlin, Penn State's facility security officer at the university's applied research laboratory. McLaughlin, a former NCIS agent himself, as well as a lawyer, told Snedden that McQueary initially was confused by what he saw.

"What McQueary saw, apparenty it looked sexual to him and he may have been worried about what would happen to him," Snedden wrote. "Because McQueary wanted to keep his job" at Penn State.
[McLaughlin] "believes Curley and Schultz likely asked tough questions and those tough questions likely caused McQueary to question what he actually saw," Snedden wrote. McLaughlin "believes that after questioning, McQueary likely did not know what he actually saw," Snedden wrote. "And McQueary "probably realized he could not prove what he saw."

There was also confusion over the date of the alleged shower incident. At the grand jury, McQueary testified that it took place on March 1, 2002. But at the Sandusky trial, McQueary changed the date of the shower incident to Feb. 9, 2001.

There was also confusion over the identity of the boy in the showers. In 2011, the Pennsylvania State Police interviewed a man suspected of being "Victim No. 2." Allan Myers was then a 24-year-old married Marine who had been involved in Sandusky's Second Mile charity since he was a third-grader.

Myers, however, told the state police he "does not believe the allegations that have been raised" against Sandusky, and that another accuser was "only out to get some money." Myers said he used to work out with Sandusky since he was 12 or 13, and that "nothing inappropriate occurred while showering with Sandusky." Myers also told the police that Sandusky never did anything that "made him uncomfortable."

Myers even wrote a letter of support for Sandusky that was published in the Centre Daily Times, where he described Sandusky as his "best friend, tutor, workout mentor and more." Myers lived with Sandusky while he attended college. When Myers got married, he invited Jerry and Dottie Sandusky to the wedding.

Then, Myers got a lawyer and flipped, claiming that Sandusky assaulted him ten times. But at the Sandusky trial, the state attorney general's office deemed Myers an unreliable witness and did not call him to testify against Sandusky.

Instead, the prosecutor told the jury, the identity of Victim No. 2, the boy in the showers, "was known only to God."

Myers, however, eventually collected $3 million in what was supposed to be a confidential settlement with Penn State as Victim No. 2.
Mike McQueary may not have known for sure what he heard and saw in the shower. And the cops and the prosecutors may not know who Victim No. 2 really was. But John Snedden had it figured out pretty early what the source of the trouble was at Penn State.

Snedden recalled that four days into his 2012 investigation, he called his bosses to let them know that despite all the hoopla in the media, there was no sex scandal at Penn State.
"I just want to make sure you realize that this is a political hit job," Snedden recalled telling his bosses. "The whole thing is political."
Why did the Penn State situation get blown so far out of proportion?

"When I get a case, I independently investigate it," Snedden said. "It seems like that was not the case here. It wasn't an independent inquiry. It was an orchestrated effort to make the circumstances fit the alleged crime."

How did they get it so wrong at Penn State?

"To put it in a nutshell, I would say there was an exceptional rush to judgment to satisfy people," Snedden said. "So they wouldn't have to answer any more questions."

"It's a giant rush to judgement," Snedden said. "There was no debate."

"Ninety-nine percent of it is hysteria," Snedden said. Ninety-nine percent of what happened at Penn State boiled down to people running around yelling, "Oh my God, we've got to do something immediately," Snedden said.

It didn't matter that most of the people Snedden talked to at Penn State couldn't believe that Graham Spanier would have ever participated in a coverup, especially involving the abuse of a child.

Carolyn A. Dolbin, an administrative assistant to the PSU president, told Snedden that Spanier told her "that his father has physically abused him when [Spanier] was a child, and as a result [Spanier] had a broken nose and needed implants."
Spanier himself told Snedden, "He had been abused as a child and he would not stand for that," meaning a coverup, Snedden wrote.

Snedden couldn't believe the way the Penn State Board of Trustees acted the night they decided to fire both Spanier and Paterno.

There was no investigation, no determination of the facts. Instead, the officials running the show at Penn State wanted to move on as fast as possible from the scandal by sacrificing a few scapegoats.

At an executive session, the vice chairman of the PSU board, John Surma, the CEO of U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh, told his fellow PSU board members, "We need to get rid of Paterno and Spanier," Snedden said. And then Surma asked, "Does anybody disagree with that?"

"There wasn't even a vote," Snedden said. In Snedden's report, Dr. Rodney Erickson, the former PSU president, told Snedden that Spanier "is collateral damage in all of this."

Erickson didn't believe there was a coverup at Penn State, because of what Spanier had told him.

"I was told it was just horsing around in the shower," Spanier told Erickson, as recounted in Snedden's report. "How do you call the police on that?"

On the night the board of trustees fired Paterno, they kept calling Paterno's house, but there was no answer. Finally, the board sent a courier over to Paterno's house, and asked him to call Surma's cell phone.


When Paterno called, Surma was ready to tell the coach three things. But he only got to his first item.

"Surma was only able to tell Paterno that he was no longer football coach before Paterno hung up," Snedden wrote.

In Snedden's report, Spanier is quoted as telling Frances Anne Riley, a member of the board of trustees, "I was so naive."

"He means that politically," Snedden said about Spanier. "He was so naive to understand that a governor would go to that level to jam him. How a guy could be so vindictive," Snedden said, referring to the former governor, who could not be reached for comment.

When the Penn State scandal hit, "It was a convenient disaster," Snedden said. Because it gave the governor a chance "to fulfill vendettas."

The governor was angry at Spanier for vocally opposing Corbett's plan to cut Penn State's budget by 52 percent, Snedden wrote. In his report, Spanier, who was put under oath by Snedden and questioned for eight hours, stated that he had been the victim of "vindictiveness from the governor."

In Snedden's report, Spanier "explained that Gov. Corbett is an alumni of Lebanon Valley College [a private college], that Gov. Corbett is a strong supporter of the voucher system, wherein individuals can choose to utilize funding toward private eduction, as opposed to public education."
Corbett, Spanier told Snedden, "is not fond of Penn State, and is not fond of public higher education."

Spanier, Snedden wrote, "is now hearing that when the Penn State Board of Trustees was telling [Spanier] not to take action and that they [the Penn State Board of Trustees] were going to handle the situation, that the governor was actually exercising pressure on the [The Penn State Board of Trustees] to have [Spanier] leave."
The governor, Snedden said, "wants to be the most popular guy in Pennsylvania." But Spanier was fighting him politically, and Joe Paterno was a football legend.

Suddenly, the Penn State scandal came along, and Corbett could lobby the Penn State Board of Trustees to get rid of both Spanier and Paterno.

And suddenly Corbett starts showing up at Penn State Board of Trustees meetings, where the governor was a board member, but didn't usually bother to go. Only now Corbett "is the knight in shining armor," Snedden said. Because he's the guy cleaning up that horrible sex abuse scandal at Penn State.

"The wrong people are being looked at here," Snedden said about the scandal at Penn State. As far as Snedden was concerned, the board of trustees at Penn State had no reason to fire Spanier or Paterno.

""It's a political vendetta by somebody that has an epic degree of vindictiveness and will stop at nothing apparently," Snedden said about Corbett.

The whole thing is appalling," Snedden said. "It's absurd that somebody didn't professionally investigate this thing from the get-go."

As far as Snedden is concerned, the proof that the investigation was tampered with was shown in the flip-flop done by Cynthia Baldwin, Penn State's former counsel.

"You've got a clear indication that Cynthia Baldwin was doing whatever they wanted her to do," Snedden said about Baldwin's cooperation with the AG's office.

In her interview with Snedden, Baldwin called Spanier "a very smart man, a man of integrity." She told Snedden that she trusted Spanier, and trusted his judgment. This was true even during "the protected privileged period" from 2010 on, Baldwin told Snedden. While Baldwin was acting as Spanier's counsel, and, on the advice of her lawyer, wasn't supposed to discuss that so-called privileged period with Snedden.

Baldwn subsequently became a cooperating witness who testified against Spanier, Curley and Schultz.

Another aspect of the hysterical rush to judgment by Penn State: the university paid out $93 million to the alleged victims of Sandusky, without vetting anybody. None of the alleged victims were deposed by lawyers; none were examined by forensic psychiatrists.

Instead, Penn State just wrote the checks, no questions asked. The university's free-spending prompted a lawsuit from Penn State's insurance carrier, the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association Insurance Company.

So Snedden wrote a report that called for renewing Spanier's high-level security clearance. Because Snedden didn't find any evidence of a coverup at Penn State. Because there was nothing to cover up.

"The circumstances surrounding [Spanier's] departure from his position as PSU president do not cast doubt on [Spanier's] current reliability, trustworthiness or good judgment and do not cast doubt on his ability to properly safeguard national security information," Snedden wrote.
Meanwhile, the university paid $8.3 million for a report from former FBI Director Louie Freeh, who reached the opposite conclusion that Snedden did. Freeh found that there had been a top-down coverup of a sex crime at Penn State that was allegedly orchestrated by Spanier.

What does Snedden think of the Louie Freeh report?

"It's an embarrassment to law enforcement," Snedden said.

Louie Freeh, Snedden said, is a political appointee.

"Maybe he did an investigation at one point in his life, but not on this one," Snedden said about the report Freeh wrote on Penn State.

What about the role the media played in creating an atmosphere of hysteria?

"Sadly, I think they've demonstrated that investigative journalism is dead," Snedden said.
If Jerry Sandusky was a pedophile, Snedden said, how did he survive a month-long investigation back in 1998 by the Penn State police, the State College police, the Centre County District Attorney's office, and the state Department of Child/Public Welfare?

All of those agencies investigated Sandusky, after a mother complained about Jerry taking a shower with her 11-year-old son. Were all those agencies bamboozled? None of them could catch a pedophile in action?

Another problem for people who believe that Jerry Sandusky was a pedophile: When the cops came to Sandusky's house armed with search warrants, they didn't find any porn.

Have you ever heard of a pedophilia case where large caches of pornography weren't found, I asked Snedden.

"No," he said. "Having worked child sex abuse cases before, they [pedophiles] go from the porn to actually acting it out. It's a crescendo."

"I'm more inclined" to believe the results of the 1998 investigation, Snedden said. "Because they're not politically motivated."

Snedden said he's had "minimalistic contact" with Sandusky that basically involved watching him behave at a high school football game.

"I really do think he's a big kid," Snedden said of Sandusky.

Does he believe there's any credible evidence that Sandusky is a pedophile?

"Certainly none that's come to light that wasn't susceptible to manipulation," he said.

Does Sandusky deserve a new trial?

"Without a doubt," Snedden said. Because the first time around, when he was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in jail, Sandusky didn't have a real trial, Snedden said.

"To have a real trial, you should actually have real credible witnesses and credible victims," Snedden said. "And no leaks from the grand jury."

It also would have been a fair trial, Snedden said, if the people who Sandusky would have called as defense witnesses hadn't already been indicted by the state attorney general's office.

While he was investigating Spanier, Snedden said, he had his own dust-up with the state Attorney General's office. It came in the form of an unwanted phone call from Anthony Sassano, the lead investigator in the AG's office on the Sandusky case.

Sassano didn't go through the appropriate channels when he called, Snedden said. But Sassano demanded to see Snedden's report.

Snedden said he told Sassano, sorry, but that's the property of the federal government. Sassano, Snedden said, responded by "spewing obscenities."

"It was something to the effect of I will ****ing see your ass and your ****ing report at the grand jury," Snedden recalled Sassano telling him.

Sure enough, Snedden was served with a subpoena from the state AG's office on October 22, 2012. But the feds sent the subpoena back saying they didn't have to honor it.

"The doctrine of sovereign immunity precludes a state court from compelling a federal employee, pursuant to its subpoena and contempt powers, from offering testimony contrary to his agency's instructions," the feds wrote back to the state Attorney General's office.

So what would it take to straighten out the mess at Penn State?

"The degree of political involvement in this case is so high," Snedden said.

"You need to take an assistant U.S. Attorney from Arizona or somewhere who doesn't know anything about Penn State," Snedden said. Surround him with a competent staff of investigators, and turn them loose for 30 days.
 
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