hey is now a good time to mention that what they did in 2001 was not illegal??
Good Day for the Good Guys
- Thread starter wensilver
- Start date
hey is now a good time to mention that what they did in 2001 was not illegal??
you'd have to ask her. I hear she's giving out testimony like Halloween candy these days
Interestingly Dukie while many people made the assumptions you talk about very early on in this mess i would say this. Look at how everyone has acted since the episode. Fighting release of records, fighting release of emails, chief investigator telling a judge "well we will never try those guys" same Chief saying he found nothing done by JVP and yet the beat goes on and on. There are very few people in this mess who can be trusted.
As a side note while I think Mike was really in a bad spot, but i just can't reconcile what he says he saw [the graphic version] and the way Dr D. and Mike and your dad reacted. I know we disagree about this but my opinion is 10 years after the fact and withcurrent knowledge that JS was a bad guy, and perhaps a few suggestions by the police Mile's recollection changed. Maybe not even intentionally just with a whole new set of facts. My list is also very short unfortunately Mike doesn't make my list.
And why do some people assume that everyone knew about 1998? It was a criminal investigation. Those things are not broadcast. If one of my employees was being investigated for criminal activity that did not involve me in any way, why would I know about it?
To those who assume Joe "had to know about 1998" because "he ran the place", I ask this: Is it possible that the police took the position of: "There's no fu@cing way we can let Paterno know about this investigation, he will get rid of Jerry in a New York minute". I wouldn't be surprised if that was the general tone surrounding the 1998 investigation at all.
Fair point. I say there was no reason for Joe to know about 1998 because the investigation did not involve him. Some say that Joe had to know because he was Joe. These people need to put it in a simple perspective. Joe was jerry's boss. If you are a boss of someone in your job, could you think of scenarios where your employee would be investigated for a crime and you would not know about it? My employees have personal lives. I don't know all that they do outside of work. If one of my employees was being investigated for some activity outside of work, why would I know about it?
Why are you so sure that MM reported an account of child sex abuse? No one's actions are consistent with that, and C/S/S haven't had their trial yet. Second question, if he did see and report child sex abuse, why didn't he stop it? Why didn't he call the police? Why would the blame for FTR belong to anyone but MM?
Exactly. If MM's 2010 version of the story is to believed, that he was certain JS was sodomizing a boy, can anyone explain the following?:
-MM contemplated calling the police that night then decided against it, deciding to sleep on it then tell a football coach the next morning
-never made a written statement to UPPD/anonymous call to childline
-never asked anyone at PSU why no one from UPPD ever came to get his statement
-when TC called MM a few weeks later to tell him what they did/decided to do about his report MM never expressed dissatisfaction and never said MORE needed to be done
If anyone can explain the above I'm all ears but to me it paints a clear picture that MM was playing revisionist history in his 2010 statement to OAG and GJ testimony--in reality he wasn't really sure what JS and the kid were doing in 2001 but was weirded out (rightfully so due to the circumstances) and felt uncomfortable about it and that someone at PSU should know...hence his report to Joe vs UPPD.
and that's why Schultz himself testified it was reported to CYS (or the same agency as the last time)
or the simple fact that it would have been illegal, unethical, and could have compromised the investigation to do so
"I'm all ears but to me it paints a clear picture that MM was playing revisionist history in his 2010 statement to OAG and GJ testimony".
I think the sentiments of the passage quoted above REALLY need to be dismissed.....or at least called into question.
I can certainly understand why - on face value - a person sensing an incongruency between actions of 2001 and 2010 (by MM/TC/GS/JP, or any of the other actors in this affair) could come to that conclusion......but the truth is, it just isn't so.
Couple of things up front:
- This is not a conclusion, or even an analysis, of the guilt/innocence of CSS
- This is not a critique of the actions of ANY of the involved parties
When and if the CSS trials occur, we will (hopefully) have a lot more reliable information with which to make those conclusions. Right now, we do not have anywhere near the necessary information (at least not publically available) to even begin to answer those questions.
We may see - if the trials ever occur - that certain folks are "guilty as sin". We may find just the opposite. Unfortunately, we may have a trial and STILL not really know.
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As uncomfortable as it may be to recognize, the truth is that disparate and incongruent statements - especially in a situation like this one - do not mean that ANYONE is being untruthful or misleading.
That is a very difficult concept to come to grips with - as we all WANT to believe that things are much more "black and white" than that.
I mentioned earlier, that we should all hope that the CSS trials are adjudicated in such a way that this entire MM/Paterno/Shultz/Curley conversations issue is essentially irrelevant......because the truth of the matter is that there SHOULD be no significant weight given to ANY of the testimonies regarding these conversations.
If these cases are going to be adjudicated with ANY chance to provide true clarity, the evidence considered had better be something other than the recall of these conversations.
I've attached links to a couple of the research studies relevant to the issues.....but I doubt if anyone will actually read those - so I also attached the summary of the subject on a "Wiki" page (which does have a lot of good references linked cited).
The obvious conclusions, if one reads the actual studies, is that THIS CASE IS THE ABSOLUTE, NO DOUBT, POSTER CHILD with regard to why such testimony is WORTHLESS. Certainly, given that the related situation is one with such an incredible amount at stake, all the more reason that the "conversations of 2001" need to be essentially disregarded.
This case should rely upon PROVABLE actions of the last few decades, and verifiable contemporaneous documentation. NOT upon (partially) disparate recollections of decade-old conversations.
The link to the WIKI Page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_effect
Some of the most relevant excerpts from the WIKI page (if you go there, you can then reference the actual studies through the citations):
Time
Individuals may not be actively rehearsing the details of a given event after encoding. The longer the delay between the presentation of the original event and post-event information, the more likely it is that individuals will incorporate misinformation into their final reports. Furthermore, more time to study the original event leads to lower susceptibility to the misinformation effect, due to increased rehearsal time.
[Nine years? Yes, I think that is probably about as much of an outlier as anyone could ever ponder. And that applies to ALL of the actors (MM,TC/GS/JP)......Combine that with the fact that the "original event" was a "couple of seconds" of observation, and you have an exponential dilution of any relevance to these testimonies.]
Source reliabilityThe more reliable the source of the post-event information, the more likely it is that participants will adopt the information into their memory. For example, Dodd and Bradshaw (1980) used slides of a car accident for their original event. They then had misinformation delivered to half of the participants by an unreliable source: a lawyer representing the driver. The remaining participants were presented with misinformation, but given no indication of the source. The misinformation was rejected by those who received information from the unreliable source and adopted by the other group of subjects.
[In other words, if I receive post-event information from someone I have full faith and trust in....I am very likely to have that information implanted in my brain as "true". This would depend on the individual - if my Brother provides me with the information, I am highly likely to adopt it as true...if my Brother provides YOU with the information, you may not adopt it. The same would hold for trusted co-workers etc. It all depends on the viewpoint of the person receiving the information. For most people, information coming from "authority figures" (Police, Clergy, Your Boss or Commanding Officer) would be likely to be adopted. But someone with a predisposition to "not trust anyone over 30" would be less likely to adopt that information.]
Other
Most obviously, leading questions and narrative accounts can change episodic memories and thereby affect witness' responses to questions about the original event. Additionally, witnesses are more likely to be swayed by misinformation when they are suffering from alcohol withdrawal or sleep deprivation, when interviewers are firm as opposed to friendly, and when participants experience repeated questioning about the event.
It should also be mentioned that it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to imagine another situation where SO MUCH post-event information has been presented.
We also know - from reading the studies - that situations that evoke strong emotions, and situations that have dire consequences for the individuals involved - further invalidate the weight that should be placed on those recollections. Again, it is hard to imagine a scenario where these factors are more dramatic than the whole CSS situation.
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A couple of academic studies on the issues:
http://groups.colgate.edu/cjs/student_papers/2002/JScheer.pdf
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09658210701363146#.Vc4IemdRHIU
Meanwhile, they did not press Failure to Report charges against the MANDATORY REPORTERS at Central Mountain High School despite multiple Mandatory Reporters at CMHS refusing to make a CSA report at the DIRECT request of V1 and his mother! Not just once, but multiple times including V1's mother stating that if they continued to refuse they were going to leave the school and go directly to the Clinton County CYS Office and make a report themselves and tell the office that the administrators at CMHS refused to make a report (which is precisely what V1's mother did). The evidence doesn't get much stronger than that for OAG Corbett and his clown-cop prosecutors, but they never indicted those really responsible for "Failing to Report" in regards to the SWIGJ initiated by V1's MOTHER'S VERY ACTIONS!!! Gee, go figure!?!?
Don't get me wrong, I agree 100% that looking at testimony (especially non cross examined GJ testimony) and statements from people about an event that happened 10 years in the past is completely worthless, but the gist of my post was that NO ONE's actions in 2001 (and that includes: MM, JM, Dr. D, C/S/S, JoePa, and whoever else was told about 2001 contemporaneously) make any sense if MM's 2010 statement is to be believed.
Either all of the above folks are terrible people for being told of certain child rape/molestation and not doing anything to get actual LE involved and JS off the streets and away from kids or MM's 2010 version isn't the same as his 2001 version (IOW MM changed a 2 alarm fire to a 5 alarm fire thus throwing everyone who knew about 2001 under the bus). I find the latter much easier to believe. We do know that Fina and his OAG buddies were corrupt and had no issues with playing fast and loose with the rules so I wouldn't be surprised if they convinced/threatened MM to give the statement that they needed.
How in the world does a grown man think a child was getting assaulted then doesn't even so much as make a written statement to police or call childline (anonymously if desired) after he clearly sees that the person is still walking around as a free man and still had direct access to kids via TSM after his initial report to PSU admins??? It doesn't add up.
Logic would dictate that after a few weeks MM/JM/Dr. D would start making a big stink of things (asking why UPPD never came to get MM's statement for their criminal investigation, asking why CC CYS hasn't been contacted or just going to CC CYS themselves, etc.) if MM really did think a kid was getting abused. But nope. They all went on with their lives as if nothing happened after they were told by PSU admins that JS's guest privileges were revoked and TSM was told about the incident and PSU's new directives. That makes no sense if it was a 5 alarm fire but it makes perfect sense for a 2 alarm fire.
bwifan
Well-Known Member
Jim.... wasn't sure before but you confirmed it today... your a special kind of stupid aren't ya?
I understand what you're saying 2006.
Certainly, nothing that you say is irrational or illogical. The most unfortunate aspect, in my opinion, is that 4 years out......and we still have NOTHING else available to go on......and so we all (myself included) want to connect the dots that we DO have.
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The idea of having a PROPER investigation....which it appears we have not had (time will tell - but from the few things we "think" we know - ignoring TSM involvement, apparent immunity granted to folks who may have been involved, etc etc etc - sure makes you question the entire investigation)
and
Having a fair trial......which we obviously have not had
....is to uncover all of those dots, and determine what the real picture is.
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Thus far, what we have had is a few dots put out there by the prosecution......dots that, quite frankly, don't make any sense.......as you illustrated within your post.
Dots that they - as trained investigators, should know have very little validity with respect to the charges proffered.
Are there more "dots" - more items of legitimate evidence out there? I don't know....I only know that if there are, we (the public) haven't seen them.
The point of my earlier post (and please, don't think it was directed at you) was to highlight what I think is a crucial element - and one that I hope we all keep in mind.......
The recollections of MM/TC/GS/JP (RIP)/ and anyone else involved in the conversations of 2001 are essentially worthless....and should be a non-factor in the determination of this case.
It appears that we are in agreement on that point (great minds think alike
)Unfortunately, so far, that has been THE FOCUS of all to conjecture over this case (again, understandable, since we have been waiting 4 years to see anything of substance).....but I think that is very unfair to all involved..
As of today, I place most of the blame/responsibility for that, at the feet of the OAG, the Prosecutors, and the Court. I'll try to be amenable to more information to the contrary, but that is how I see it based on information available right now.
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As AG Corbett had oversight responsibility for organizations such as TSM. In addition, too many supporters and donors would have been scorched if TSM was implicated. Also, the CYS and DPW had incestuous relationships in Centre County with TSM. Hell JR was doing contract work for them.
Tommy Boy had no qualms with tying this mess to PSU and killing two birds with one stone (getting Spanier). Hell he boasted about his leadership 11/11 (I told them to do it....fire Spanier and JVP). Can you have any doubt members of the BOT profited from falling in line? For some it was a personal vendetta, others saw advantages personally or for their corporations. Freeh's dog and pony show put (they thought) the final bow on the package. MM simply got caught in the cross fire.
Tommy Boy had no qualms with tying this mess to PSU and killing two birds with one stone (getting Spanier). Hell he boasted about his leadership 11/11 (I told them to do it....fire Spanier and JVP). Can you have any doubt members of the BOT profited from falling in line? For some it was a personal vendetta, others saw advantages personally or for their corporations. Freeh's dog and pony show put (they thought) the final bow on the package. MM simply got caught in the cross fire.
Joe almost certainly knew JS was involved in some sort of internal matter in 1998 given that he was Sandusky's supervisor, but claiming they would tell Joe why they wanted to speak with Sandusky or the specifics of the investigation (or even identifying it as an investigation rather than an "internal matter") would not happen -- there is no "need to know" on the part of Paterno, so there is no way they would have told him as it could open them up to liability if the matter proved unfounded.
The most material piece of information IMHO that Joe would have no way of knowing (especially after Harmon had the criminal investigation re-classified as an "administrative action", sealed and filed) was the last interview University Park, PA Police Detective, Ronald Schreffler, had with Sandusky in which he got him to admit that his behavior was wrong, but ascribe the cause of the behavior to "bad judgement" and finally, to make a commitment on his word and honor that he would never again shower with non-relative children on PSU property. The fact that Sandusky was caught red-handed engaging in the same behavior in 2001 despite swearing up and down to Schreffler in 1998 that he would never do it again, is a red-flag that Sandusky is almost certainly guilty IMHO....but there is no way JVP would have any way of knowing about this commitment in 1998. Guess who would have known and was still there in 2001? Detective Schreffler, that's who and I don't think it is mere "coincidence" that Harmon kept the 2001 matter from being investigated by UPPD because he knew that once that information got to Schreffler, Detective Schreffler would have likely immediately arrested JS because the "trap" he had laid for him in 1998 had just snapped shut on JS (e.g., no more "poor judgement" alibi and "plausible deniability").
I always thought that knowledge of the 98 report and subsequent investigation meant nothing. If anything, my belief is that the principals would have been more dismissive of 01 since the same sort of story was already properly investigated and dismissed.
