I don't Tweet.I don't know if you tweet but this is what I think as well. Been saying it for two days.
Official Graham Spanier trial thread.
- Thread starter BobPSU92
- Start date
Why does no one ask what he actually told them? The only thing he ever says is he thinks he got his message across. It doesn't matter one lick what message he thought he got across. What matters is the message that was received.
Are you suggesting that Spanier's counsel won't be sufficiently aggressive on cross? You might be correct, but it has to make one wonder what Graham is getting for "representation"
It better happen. Or Spanky isn't getting his money's worth any more than Jerry did. They're not fighting over a parking ticket any more.
It's been over a week and they are still trying to choose a jury for the Frein trial.
No Lundy... I do not know the list but it was posted here. I think defense has only a couple character witnesses that I have heard of.
I do think this could in fact. Be very quick and you could see jury have this by Friday even.
That's just a guess but I think Wendy posted similar thoughts or knowledge.
I do think this could in fact. Be very quick and you could see jury have this by Friday even.
That's just a guess but I think Wendy posted similar thoughts or knowledge.
Why do you think the state wanted Curley/Schultz to plead out so badly? With them out, all Spanier's lawyer is focused on is what MM told Spanier directly, which is nothing.
If the other two went to trial it would intensely focus on all the details of exactly what MM told C/S in that meeting and why he never expressed any dissatisfaction to anyone over the years if he felt his report wasn't treated seriously enough, etc.
Bingo. MM testimony is irrelevant except that he didn't talk to Spanier. The focus is on what C & S told Spanier. Don't see how MM testimony hurts Spanier but certainly doesn't do C & S any favors
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This point has me fascinated.
If C/S get up and say "yeah, we absolutely thought it was sexual and told Spanier we thought it was sexual" ...then they all have been blatantly lying for 5+ years...and it sinks Spanier dead.
or...
If C/S get up and say "yeah, Mike may have been trying to tell us it was sexual, but we took it as most likely horseplay or Jerry had boundary issues and told Spanier as much, and we made a mistake" ...then they all have been truthful (albeit vague) this entire time...and it would seem Spanier is in the clear.
I would just be floored beyond belief if the former happens...
I must say, if Mike reported a kid being sexually abused and was OK with the plan of action being to ban Sandusky from bringing kids to campus athletic centers and telling TSM about it then he clearly had some ulterior motives. I would get it if he was some 19-year old kid. He was 27. Disgraceful if that is true.
He saw Sandusky and a kid in the shower and thought Sandusky was abusing the kid. And his first thought was to call his dad. A 27 yr old grown man witnesses what he thought was child abuse, and all he thought to do was call his dad. That alone opens a lot of questions about what others thought of what McQueary reported. Did anyone really believe him?
From one of the linked articles, the prosecution said Schultz would testify that we should have reported it and I regret that we didn't. That leaves a lot of room for him to say it was horseplay and wrestling and they didn't know the severity of the situation. We will see tomorrow or the next day.
I'm guessing MM was ok with the plan only involving TSM b/c he had suspicions but couldn't verify anything (didn't see any hands or privates).
MM's prelim testimony should get shoved back in his face. He said that when TC called to follow up with his plan to revoke guest privileges and inform TSM he was ok with it and never asked that more be done (such as, say, get UPPD involved so JS could get formally questioned).
How in the world would he be ok with a plan that didn't involve JS getting arrested if he thought a kid was getting abused??
If MM thought he was being placated by the admins why not just march right down to TSM and ask WTF is going on with JS and his showering behavior?
Update: Meg deleted ALL of her weird tweets and is now just "Proud of her brother", which is fine.
Depends what he saw versus what he thinks he saw. I think Mike's a lot more confident in what he saw today than he was 16 years ago.
Yes they did. MM himself testified at the 12/16/11 prelim that Curley called him 4 to 5 days after their initial meeting to tell him they were going to revoke JS guest privleges and inform the TSM. MM never expressed any dissatisfaction and never said more needed to be done during this conversation.
Did Dranov and MM dad back up his account today? Or did they stay consistent with previous testimony that it was not criminal and so did not advise him to report it to police or child services? If they were consistent, there is already doubt on what MM told C & S. MM would be the only saying he saw abuse.
If that's it...Spanier walks easily (as I believe he should).
What bacon is suggesting, I believe, is that when Curley contacted Mike, it was clear that Mike's input or approval was not being sought, nor was it welcomed. It was an informative call, not a collaborative one.
Agreed. I wonder about the prosecution's tactics. On one hand I see them trying to conjure all of the bad images re Sandusky and have the jury focus them on Spanier. Will it work? Probably. But as you point out, the more times Curley and Schultz are portrayed as inconsistent, if not outright liars, the better the defense's chances.
The defense cannot win by attempting to retry Sandusky. So far, they're handling it as well as they can.
Unfortunately, it's not. One cannot bank on a jury being a rational entity. The prosecution is clearly banking on it not being one.
It was a bad day for the prosecution. They have a flimsy case and now the jury knows it.
Maybe. But if this trial can be characterized as a 100m race, circumstances have spotted the prosecution 75.
So MM's trepidation over potentially rocking the boat at PSU was too big for him to make sure his report of a potentially serious crime against a kid was handled properly?? A simple "Hey Tim, thanks for the follow up but I don't think only telling TSM is enough based on what I observed. We need to get LE or child services involved here." That was too terrifying for MM to say??
All he had to do was just ask C/S to have UPPD send someone to take his statement and then the LE experts could take it from there (vs. having some college admins do an informal look into things)
or instead of expressing dissatisfaction with PSU admins MM could have just gone directly to TSM to see what they were doing with TC's report.
Or was he too afraid to rock the boat at TSM as well, a place he didn't even work for??
Too many logical holes in MM's 2010+ version.
Another update from facebook:
"Court recessed for evening. In a nutshell: prosecution is relitigating Sandusky, and nothing they present has anything to do with Graham. In my opinion, today they failed to establish any single connection to him, his involvement or knowledge. Hoping for a good day tomorrow!"
"Some prosecution witnesses sounded more like defense witnesses: Dranov, Scheffler, Raykovitz."
"Court recessed for evening. In a nutshell: prosecution is relitigating Sandusky, and nothing they present has anything to do with Graham. In my opinion, today they failed to establish any single connection to him, his involvement or knowledge. Hoping for a good day tomorrow!"
"Some prosecution witnesses sounded more like defense witnesses: Dranov, Scheffler, Raykovitz."
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The only real connection to GS is C/S.
They laid out the case of what happened with Sandusky and tomorrow they'll make their case against GS.
Question is, how strong will it be?
Raykovitz testified today that when curley told him about the 2001 incident he also said they had already investigated it and that nothing came of it.
So I guess that is how TSM is getting out of any scrutiny......
People keep saying that TSM should have investigated this but now it is on the record that Curley told TSM it already had been.
A new voice: Former Second Mile boss Jack Raykovitz gives his first public testimony in Sandusky scandal
By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com
Follow on Twitter
on March 21, 2017 at 9:10 PM
Jack Raykovitz, former executive director of the now-defunct Second Mile youth charity, took the witness stand Tuesday in the criminal trial of former Penn State president Graham Spanier.
It was the first time Raykovitz, a man near the center of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse storm in many ways, has testified publicly in more than five years of court proceedings.
Spanier is battling charges that he deliberately failed to take a 2001 eyewitness report of sexual abuse by Sandusky to police or child welfare authorities, a missed chance that permitted Sandusky to prey on other boys for years.
His attorneys have countered that Spanier and his lieutenants made an earnest effort to deal with a bad situation. It did not succeed, they concede, but that doesn't make their judgment call criminal.
Raykovitz was called Tuesday to tell jurors about the message he received from former Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley after Spanier, Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz collectively opted not to take the February 2001 allegation against Sandusky to police.
Curley reported an incident to Raykovitz that March, the former charity director and licensed psychologist said, but it was a PG version of something that the witness, Mike McQueary, has consistently testified was something far worse.
Curley, Raykovitz testified, only told him someone had observed Sandusky - the longtime Penn State coach who was Second Mile's founder, public face and chief fundraiser - in a shower with a young man and "felt uncomfortable."
The incident was investigated, Raykovitz said he was told, and nothing inappropriate was found. Nevertheless, Curley stated that Penn State was telling Sandusky that he was no longer welcome to bring Second Mile kids onto the campus.
The conversation, Raykovitz said under questioning from Chief Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka, included none of the details McQueary testified even Tuesday were part of his report: like "slapping sounds," or "skin-to-skin contact" or sexual positions.
In fact, Raykovitz said he was left with the impression that the incident in question involved a teenager, rather than what McQueary has stated he felt was a pre-pubescent boy between the ages of 10 and 12.
Raykovitz said he had a follow-up meeting with Sandusky as a result.
There, he advised Sandusky that, given child abuse cases coming to light at the time from the Boy Scouts and the Roman Catholic Church, if he showered with someone after a workout going forward, he should wear swimming trunks.
As if to draw a bright line between Curley's report and actual sexual abuse, Ditka then asked Raykovitz about the Second Mile's response to a much more direct allegation of abuse against Sandusky in 2008 - the report that would ultimately trigger the grand jury investigation.
That call from Clinton County Children and Youth Services office, Raykovitz said, was effectively the end of Sandusky's relationship with the Second Mile: "We separated him from all programs after that."
Some of Raykovitz's testimony has been pieced together in the past through the grand jury presentment and interviews with Second Mile board members, but this was the first time the charity's leader testified in public.
Raykovitz is a bit of a lightning rod in the case.
Some Penn State friends and alumni are bitter that prosecutors brought charges against Spanier and his top lieutenants, fueling the narrative that they believe has unfairly tarnished the Paterno Era at Penn State.
In their view, it was the leaders of the youth charity where Sandusky was finding his victims that are more culpable.
No one at The Second Mile - which dissolved in the wake of crushing publicity from the Sandusky scandal - has been charged with any crimes.
Sources who participated in the Sandusky probe have said the agency was examined in 2012, but state officials initially deferred to federal investigators exploring aspects of the Sandusky case.
Former Attorney General Linda Kelly's staff, who had been working with the Freeh team investigating Penn State's role in the scandal, focused on what they felt was a cover-up by top leaders there.
By the time state investigators had complete that leg of the investigation, former Attorney General Kathleen Kane took office, and the focus became Kane's promised review of her predecessors' handling of the Sandusky probe.
By now, statute of limitations rules would seem to rule out the prosecution of any Second Mile officials, if there was a case that warranted it.
Under cross-examination Tuesday, Spanier's attorneys made clear Raykovitz had only heard from Curley about the 2001 incident, and that their client had never talked to him about it.
In addition, to buttress the defense case that Spanier never realized McQueary's allegations were of a sexual nature, attorney Sam Silver also got Raykovitz to agree that - based on what he knew of the 2001 incident - it was something worth reporting to Second Mile board leaders, but not something that needed to be reported as an incident of child abuse.
In other words, the defense can suggest, one of Central Pennsylvania's pre-eminent charities for at-risk kids treated the McQueary report much like Penn State's leaders did.
By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com
Follow on Twitter
on March 21, 2017 at 9:10 PM
Jack Raykovitz, former executive director of the now-defunct Second Mile youth charity, took the witness stand Tuesday in the criminal trial of former Penn State president Graham Spanier.
It was the first time Raykovitz, a man near the center of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse storm in many ways, has testified publicly in more than five years of court proceedings.
Spanier is battling charges that he deliberately failed to take a 2001 eyewitness report of sexual abuse by Sandusky to police or child welfare authorities, a missed chance that permitted Sandusky to prey on other boys for years.
His attorneys have countered that Spanier and his lieutenants made an earnest effort to deal with a bad situation. It did not succeed, they concede, but that doesn't make their judgment call criminal.
Raykovitz was called Tuesday to tell jurors about the message he received from former Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley after Spanier, Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz collectively opted not to take the February 2001 allegation against Sandusky to police.
Curley reported an incident to Raykovitz that March, the former charity director and licensed psychologist said, but it was a PG version of something that the witness, Mike McQueary, has consistently testified was something far worse.
Curley, Raykovitz testified, only told him someone had observed Sandusky - the longtime Penn State coach who was Second Mile's founder, public face and chief fundraiser - in a shower with a young man and "felt uncomfortable."
The incident was investigated, Raykovitz said he was told, and nothing inappropriate was found. Nevertheless, Curley stated that Penn State was telling Sandusky that he was no longer welcome to bring Second Mile kids onto the campus.
The conversation, Raykovitz said under questioning from Chief Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka, included none of the details McQueary testified even Tuesday were part of his report: like "slapping sounds," or "skin-to-skin contact" or sexual positions.
In fact, Raykovitz said he was left with the impression that the incident in question involved a teenager, rather than what McQueary has stated he felt was a pre-pubescent boy between the ages of 10 and 12.
Raykovitz said he had a follow-up meeting with Sandusky as a result.
There, he advised Sandusky that, given child abuse cases coming to light at the time from the Boy Scouts and the Roman Catholic Church, if he showered with someone after a workout going forward, he should wear swimming trunks.
As if to draw a bright line between Curley's report and actual sexual abuse, Ditka then asked Raykovitz about the Second Mile's response to a much more direct allegation of abuse against Sandusky in 2008 - the report that would ultimately trigger the grand jury investigation.
That call from Clinton County Children and Youth Services office, Raykovitz said, was effectively the end of Sandusky's relationship with the Second Mile: "We separated him from all programs after that."
Some of Raykovitz's testimony has been pieced together in the past through the grand jury presentment and interviews with Second Mile board members, but this was the first time the charity's leader testified in public.
Raykovitz is a bit of a lightning rod in the case.
Some Penn State friends and alumni are bitter that prosecutors brought charges against Spanier and his top lieutenants, fueling the narrative that they believe has unfairly tarnished the Paterno Era at Penn State.
In their view, it was the leaders of the youth charity where Sandusky was finding his victims that are more culpable.
No one at The Second Mile - which dissolved in the wake of crushing publicity from the Sandusky scandal - has been charged with any crimes.
Sources who participated in the Sandusky probe have said the agency was examined in 2012, but state officials initially deferred to federal investigators exploring aspects of the Sandusky case.
Former Attorney General Linda Kelly's staff, who had been working with the Freeh team investigating Penn State's role in the scandal, focused on what they felt was a cover-up by top leaders there.
By the time state investigators had complete that leg of the investigation, former Attorney General Kathleen Kane took office, and the focus became Kane's promised review of her predecessors' handling of the Sandusky probe.
By now, statute of limitations rules would seem to rule out the prosecution of any Second Mile officials, if there was a case that warranted it.
Under cross-examination Tuesday, Spanier's attorneys made clear Raykovitz had only heard from Curley about the 2001 incident, and that their client had never talked to him about it.
In addition, to buttress the defense case that Spanier never realized McQueary's allegations were of a sexual nature, attorney Sam Silver also got Raykovitz to agree that - based on what he knew of the 2001 incident - it was something worth reporting to Second Mile board leaders, but not something that needed to be reported as an incident of child abuse.
In other words, the defense can suggest, one of Central Pennsylvania's pre-eminent charities for at-risk kids treated the McQueary report much like Penn State's leaders did.
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And that doesn't change anything. MM could have said, F You Curley, I'm going to the police. Aside from showing disgust as he said today, he had years to turn that disgust into some action.
Why the hell would JR care what Curley's untrained opinion was? TC did an informal admin investigation and the admins were not child abuse investigators or professional investigators of any kind for that matter.
Hilarious/Sad if JR really is using the flimsy ass excuse.
See the problem there is that TSM protocols don't ALLOW for anyone else investigating for them
If that's how they are "getting out of any scrutiny" then that is very, very weak.
It also shows the states prejudice towards their own and against the external party (i.e. PSU).
Just a shame - that's all I can say
It is almost always unwise to ask open-ended questions on cross-examination. The general rule is that you don't ask a question to which you don't already know what the answer will be.
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