By the way, the article should say... "....then PA AG Corbutt's Gubernatorial Campaign.....".
Pat Fitzgerald suspended 2 weeks in Northwestern hazing inquiry
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By the way, the article should say... "....then PA AG Corbutt's Gubernatorial Campaign.....".
There are a lot of articles. You can find previous board lists among the search as well. Many politicians, judges, and other influential people. The honorary directors lists are a hoot and include Gerald Ford, Lou Holtz, Cal Ripken, etc.
Oh, if you've ever wondered why Jake Corman didn't continue pursue the NCAA once the $60 million fine was court re-apportioned to only PA when it was clear Judge Anne Covey wanted to go after the NCAA on all of the sanctions wonder no more. Jake was on the TSM board in 2010 and 2011.
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Yes he was and he had close business dealings with other TSM BOD members.
Nope and Sue Paterno said on her interview with Katie Couric that they financially supported TSM as well. TSM had cards made up with JoePa on them Take a read . It'll help you grow in this.
Because they were never shown the Chambers Report from 1998 that identified Sandusky as a pedo.
No, only that he didn't want kids there for liability.
Sorry Beavis, but Paterno was just as involved with TSM as any other board member and PSU and TSM were joined at the hip. The Dynamics of Happy Valley
Paterno didn't give money to state political races...... but he did give money to TSM. 🤣
Now you're insulting dipshits everywhere.
But Paterno did so after he knew of the allegations...right? Let's not pretend it's the same as someone that had no clue. We can go with Paterno didn't belive the allegations to justify it but you can't act as though it's the same as you or me donating.
He was an honorary member along with many others and as I showed was a big fundraiser for them. If you and your idiot JoeBots keep trying to say the Feds and Pennsylvania "protected" TSM because of the powers associated with TSM then that includes Paterno. Oh, also GFY.
Penn State alumni have clamored for a federal investigation of The Second Mile charity founded by convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky.
It turns out that the U.S. Attorney's office and the FBI have already conducted a federal investigation of The Second Mile. It's an investigation that's apparently been closed since at least 2014, with the result that no charges were ever filed.
In response to FOI requests filed by Ryan Bagwell, a former newspaper reporter and unsuccessful candidate for Penn State trustee, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C. released some 1,000 pages of documents from the closed files of The Second Mile probe.
What's the bottom line?
"It's a big nothing burger," said John Snedden, a former NCIS and FIS special agent who just got through reviewing the documents. "There was an investigation and there was nothing to pursue, and no charges were filed."
Most of the notes in the released files appear to be FBI interviews conducted in 2012 with Second Mile board members in both the State College office and other regional offices. The interviews described how Second Mile board members reacted to the Sandusky revelations dating back to as early as 2010 and 2011.
"Not a single person admitted to knowing about Sandusky's crimes prior to the presentment," Snedden said. Two people claim to know about "missing donor money," but nothing else is said about that subject in the rest of the released files.
The documents released by the feds are heavily redacted, but there are many references to Second Mile board members circling the wagons. References were made in the documents to false allegations being made by a "disgruntled mother" and a "disgruntled kid."
The documents are more noticeable for what they don't say. Such as in the issue of jurisdiction involving the Sandusky investigation. If, for example, in their investigation of The Second Mile, if the feds any found any evidence of a federal crime, such as Sandusky crossing state lines with sex abuse victims, "They would have taken it [the investigation] away from the state for prosecution," Snedden said.
"But they [the feds] didn't do any of that," Snedden said after reviewing the documents. "There's no indication they did that."
Instead, the attorney general pursued the Sandusky investigation, and the feds pursued The Second File.
"Sadly, neither focused on political vindictiveness and corruption, which is exactly what happened here," Snedden said.
Snedden has his own experience with a previous secret federal investigation into the Penn State scandal. In 2012, working as a special agent for the Federal Investigative Services, Snedden did a background investigation of former Penn State President Graham Spanier, to see if Spanier's high level security clearance should be renewed by the government.
As part of that investigation, Snedden investigated whether Spanier had orchestrated a coverup of Sandusky's crimes. Snedden's investigation concluded that there was no cover up at Penn State, because there was no sex crime to cover up. As far as Snedden was concerned, Mike McQueary, the guy who witnessed a naked Sandusky allegedly abusing a boy in the Penn State showers, was not a credible witness.
Spanier's clearance was renewed as the result of an 110-page report that Snedden wrote back in 2012, a report that was declassified earlier this year.
In the investigation of The Second Mile, the released files include copies of FBI interviews with eight witnesses whose identities are redacted. The interviews are recorded on FBI "302s," the number of the form that interview summaries were typed on by FBI agents.
"I see a lot of interviews with a lot of different people, a wide range of positions in the Second Mile hierarchy," Snedden said. "And I don't see any people admitting to knowing anything concrete about Sandusky."
In the interviews, there are quotes from woman who "had always heard positive things about the organization. She had never heard anything bad about TSM founder Jerry Sandusky."
Another woman interviewed by the FBI described Sandusky's "nondescript entrance and presence" at a March 25, 2011 "Celebration of Excellence" event in Hershey.
"Sandusky was not acknowledged during the event formally by TSM," the woman told the FBI.
"On March 31, 2011, the Patriot News published an article about the grand jury investigation" of Sandusky," the woman told the FBI. "The article was everywhere and everyone was talking about it."
"She didn't recall seeing any evidence of financial improprieties or anything otherwise questionable," the FBI 302 stated. "She did not personally observe any misuse of donations."
"The general mood of the room was that of denial," the woman told the FBI. "Everyone appeared to be in support of Sandusky and TSM."
In another 302, an unidentified witness said, "He did not observe any inappropriate behavior." On the same form, someone, possibly Sandusky himself stated the complainant "was a disgruntled kid, not associated with TSM. He was not aware at the time that the allegation was sexual in nature"
Another 302 notes that one board member was "shocked after reading the indictment." In addition, "four or five board members in particular were upset that they were never notified. The exchange was heated."
In the 302s, there was discussion of an earlier 1998 allegation that Sandusky had abused another youth in the shower, but "the allegations were considered 'unfounded.'"
There is also discussion in the 302s about an alleged allegation involving the Clinton County Children and Youth Services[CYS].
"CYS did have a safety plan in the event a child was a victim of sexual abuse," the 302 stated. "They did not need to enact their safety plan for SANDUSKY's case because the allegation was not founded and all actions taken by CYS were 'by the book.' "
Bagwell said he has filed multiple FOI requests as part of his Penn State Sunshine Fund. Bagwell, a former newspaper reporter who is now a web developer, said he filed his requests because he was seeking primary source documents from the Sandusky investigation.
"What frustrated me about everything since the very beginning was a complete and utter lack of transparency," Bagwell said.
In his court battle with the U.S. Attorney's office, Bagwell said, the feds indicated that there were some 300,000 pages of documents related to The Second Mile investigation. The feds only released 1,000 pages and "withheld tends of thousands more for reasons not apparent at this time," Bagwell said.
Bagwell, himself a former journalist, said the press coverage of the scandal has been "abysmal, reactionary and sensationalistic," as well as "factually incorrect." Bagwell said he hopes the newly released documents will have a calming effect on Penn State Nation.
"Penn Staters are still screaming for an investigation for years of The Second Mile," Bagwell said. "Well, it turns out there was an investigation."
"My overall view is that everything here [in the documents] seems to support the idea that The Second Mile didn't knowingly do anything wrong," Bagwell said. "The Penn Staters who are clamoring for heads at The Second Mile to roll, I don't think that's an outcome that's appropriate at this point in time."
Here come the lawsuits.
www.yahoo.com
Eight former Northwestern players retain lawyer for possible hazing lawsuit
Eight former Northwestern football players have retained an attorney in the wake of the hazing scandal that led to the firing of coach Pat Fitzgerald.
www.yahoo.com
Here come the lawsuits.
Eight former Northwestern players retain lawyer for possible hazing lawsuit
Eight former Northwestern football players have retained an attorney in the wake of the hazing scandal that led to the firing of coach Pat Fitzgerald.
Northwestern should just shut down the program out of respect for the victims.
How about ten but there were more
VICTIM 1
Count 1: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 2: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 3: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 4: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 5: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 6: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 2 2001 Shower
Count 7: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Not guilty.
Count 8: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 9: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 10: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 11: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 3
Count 12: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 13: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 14: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 15: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 4
Count 16: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 17: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 18: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 19: Aggravated indecent assault
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 20: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 21: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 22: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 23: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 5 Second time at Lasch 2001
Count 24: Indecent assault
Verdict: Not guilty.
Count 25: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 26: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 27: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 6 Shower 1998
Count 28: Indecent assault
Verdict: Not guilty.
Count 29: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 30: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 31: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 7
Count 32: Criminal attempt to commit indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 33: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 34: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 35: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 8
Count 36: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 37: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 38: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 39: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 40: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 9
Count 41: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 42: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 43: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 44: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 45: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 46: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 10
Count 47: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 48: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 49: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 50: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 51: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 52: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
Counts 26, 33, and 50 are bogus.
VICTIM 1
Count 1: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 2: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 3: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 4: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 5: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 6: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 2 2001 Shower
Count 7: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Not guilty.
Count 8: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 9: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 10: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 11: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 3
Count 12: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 13: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 14: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 15: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 4
Count 16: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 17: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 18: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 19: Aggravated indecent assault
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 20: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 21: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 22: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 23: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 5 Second time at Lasch 2001
Count 24: Indecent assault
Verdict: Not guilty.
Count 25: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 26: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 27: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 6 Shower 1998
Count 28: Indecent assault
Verdict: Not guilty.
Count 29: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 30: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 31: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 7
Count 32: Criminal attempt to commit indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 33: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 34: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 35: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 8
Count 36: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 37: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 38: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 39: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 40: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 9
Count 41: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 42: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 43: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 44: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 45: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 46: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 10
Count 47: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 48: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 49: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 50: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 51: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 52: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
How about ten but there were more
VICTIM 1
Count 1: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 2: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 3: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 4: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 5: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 6: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 2 2001 Shower
Count 7: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Not guilty.
Count 8: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 9: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 10: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 11: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 3
Count 12: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 13: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 14: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 15: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 4
Count 16: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 17: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 18: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 19: Aggravated indecent assault
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 20: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 21: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 22: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 23: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 5 Second time at Lasch 2001
Count 24: Indecent assault
Verdict: Not guilty.
Count 25: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 26: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 27: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 6 Shower 1998
Count 28: Indecent assault
Verdict: Not guilty.
Count 29: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 30: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 31: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 7
Count 32: Criminal attempt to commit indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 33: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Charge was dismissed
Count 34: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 35: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 8
Count 36: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 37: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 38: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 39: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 40: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 9
Count 41: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 42: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 43: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 44: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 45: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 46: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
VICTIM 10
Count 47: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 48: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 49: Indecent assault
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 50: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 51: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 52: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
Say what?
It was common knowledge that Corbett disliked public higher education and was resentful toward Penn State. One of his early moves after assuming office in January 2011 was to announce a devastating cut of 52.4% in the university’s budget. Spanier immediately and dramatically protested, and the legislature took his side.
In Corbett’s eyes, that was an unforgivable humiliation. But he had already contracted negative feelings toward Spanier. In October 2010, when running for office, he had gained the mistaken impression that Spanier was publicly favoring the Democratic candidate, Dan Onorato. Corbett was heard to say that after his election, he would have Spanier’s head.
The leading prosecutor of Sandusky was Frank Fina, chief of the criminal division in the attorney general’s office. The grand jury presentment was his and Jonelle Eshbach’s creation, and both of them were serving Corbett’s wishes as mediated by Attorney General Kelly. As Spanier now explains, the indictment of Curley and Schultz seems to have been motivated by two considerations.
First, their status as accused criminals would prevent them from testifying in Sandusky’s favor with regard to the shower incident. And second, Fina, who was known for tactics of bullying and intimidation, expected that Curley and Schultz would save themselves from jail by turning on Spanier, whose indictment was already foreseen. The big fish to be hauled in wasn’t the ancient Joe Paterno, and it certainly wasn’t the insignificant retiree Jerry Sandusky; it was Spanier.
When the media began depicting Paterno as a co-conspirator with Curley and Schultz, Spanier knew that a voice of leadership was needed. He announced his personal faith in his accused subordinates, whom he knew to be innocent, and he prepared to call for calm and patience. But Penn State’s trustees were egged on by Governor Corbett, who told them by speakerphone, “Remember that little boy in the shower!”
They forbade Spanier to say another word in public. And the new de facto chairman of the trustees, John Surma, a former CEO of U.S. Steel, saw an opportunity to settle a personal grudge against Paterno. (His troubled nephew had been dropped from the football team.) As State College erupted in riots after Paterno’s dismissal, Spanier grasped that his own fate had been decided as well. He quickly resigned, thus temporarily safeguarding some privileges and his pension.
The subsequent behavior of the leading trustees, from November 2011 until right now, offers a textbook example of how to make a bad situation worse. Rather than combat the fiction that Penn State had sacrificed children to the great god Football, they embraced it.
They welcomed draconian sanctions from the National Collegiate Athletic Association, heaped disgrace on the dead Paterno, left Spanier, Curley, and Schultz to twist in the wind, and established a huge fund for the compensation of Sandusky’s as yet unproven victims, as if every one of them had been molested with an assist from Penn State.
The idea was to make a show of remorse and penitence so as to turn a new page with alumni, parents, and donors––and, not incidentally, to keep the 2012 football season from being canceled. That last goal was met, but the stench of hypocrisy has remained in the air.
The trustees’ most craven action was to appoint an “investigative” body whose actual task was to justify their other measures by scapegoating Paterno, Spanier, Curley, and Schultz. The supposedly independent commission, formed at the joint urging of Governor Corbett and Louis Freeh, the former FBI director who was now seeking private employment, worked hand in glove with Corbett, the trustees, Linda Kelly’s point man Frank Fina, and the NCAA, all of whom shared an interest in presuming Sandusky’s guilt and the four sacked officials’ complicity in it.
The Freeh commission didn’t bother to interview principal figures in the case. Although the Federal Investigative Service reaffirmed Spanier’s top-level security clearance after its intensive study determined that the sodomy-in-the-shower tale was bogus, the Freeh commission stonewalled that finding.
And it sketched a vulgar caricature of Spanier’s Penn State as a football-crazy institution whose actual boss had been the dictatorial Joe Paterno. The Freeh report is no longer taken seriously, but its uncritical acceptance in 2012 locked into place America’s media-fed misperception of the entire Sandusky matter.
Understandably, large portions of In the Lions’ Den are taken up with Spanier’s legal vicissitudes, from his indictment in 2012 through his nightmarish jail term in 2021. The saga is beyond Kafkaesque. Spanier was betrayed, in amazing fashion, by Penn State’s legal counsel Cynthia Baldwin, who pretended to act as his personal attorney.
In reality, she was controlled by Frank Fina, who held over her a constant threat of prosecution for having ignored subpoenas to Penn State. Baldwin knew that Spanier was a grand jury target but convinced him otherwise, and at Fina’s insistence she later gave carefully rehearsed false testimony about his alleged orchestration of a cover-up.
For their misconduct, Fina would be suspended from the practice of law and Baldwin would be formally censured and then ostracized by the entire legal community. But a new attorney general, Kathleen Kane, and then yet another one, the Josh Shapiro who is now a lesser-evil candidate for governor, kept the pressure on Spanier, eventually hounding him into jail despite the ruling of a federal appeals panel that the charges against him lacked any merit.
One reward for reading about Spanier’s eight years of legal torment is that one gets an up-close look at Pennsylvania’s judicial system in action. It’s a farce in which political ambition and personal rivalry can determine a defendant’s fate; in which collusion between prosecutors and judges is commonplace; in which some courtroom rulings are determined not by law but by a presumption of guilt; and in which incompetent judges summarily deny appeals in order to support their friends, other incompetent judges.
A fitting symbol of the whole circus is an email network that came to light, consisting of racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic pornography that was shared between Deputy Attorney General Fina and various judges, including two justices of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court.
3.
As we have seen, the only part of the Sandusky case that bears on Graham Spanier’s tribulations is the legendary shower and its aftermath. But it’s impossible to read In the Lions’ Den without realizing that it brings into question the fairness of Sandusky’s own prosecution and trial. Spanier and Sandusky were both implacably pursued by Linda Kelly, Jonelle Eshbach, and Frank Fina, who was not above threatening witnesses, making shifty deals with judges, and leaking grand jury testimony in order to pollute a jury pool.
Although Spanier avoids the question of Sandusky’s guilt or innocence, he points out that the alleged pedophile’s trial was rushed; that the prosecution used an old trick in dumping possibly exculpatory documents on the defense when insufficient time remained to read them; and that the judge wouldn’t even allow Sandusky’s lead attorney to resign on grounds that he was unprepared to proceed.
But as you could learn from chapters 14-17 of Mark Pendergrast’s indispensable book The Most Hated Man in America: Jerry Sandusky and the Rush to Judgment (Sunbury Press, 2017), that’s just a sampling of the travesty that ended in a foreordained conviction.
A knowledgeable student of the Sandusky case who reads In the Lions’ Den would be able to infer some previously unnoted linkage between Spanier’s fate and Sandusky’s. For example, in March 2011 the attorney general’s case against Sandusky was on life support. Kelly, Fina, and Eshbach had only two witnesses, Mike McQueary and Sandusky’s main accuser, Aaron Fisher, neither of whom could keep his story straight. But that was the month when Tom Corbett and Graham Spanier waged their battle royal over Penn State’s budget––a battle that ended by putting a target on the victorious Spanier’s back.
Suddenly, new momentum was imparted to the campaign against Sandusky, which was taken into the public sphere. On March 31, feloniously leaked grand jury material found its way into the first of cub reporter Sara Ganim’s lurid articles, which would bear such inflammatory titles as “Former Coach Jerry Sandusky Used Charity to Molest Kids.”
And in the following weeks, twelve employees of the attorney general’s office and many state troopers set out to interview hundreds of ex-Second Milers, some of whom might be willing to declare that Sandusky had molested them. Each interrogated boy or man was told, falsely, that many others had already admitted to having been abused.
The dragnet, however, yielded only a file of tributes to Sandusky’s generosity and sterling character. As one officer grumbled in frustration, his interviewees “believe Sandusky is a great role model for them to emulate.”
Here was precious evidence that Sandusky was no child molester. But Kelly and her team, apparently fired up by Corbett, were now playing hardball. Instead of supplying the police files to Sandusky’s attorneys as required by law, they withheld them and wrote insinuatingly, in their grand jury presentment, “through the Second Mile, Sandusky had access to hundreds of boys.”
By means of their Freeh commission and their lavish, no-questions-asked compensation fund, the Penn State trustees played a significant role in destroying Sandusky. The fund, established before his trial, attracted scammers who reinforced the impression that many more victims of the monster’s abuse were awaiting discovery.
But that wasn’t all. Two local “sex abuse” lawyers, Andrew Shubin and Benjamin Andreozzi, sensed what was coming from Penn State and advertised their services to anyone who looked forward to making a claim.
All of the young men (not boys) who were being prepped to testify against Sandusky answered the call. And someone else did, too: Allan Myers. Just weeks after he had exculpated Sandusky in straightforward terms, he became Shubin’s client and was persuaded to affirm, in a statement evidently written by Shubin, that Sandusky had frequently molested him over a period of years.
Then, as Spanier recounts, Shubin physically hid Myers for the duration of Sandusky’s trial, forestalling a catastrophic cross-examination. And prosecutor Joseph McGettigan, in full awareness of the truth, told Sandusky’s jury that only God knew the shower boy’s identity. When Sandusky was acquitted on the relevant charge, it didn’t matter to Myers and Shubin. They picked up a cool $6.9 million from Penn State.
The other accusers didn’t fare badly, either, sharing with their attorneys sums ranging from $1.5 to $20 million, depending on the extremity of their reported suffering. The highest settlement went to an accuser, a good friend of the Sanduskys through at least October 2011, who now said Jerry had assaulted him about 150 times and on one occasion had locked him in his basement, starved him, and raped him anally and orally over a three-day period while Dottie Sandusky, one floor above, ignored his screams.
This was at a time when Jerry, already in his sixties, was suffering from prostatitis, dizzy spells, kidney cysts, a braIn aneurism, a hernia, bleeding hemorrhoids, chest pains, headaches, hypothyroidism, high blood pressure, and sleep apnea, to say nothing of his lifelong testosterone deficiency and of his shrunken testicles, unremarked by any accuser.
But there was another important outcome of the trustees’ munificence (with insurance money). Even after the attorney general’s office, partly with the help of a telephone hotline, had rounded up a handful of previously unconcerned “victims” to supplement the wavering McQueary and Fisher, those who actually knew Sandusky remembered him as a kindly mentor and hesitated to say anything against him.
Worse, not one of them, in boyhood or thereafter, had ever disclosed abuse by Sandusky to anyone. And still worse, none of them, including Aaron Fisher, had gone to the police without being prodded or enticed. Most inconveniently of all, the pre-hotline “victims” harbored no memory of their molestation. They had to have their minds massaged by already convinced therapists, social workers, and cops. But once the prospect of multimillion-dollar payouts hove into view, “memories” began to flow in earnest. Penn State’s trustees deserve the credit for that.
Fisher had been brought around to “recalling” Sandusky’s depredations after many months of treatment by a recovered-memory therapist, Mike Gillum. As Fisher wrote in the book they later coauthored, “It wasn’t until I was fifteen and started seeing Mike that I realized the horror.” Now Shubin and Andreozzi decided to send their Sandusky-case clients to memory spelunkers, with Gillum as their principal resource.
The result was spectacular: an outpouring of “refreshed memories” so grotesque and ridiculous that they needed to be severely winnowed by Linda Kelly’s team. Then Kelly could exult, at a rally on the courthouse steps after Sandusky’s conviction, “it was incredibly difficult for some [victims] to unearth long-buried memories of the shocking abuse” Sandusky had inflicted on them.
Whether the hostile witnesses were driven more by greed or by therapeutic suggestion is impossible to say. We can assert with confidence, though, that Penn State’s pot of gold, descried at the end of the rainbow by Messrs. Shubin and Andreozzi, helped to turn alleged misdemeanors into horrific felonies that would overawe an ingenuous jury.
4.
When no firm evidence can be found to adjudicate between clashing allegations, plausibility can serve as a deciding factor. If, for example, you say you were raped a previously unrecalled 150 times by the same person, you’ll be hard pressed to explain why, after the first devastating trauma, you put yourself in harm’s way on 149 further occasions.
Did repression or dissociation cause each event to be immediately forgotten? But now you’re trafficking in pseudoscience, and your claim can’t be believed, much less allowed in court. (Except in Pennsylvania, that is.)
In the case of the little boy in the shower, sufficient evidence does exist to prove that Graham Spanier, not Frank Fina, was telling the truth about it. There can be no doubt that Allan Myers’s first statements on the matter were the authentic ones. But suppose Myers hadn’t presented himself in support of his benefactor. Then we would have had to choose whom to believe. Everything that is known about Spanier speaks to his credibility; the opposite must be said of Fina.
By the same token, it’s no contest between Fina and the Jerry Sandusky who was known to friends, associates, and the public before Sara Ganim’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism began smearing him in 2011. As Spanier puts it, Sandusky “was perhaps the second most admired figure in central Pennsylvania, and maybe the entire state, through the 1980s and 1990s.”
The coaching of linebackers was subordinate to the help he provided, in person and through his foundation, to some 100,000 at-risk boys, whom he taught to play sports, shun alcohol, drugs, and early sex, and apply themselves to schoolwork. On his retirement from coaching, Sports Illustrated’s cover story named him “Saint Sandusky.”
In order to have molested children with impunity for decades, Sandusky would have had to deploy superhuman powers of stealth, guile, and intimidation. But if you watch interviews with him on YouTube, you will see an earnest, unsubtle man who has trouble even fathoming the questions posed to him. That picture is consistent with the Jerry known to his family, friends, and associates: a grown-up Boy Scout who eschewed alcohol and tobacco, and a Bible-reading Methodist who practiced the Golden Rule.
No one can say whether there was an erotic component to the affection Jerry showed to the relatively small number of boys he personally supervised. The point to bear in mind is that we don’t customarily send people to prison for their thoughts and feelings. And if it’s sexual abuse to hug an abandoned or neglected twelve-year-old, we’re all in trouble.
Sandusky, Paterno, Spanier, Curley, Schultz. They represent diverse levels of sophistication, but they all devoted themselves to Penn State and were betrayed by it. The university’s clumsy and then stupidly cruel trustees have tried to restore trust at those men’s expense.
It hasn’t worked, because Paterno’s memory is still sacred to many. Next––we already see signs of it––they will ease up on Paterno alone, hoping that will do the trick. In the Lions’ Den will help in that effort by proving that Joe behaved honorably to the end. But another guiltless man is being left to rot in prison. Does anyone out there care about simple justice?
One thing is undeniable. Soon AHole will go away and will only return when a certain discussion threatens to turn over the rocks and threaten his $$$$ connections.
I just saw this in an article about the NW hazing situation and Fitzgerald's role.
The lawsuit’s allegations include an accusation that Fitzgerald enabled a culture of racism, including forcing players of color to cut their hair and behave differently to be more in line with the “Wildcat Way.”
I remember a similar complaint against Iowa coaches a few years ago.
Of course Joe used to require kids to cut their hair and dress up on road trips.
It's amazing that being clean shaven and nicely dressed is considered racist these days.
The lawsuit’s allegations include an accusation that Fitzgerald enabled a culture of racism, including forcing players of color to cut their hair and behave differently to be more in line with the “Wildcat Way.”
I remember a similar complaint against Iowa coaches a few years ago.
Of course Joe used to require kids to cut their hair and dress up on road trips.
It's amazing that being clean shaven and nicely dressed is considered racist these days.
The only bridge you know anything about is associated with wrestling....canvass back.
Remember, it goes on -
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.
So they can finally "find out what the hell happened."
POSTED BY BIGTRIAL.NET AT 3:13 PM
Wasn't Sassano the genius who drove by TSM with a truck shredding documents in the parking lot? LOL Crack detective. Almost as funny as the foreign spy in Freeh's congregation.
Sassano was the guy that Joe testified to that MM told him of Sandusky molesting a child. Here is some info on TSM from a big time JoeBot no less: Take a read . It'll help you grow in this.
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