Tell this individual, as politely as possible, what you think of his column. http://www.philly.com/philly/opinio...erno_tribute_dishonors_sex-abuse_victims.html (his E-mail is shown in the opinion piece). I did.
To: Jared Rosenblatt
cc: Penn State alumni networking
Dear Attorney Rosenblatt;
Your opinion piece supports Louis Freeh’s dishonest report, which came across as the work of a hired gun rather than an impartial investigative report. https://bwi.forums.rivals.com/threads/maribeth-roman-schmidt-responce-to-usa-today.146574/ Michael Chertoff concluded similarly that Freeh acted as a hired gun rather than an impartial investigator in the Wynn Resorts case. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...eview-finds-wynn-resorts-probe-deeply-flawed-
“The review by Chertoff found that Freeh’s law firm “viewed itself as an advocate first and an impartial investigator second” in preparing the report. Freeh and his colleagues “cherry-picked evidence and stretched to reach conclusions that would be helpful to the Wynn Resorts board,” according to today’s statement.” This is clearly how the Freeh Report came across as well noting that Freeh disregarded evidence he cited in his own report, e.g. the fact that a prior investigation had exonerated Jerry Sandusky of being a child molester.
You continue, “But when informed of the abuse in his football program, Paterno responded, "I don't want to hear about any of that kind of stuff, I have a football season to worry about," according to a recently released deposition of "John Doe 150," one of the 32 persons who Penn State paid to settle the Sandusky litigation.”
Yes, a conveniently unidentified John Doe who had a major financial interest in claiming to have been abused by Jerry Sandusky. This is the same quality of “evidence” that was used to convict the Amiraults in Massachusetts, and it is why Martha Coakley lost her recent bid for Federal office. Voters knew that her support of the Amirault verdict reflected on her character and integrity to the extent that she is grossly unfit to hold any position of public trust or responsibility. The credibility of John Doe and the “evidence” in the Amirault trial is open to debate, not that I would care to support either of them, but your subsequent statement proves quite clearly that you are seriously uninformed.
“Paterno was entrusted with the lives of student-athletes and had both an ethical and professional obligation to report the abuse directly to authorities. He had an obligation to pick up the phone and contact law enforcement himself and not "worry about" football. Instead, Paterno made a conscious decision not to call law enforcement. Football won.”
Under Penn State’s prevailing sexual abuse policy (and the NCAA’s current policy), Paterno had an obligation to do nothing other than report Mike McQueary’s allegations to a designated person, which he did. This does not mean he had the option to do more; he was emphatically not to conduct his own investigation, follow up, or “do more” as his detractors like you and CBS Chicago’s Dan Bernstein—a libel case for his employer waiting for time and a place to happen noting his publication of unproven accusations of committing crimes—continue to insist he should have done. In any event, if you had done your homework, you would have discovered that Mike McQueary, the actual witness to the purported incident, testified under oath that he saw nothing he deemed reportable to police. If that is the story that McQueary told Paterno (along with his father and a medical doctor, both mandated child abuse reporters), then why should Paterno have called the police?
Here is more about Louis Freeh. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...s-ban-annulled-and-how-it-connects-to-penn-st “It is a situation of "case not proven", coupled with concern on the part of the panel that the FIFA investigation was not complete or comprehensive enough to fill the gaps in the record.” “Not complete or comprehensive” is a polite way for saying that Freeh’s workmanship is trash.
http://louisianarecord.com/stories/...eepwater-horizon-fraud-corruption-allegations “A former Deepwater Horizon claims settlement attorney who was accused by court appointee Louis Freeh of committing felonies has filed a defamation suit claiming he destroyed her legal career.” Another attorney, Lionel Sutton, also is suing Freeh. Put this together with the FIFA (soccer) case and Wynn Resorts, and we have a very telling picture of Louis Freeh. Even worse for his case is the subsequent admission under oath, in a court deposition, by the Chairman of Penn State’s Board of Trustees that the Board really fired Paterno for public relations reasons rather than anything he had or had not done. In other words, two of the same people who fired Paterno for “failure of leadership” had to admit, when they got in front of a judge or a court reporter where they had to testify under penalty of perjury, that they had fired him solely for public relations reasons—which, in effect, also defined Louis Freeh as a liar.
==================================
NCAA policy on sexual abuse reporting
"Cooperate with but not manage, direct, control or interfere with college or university investigations into allegations of sexual violence ensuring that investigations involving student-athletes and athletics department staff are managed in the same manner as all other students and staff on campus. (Page 4 of .pdf document, no page number shown)
"Athletics departments are held to the same federal requirements of all institutional staff and departments when it comes to education and reporting requirements. Athletics staff members are required to report any suspected or alleged sexual violence or harassment immediately to appropriate campus offices for resolution; the athletics department is not the appropriate staff to adjudicate a reported case of sexual assault."
which is exactly what Joe Paterno did.
The defects in the Freeh Report that are obvious even to non-lawyers. They include among other things:
(1) Advice to commit libel or slander; Freeh says Paterno, Schultz, Spanier, and Curley decided to let Sandusky retire in 1999, "not as a suspected child predator, but as a valued member of the football legacy…" Would you advise a client to tell people that somebody was a “suspected child predator” if the person had not even been arrested let alone convicted of that? Freeh also says verbatim, “At the very least, Mr. Paterno could have alerted the entire football staff, in order to prevent Sandusky from bringing another child into the Lasch Building. Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley also failed to alert the Board of Trustees about the 1998 investigation or take any further action against Mr. Sandusky.” Would you advise a client to hint to his entire staff that somebody might be a child predator, or make that implication to a Board of Trustees that an individual had been investigated for that noting that the investigation in question cleared him?
(2) Condemning Penn State administrators for not doing something their own attorney (Cynthia Baldwin) says could get them sued
(3) Telling two mutually exclusive stories about Paterno’s willingness to cooperate with Freeh’s investigation
(4) Lying about Paterno having previous knowledge of Sandusky being a pedophile
(5) Lying about Paterno “ignoring” Mike McQueary’s complaint (Paterno reported it to his superior according to Penn State policy and what is now NCAA policy)
(6) Lying about Penn State administrators “alerting Sandusky to the fact that Mike McQueary saw him with the child in the shower” (noting that McQueary says he did that himself by slamming a locker to break up whatever he thought Sandusky was doing)
which makes the Freeh Report pure unmitigated garbage, which is in turn not very complimentary to the column to which you signed your name.
William A. Levinson, Penn State B.S. ‘78
To: Jared Rosenblatt
cc: Penn State alumni networking
Dear Attorney Rosenblatt;
Your opinion piece supports Louis Freeh’s dishonest report, which came across as the work of a hired gun rather than an impartial investigative report. https://bwi.forums.rivals.com/threads/maribeth-roman-schmidt-responce-to-usa-today.146574/ Michael Chertoff concluded similarly that Freeh acted as a hired gun rather than an impartial investigator in the Wynn Resorts case. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...eview-finds-wynn-resorts-probe-deeply-flawed-
“The review by Chertoff found that Freeh’s law firm “viewed itself as an advocate first and an impartial investigator second” in preparing the report. Freeh and his colleagues “cherry-picked evidence and stretched to reach conclusions that would be helpful to the Wynn Resorts board,” according to today’s statement.” This is clearly how the Freeh Report came across as well noting that Freeh disregarded evidence he cited in his own report, e.g. the fact that a prior investigation had exonerated Jerry Sandusky of being a child molester.
You continue, “But when informed of the abuse in his football program, Paterno responded, "I don't want to hear about any of that kind of stuff, I have a football season to worry about," according to a recently released deposition of "John Doe 150," one of the 32 persons who Penn State paid to settle the Sandusky litigation.”
Yes, a conveniently unidentified John Doe who had a major financial interest in claiming to have been abused by Jerry Sandusky. This is the same quality of “evidence” that was used to convict the Amiraults in Massachusetts, and it is why Martha Coakley lost her recent bid for Federal office. Voters knew that her support of the Amirault verdict reflected on her character and integrity to the extent that she is grossly unfit to hold any position of public trust or responsibility. The credibility of John Doe and the “evidence” in the Amirault trial is open to debate, not that I would care to support either of them, but your subsequent statement proves quite clearly that you are seriously uninformed.
“Paterno was entrusted with the lives of student-athletes and had both an ethical and professional obligation to report the abuse directly to authorities. He had an obligation to pick up the phone and contact law enforcement himself and not "worry about" football. Instead, Paterno made a conscious decision not to call law enforcement. Football won.”
Under Penn State’s prevailing sexual abuse policy (and the NCAA’s current policy), Paterno had an obligation to do nothing other than report Mike McQueary’s allegations to a designated person, which he did. This does not mean he had the option to do more; he was emphatically not to conduct his own investigation, follow up, or “do more” as his detractors like you and CBS Chicago’s Dan Bernstein—a libel case for his employer waiting for time and a place to happen noting his publication of unproven accusations of committing crimes—continue to insist he should have done. In any event, if you had done your homework, you would have discovered that Mike McQueary, the actual witness to the purported incident, testified under oath that he saw nothing he deemed reportable to police. If that is the story that McQueary told Paterno (along with his father and a medical doctor, both mandated child abuse reporters), then why should Paterno have called the police?
Here is more about Louis Freeh. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...s-ban-annulled-and-how-it-connects-to-penn-st “It is a situation of "case not proven", coupled with concern on the part of the panel that the FIFA investigation was not complete or comprehensive enough to fill the gaps in the record.” “Not complete or comprehensive” is a polite way for saying that Freeh’s workmanship is trash.
http://louisianarecord.com/stories/...eepwater-horizon-fraud-corruption-allegations “A former Deepwater Horizon claims settlement attorney who was accused by court appointee Louis Freeh of committing felonies has filed a defamation suit claiming he destroyed her legal career.” Another attorney, Lionel Sutton, also is suing Freeh. Put this together with the FIFA (soccer) case and Wynn Resorts, and we have a very telling picture of Louis Freeh. Even worse for his case is the subsequent admission under oath, in a court deposition, by the Chairman of Penn State’s Board of Trustees that the Board really fired Paterno for public relations reasons rather than anything he had or had not done. In other words, two of the same people who fired Paterno for “failure of leadership” had to admit, when they got in front of a judge or a court reporter where they had to testify under penalty of perjury, that they had fired him solely for public relations reasons—which, in effect, also defined Louis Freeh as a liar.
==================================
NCAA policy on sexual abuse reporting
"Cooperate with but not manage, direct, control or interfere with college or university investigations into allegations of sexual violence ensuring that investigations involving student-athletes and athletics department staff are managed in the same manner as all other students and staff on campus. (Page 4 of .pdf document, no page number shown)
"Athletics departments are held to the same federal requirements of all institutional staff and departments when it comes to education and reporting requirements. Athletics staff members are required to report any suspected or alleged sexual violence or harassment immediately to appropriate campus offices for resolution; the athletics department is not the appropriate staff to adjudicate a reported case of sexual assault."
which is exactly what Joe Paterno did.
The defects in the Freeh Report that are obvious even to non-lawyers. They include among other things:
(1) Advice to commit libel or slander; Freeh says Paterno, Schultz, Spanier, and Curley decided to let Sandusky retire in 1999, "not as a suspected child predator, but as a valued member of the football legacy…" Would you advise a client to tell people that somebody was a “suspected child predator” if the person had not even been arrested let alone convicted of that? Freeh also says verbatim, “At the very least, Mr. Paterno could have alerted the entire football staff, in order to prevent Sandusky from bringing another child into the Lasch Building. Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley also failed to alert the Board of Trustees about the 1998 investigation or take any further action against Mr. Sandusky.” Would you advise a client to hint to his entire staff that somebody might be a child predator, or make that implication to a Board of Trustees that an individual had been investigated for that noting that the investigation in question cleared him?
(2) Condemning Penn State administrators for not doing something their own attorney (Cynthia Baldwin) says could get them sued
(3) Telling two mutually exclusive stories about Paterno’s willingness to cooperate with Freeh’s investigation
(4) Lying about Paterno having previous knowledge of Sandusky being a pedophile
(5) Lying about Paterno “ignoring” Mike McQueary’s complaint (Paterno reported it to his superior according to Penn State policy and what is now NCAA policy)
(6) Lying about Penn State administrators “alerting Sandusky to the fact that Mike McQueary saw him with the child in the shower” (noting that McQueary says he did that himself by slamming a locker to break up whatever he thought Sandusky was doing)
which makes the Freeh Report pure unmitigated garbage, which is in turn not very complimentary to the column to which you signed your name.
William A. Levinson, Penn State B.S. ‘78
