With the Benefit of Hindsight - Ziegler's new documentary podcast on scandal to start in 2021
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Another factor regarding the janitor episode is if the OAG was able to coax this janitor, who had no apparent financial incentive, into making up a false story implicating Sandusky. Shouldn’t then it been much more plausible that the OAG was able to coax false stories out of the accusers, who had huge financial incentives.
That’s something I have brought up with Ray Blehar, who rightfully believes the janitor story is BS, but still wants to believe Sandusky is guilty. I don’t understand how you can not believe the janitor but believe the accusers are untouchable.
Damn, yet another reason why Gary pleading guilty to that misdemeanor was a huge mistake.
And there’s so much more that could be talked about concerning the “fishing expedition” of 2011. Ziegler doesn’t even mention how Andrew Shubin got involved and how he was able to flip both V3 and V7, even though both men had attended football games with Sandusky the previous fall. Maybe he will discuss in later episodes.
Let's not forget Matt Sandusky's role in this!
Matt was flipped by Shubin at the trial in 2012. I am more referring to 2011, when after the Ganim article came out, Andrew Shubin reached out to the mother of Dustin Struble, whom he represented for a drug arrest about 3-4 years prior. Shubin offered his services for free, and Dustin’s mother convinced Dustin to hire him. Even though Dustin has already told police Jerry never inappropriately touched him. Shubin shared an office building with a psychologist named Cindy McNab and set Dustin up for counseling with her. Very shortly thereafter, Dustin began to recall Sandusky touching his penis, something he admits he had absolutely no memory of prior to his counseling with McNab.
Dustin was asked by Shubin if there was any other young men who can use his services. Dustin provided the name of Jason Simcisko, who like Dustin, had already told police Sandusky never inappropriately touched him. However, after some counseling with McNab, Jason also started recalling some penis touching.
It is also very reasonable to believe that Andrew Shubin used the stories of Jason and Dustin to get Allan Myers to flip on Sandusky. Shubin was representing Myers for a recent DUI at the time of Sandusky’s arrest. Myers, the infamous “boy in the shower” was one of Sandusky’s biggest defenders at the time, but like Jason and Dustin, began to turn on him no doubt after also receiving counseling from McNab.
It is also very plausible that Myers played a major role in getting Matt Sandusky to flip, as his attorney was also Shubin and his therapist was also Cindy McNab. Though McNab admitted to purposely fake accuser AJ Dillen that she found Matt’s story very suspect.
Ray B did a lot of good work but I am unclear why he ever came to believe JS was guilty. This was quite while ago but where I struggled with Ray was his thinking AM was not vic 2. Not so much his conclusion but his reasoning. As i recall his main problem seemed to be that AM couldn't accurately describe the Lasch locker room. that always struck me as odd. We had MM and the prosecution not remembering dates, Mr M not remembering his previous testimony, Cynthia B not remembering to tell Tim and Gary she didn't represent them and Ray got hung up on the locker room layout. Especially if nothing happened why would anyone remember a locker room lay out 10 years later. Weird Maybe I remember wrong.
So let me see if I understand this:
- The actual witness, who witnessed anything from horseplay to severe CSA, "passed it up the chain" to the PSU administrators. It's OK for him to have not stopped the incident or call the authorities. In fact, it's so OK, he should get millions of dollars.
- The PSU admins, witnessed nothing, were not mandated reporters, and received an untimely report of horseplay about a non-student and a non-employee. They knew that JS had been falsely accused a few years earlier and cleared by the authorities. They passed the report "up the chain" to the second mile. They are the real villains, and should have called the authorities.
- JR at the second mile, was mandated reporter, received an untimely report of horseplay between the head of their charity, and a TSM member. It's OK for him to have not called the authorities.
All the same stuff.
When Dawn Daniels began to think Jerry Sandusky might have abused her son, she alerted Aaron’s high school. Then, after her son made some extremely vague allegations, Daniels took Aaron Fisher to Children & Youth Services, where intake case worker Jessica Dershem interviewed the teenager. Aaron did not reveal any overt sexual abuse. He only stated that Sandusky had cracked his back by hugging him with both of them fully clothed. Dershem then referred Fisher to Mike Gillum . .
Disappointed with the insufficient details, Dershem called her supervisor, Gerry Rosamilia and complained that she had an uncooperative fifteen-year-old in her office who was not disclosing sex abuse. She later said that she “sensed he was holding back.” Rosamilia told her to send him to Mike Gillum, a psychologist who had a contract with Clinton County, and who conveniently occupied an office upstairs in the same building.
When Gillum came down to the CYS office to get Aaron Fisher, he got this first impression:
“He had on a pair of raggedy jeans and some beat-up sneakers. His blond hair was scruffy and on the longer side, and he just looked disheveled, but it wasn’t the way he was dressed that stunned me. He was so extremely anxious, and moving around a lot, pacing the floor, in a really tight area in the lobby outside Jessica’s office, but looking down at the floor. His agitation was so high that he was wringing his hands.”
That was how Gillum described Aaron Fisher in Silent No More, a 2012 book written by Aaron Fisher, Fisher's mother, and Gillum, although the book is mostly written in Gillum's voice.
Fisher was obviously feeling pressured. He later recalled in Silent No More: “The truth is, I only agreed to go to his office because I wanted Jessica to stop asking me questions, and she said that Mike was the alternative, since I wasn’t answering her.”
Mike Gillum escorted Fisher into his office, where he began to reassure and disarm his young client, building the foundation for a trusting relationship that might enable future disclosure of sex abuse. Gillum rescheduled his other clients and spent the day focusing entirely on Aaron Fisher. Gillum wrote up a report for Jessica Dershem based on this initial confidential counseling session.
Fisher never told his mother exactly what was supposed to have happened to him. "Even now, these years later, he hasn't told me any details,” Daniels wrote in Silent No More. “Knowing what little I know, I can only imagine. And it makes me shudder."
At first, Fisher was equally uncommunicative with Mike Gillum, but Gillum immediately assumed that he really had been sexually abused. "I really think I know what you must be going through even though you won't tell me," he said. "You know...if someone touched you in your private parts, well, that's really embarrassing and hard to talk about because you're probably very scared.... It's my job and purpose to protect you and help you."
Gillum apparently believed that memories too painful to recall lay buried in the unconscious, causing mental illness of all kinds -- among them, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and alcoholism. His duty as a counselor was to entice clients whom he suspected had been subjected to abuse to reveal this abuse or to raise buried memories to the surface, where healing could begin.
Fisher’s agitated behavior during his first meeting was a red flag and a certain indicator of child sexual abuse in Gillum’s mind. “He looked at me straight in the eye, and you could see the pain in his eyes, you could see how uncomfortable he was, he was physically shaking at times, his voice was cracking.”
Later, in 2014, when I interviewed Mike Gillum in his office, he denied that Fisher had repressed memories, though Gillum admitted that he believed in the Freudian theory and had helped other adult clients recall previously “repressed” abuse memories.
The Courage to Heal, the "bible" of those who believe in repressed memories of sexual abuse, was prominently displayed on his bookshelf. In Fisher’s case, however, he said that it was more a matter of “peeling back the onion,” and that “Aaron did what a lot of people do during abuse. He would dissociate with his body. Aaron would freeze up and stare into space so that he wasn’t even there. Many rape victims report the same thing. They kind of pretend it’s not happening.”
I was impressed by Gillum’s sincerity during our interview. He certainly had no intention of encouraging false allegations. He truly wanted to help his clients, and he clearly had helped many of them who really had been abused. Yet it was also clear that his presumptions and methods, especially in the case of Aaron Fisher and other alleged Sandusky victims, might lead to well-rehearsed but illusory memories.
Like many other repressed memory therapists I have interviewed, Gillum emphasized that he took care not to lead his clients, even though that was precisely what he was doing. “You have to be careful not to put words in their mouth,” he said. “You try to take your time to get through the layers of information.”
Before he began seeing Mike Gillum, Fisher did not think of himself as a victim of sexual abuse. In Silent No More, Gillum wrote, “It didn’t even hit him that he was a victim until he was fifteen.”
Fisher verified this, writing, “It really wasn’t until I was fifteen and started seeing Mike that I realized the horror." Although Fisher showed signs of mental distress that got more serious over the course of his therapy, Gillum did not question himself or his therapeutic approach. Instead, he blamed it all on the supposed abuse and the uncertainty over whether the allegations were going to result in an arrest.
Gillum explained in Silent No More how he cued and prodded reluctant clients such as Aaron Fisher.
"If I'm lucky, they just acknowledge spontaneously without too much prodding," he wrote. But otherwise, he asked many Yes or No questions. "It's like that old kids' game of Hide the Button, where the kids say yes when you get closer and no when you're just on a cold trail."
This is classically bad technique for interviewing those suspected of being abused. It is highly suggestive, and it is often clear from the inflection of voice or body language (leaning forward expectantly, etc.) what answer is appropriate. And when No isn't acceptable, the interrogator just keeps asking until he or she gets a Yes.
"Although they give me information," Gillum said, "they don't feel held accountable because I'm guessing, but my guesses are educated." Gillum compared delving into the unconscious to “peeling back the layers of an onion,” and he knew what he would find at its rotten heart.
To Gillum, Aaron Fisher seemed immature, scared, and not very bright. "Aaron was beginning to open up, not in words, but his body language relaxed some. Though I knew he was fifteen, I couldn't get over how young he looked -- and his mental function and maturity appeared to be that of a twelve-year-old as well."
Finally, Gillum got him to answer Yes to his more and more specific questions. "He finally admitted that the man had touched his genitals and kissed him on the mouth, and he was painfully uncomfortable as he told me."
Gillum kept at it for three hours that first day with Aaron Fisher. "The whole time I was with him, I wasn't really taking notes, even during that first session. I wrote my notes up afterward. I did write down some trigger words, though."
John Ziegler posts a letter he received from Jerry Sanduky. Jerry thanks John for his efforts over the last 9+ years and in hosting the "With the Benefit of Hindsight" podcast. Jerry is receiving updates on the episodes and endorses the content and hopes that more people will recognize a wrongful conviction and that the court will as well. "I believe it cuts to the heart of what happened and how it happened ... More people will recognize a wrongful conviction. We cling to the hope that the court will."
Episode 8 "Known Only to God" has dropped.
In episode eight we learn about "the boy in the shower" from the Mike McQueary episode. His name never went public and prosecutors were intent on making sure his story never did either. His story, had it been told, would have dramatically changed the course of history. Maybe it's not too late!
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In episode eight we learn about "the boy in the shower" from the Mike McQueary episode. His name never went public and prosecutors were intent on making sure his story never did either. His story, had it been told, would have dramatically changed the course of history. Maybe it's not too late!
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that is a very good post but I disagree vis a vis Paterno.
MM already has stated he was very vague with Joe. I take that to believe he was more vague with Joe than with his father or Dranov or Tim and Gary. Fair enough? Based on those other conversations that is pretty damn vague.
Joe hears from Mike. He knows JS was investigated in 1998 [my opinion] and WAS CLEARED.
JS is 2 years gone and is really the problem for TSM.
At this point is it more logical to think this is 1998 all over again OR that the police and everyone made a mistake in 1998 and this is a huge red flag.
Despite this Joe does what he should have done. He turns it over to Tim. [who also likely knew more about 1998]
The story will never get retold but I think it is/would be very easy to explain Joe's behavior. [especially if it ever came to light that JS behavior was greatly exaggerated]
McQueary's dad, Dranov, Joe, Curley, and Shultz all said that Mike didn't tell them about anything sexual. That's 5 out of 5.
IMO it's ridiculous to believe McQueary's dad & Dranov but not believe Joe, Curley, and Shultz.
Pisses me off - yet again - that Gary is now being subjected to a new article of criticism and rallying people to rail against him getting his pension. Gary is a very good man, and deserves none of the crap that has been thrown at him since 2011. Same for Tim. Their well-earned pensions don't make up for all they have been through.
MM never was it.
On March 21st, Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka asked McQueary when he first heard that Jerry Sandusky was going to get arrested. Sandusky is the retired coach that McQueary allegedly saw naked in the Penn State showers with a boy.
It was during a bye week in the 2011 football season, McQueary told Ditka.
"I was on my way to Boston for recruiting and I was going from the F terminal over to the B terminals over in Philadelphia Airport," McQueary said. "And there was one of those little trams. The AGs called," he said, specifically naming Assistant Deputy Attorney General Jonelle Eshbach. And, according to McQueary, Eshbach "said we're going to arrest folks and we are going to leak it out."
Then, McQueary, perhaps catching himself, said, "Let me back up a little bit. We heard rumors that I had heard that -- the week before that arrests were imminent and that it was going to be more than Jerry Sandusky."
The state Attorney General's office has a known problem with leaks. Former state Attorney General Kathleen Kane lost her job after she was convicted last August of nine criminal charges, including leaking "confidential investigative information" in 2014 from a past grand jury probe to Chris Brennan, then a Philadelphia Daily News reporter.
Kane had to resign from her job and was sentenced to 10 to 23 months in jail after she was convicted of perjury, conspiracy, leaking grand jury information and then lying about it, to cover it up.
In the Jerry Sandusky case, prosecutors testified at a post-trial hearing last August that they had no knowledge of how the media found out that Sandusky and others in the Penn State scandal were about to be arrested. And how the media knew that there was a grand jury investigation of Sandusky in progress.
"If we can establish there were leaks by government agents, it could result in dismissal of case," Al Lindsay, Sandusky's lawyer, told reporters after the appeals hearing last August.
When reached for comment late today, Lindsay was on the case.
"We received a portion of that transcript from Mike McQueary," Lindsay said. "And it's certainly something we're studying to see whether or not it might be a fertile field for us to develop with regard to Mr. Sandusky's motion for a new trial," Lindsay said on behalf of client, now serving 30 to 60 years in prison.
A spokesperson for the state Attorney General's press office, where they're known for hiding under their desks, did not respond to a request for comment.
On the witness stand at the Spanier trial last month, McQueary testified that immediately after the AG's office told him they were going to leak news of the impending arrests, he ran over to the office of Assistant Athletic Director Fran Ganter.
"I remember it clearly," McQueary testified. "And I said, you gotta call Timmy's. Those guys are in trouble."
"Tim Curley," Ditka asked, referring to the former athletic director at Penn State.
"Yeah," McQueary testified. "And, you know, he kind of passed it off or shrugged me off," McQueary said about Ganter. "I'm not sure they believed me. And that's all that happened with that."
"So, a week later, I'm in that airport and I get a call," McQueary testified. "And then the media starts gettin' ahold of everything, and it's all kind of downhill after that."
Amen, brother.
When McQueary testified about the AG planning to "leak it out," I was in the courtroom but did not grasp the significance of what McQueary said. I had to have others explain it to me. And then it took a while to get the court transcript via a money order sent out snail mail to the Dauphin County Courthouse, to verify what McQueary had to say.
But Penn State veterans got it right away. Like Maribeth Roman Schmidt, the head of Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship.
"Mike's assertion under oath that the AGs leaked information about the PSU admins' arrests confirms suspicions we've had all along about prosecutorial misconduct on a number of levels," she said.
"It's now exceedingly obvious that the Attorney General was trying to manipulate public perception of the Penn State case from the very beginning, and they were willing to commit a crime to do it."
"This bombshell places the integrity of the entire Penn State case squarely at the feet of [newly elected AG] Josh Shapiro," Schmidt said about the new Attorney General who's yet to come out of hiding.
"If he's serious about restoring confidence in the AG's office," Schmidt said, "There is no other place for him to start than reviewing the conduct of prosecutors in this case from top to bottom."
Ray Blehar, who writes a blog, notpsu.blogspot.com, first reported the McQueary admission on March 25th, after he was tipped by Schmidt, who called it the "shocker of the day."
"McQueary Becomes Real Whistleblower," was Blehar's headline. In his blog post, Blehar quoted a transcript from McQueary's whistleblower and libel suit against Penn State, where McQueary scored a total of $12 million.
In the transcript from the McQueary trial, McQueary recounts how he was traveling to Boston, from Philadelphia Airport terminal B. It was Friday Nov. 4th after the Illinois game. McQueary testified how he got a phone call from then Deputy Attorney General Jonelle Eshbach.
"And she said a screw up had occurred or some kind of leak or a computer system malfunction, and she said all of the charges are going to be released," McQueary testified.
"However, it appears that McQueary's testimony at the Spanier trial goes a step further to state that Eshbach intentionally leaked the information," Blehar wrote.
"For years, Penn Staters have complained about the lack of an investigation into the leaks related to Jerry Sandusky," Blehar wrote. "Now, AG Josh Shapiro has the name of at least one of the Sandusky leakers. And it came from the Commonwealth's star witness in the Sandusky and Spanier cases."
Blehar called for Eshbach to be prosecuted "just as vigorously as former AG Kathleen Kane."
Eschbach, now running for York County District Attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.
For reporter John Ziegler, another regular chronicler of the Penn State scandal, the McQueary admission at the Spanier trial shines some light on a bigger picture.
"Anyone who uses his brain can only interpret this statement as an accidental admission that, just as I have long assumed, the AG's office prematurely leaked the grand jury presentment so that their favorite reporter, Sara Ganim, could 'find' it and start to set their false narrative," Ziegler said.
"Once you realize this is true, you must then also conclude that the entire basis of Ganim's article from March of that year revealing the existence of the grand jury was illegal AG leaks intended to jumpstart a case that was extremely weak because they had no credible accusers."
Related: Ziegler responds to those who want to get him fired.
Blehar: Is Frank Fina facing a perjury rap?
I know I keep going back to the notes and emails, but I think they're important with respect to Joe. Tim wrote:
I had scheduled a meeting with you this afternoon about the subject we discussed on Sunday. After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday – I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps. I am having trouble with going to everyone, but the person involved. I think I would be more comfortable meeting with the person and tell him about the information we received. I would plan to tell him we are aware of the first situation. I would indicate that we feel there is a problem and we want to assist the individual to get professional help. Also, we feel a responsibility at some point soon to inform his organization and maybe the other one about the situation. If he is cooperative, we would work with him to handle informing the organization. If not, we do not have a choice and will inform the two groups. Additionally, I will let him know that his guests are not permitted to use our facilities. I need some help on this one. What do you think about this approach?
Not only does Tim say "I" five times. He never says "Joe is uncomfortable", or "we are uncomfortable". It's "I am uncomfortable", and "I am having trouble..."
However, the most important word in this email is "everyone". The narrative suggests, based only on these emails, that following Tim's discussion with Joe, he convinced S/S not to report what happened. That interpretation is incorrect. He was not excluding the others, but simply suggesting that Sandusky should also be included among those told.
Had Tim said, "I am having trouble going to anyone, but the person involved", the narrative would be correct. That would suggest Tim felt it was best to inform Sandusky, but no one else. That's not what he says. In fact, what he says means just the opposite. It means that Tim was uncomfortable telling the others what had been reported without also telling Sandusky.
I believe had that one sentence been interpreted accurately, Joe's reputation would be intact to this day.
reading comprehension is a skill....and the masses are asses....that pretty much explains this whole saga.
That was a line clung to by people who wanted to make Joe a villain. In reality though, there was reason for Curley to be speaking to Joe about it at all beyond the initial conversation. Is that what this is referring to or was this Curley going back to Joe after the initial report? I can’t remember how it unfolded.
This was Curley going back to Joe after Tim and Gary had met with MM, and along with Spanier, were trying to determine how best to address the situation.
OK. Really, Joe should not have been involved with that at all, from my point of view.
I would agree with you had MM reported an incident of CSA. Since that's not what occurred, I don't see the problem. Consider Spanier's response:
This approach is acceptable to me. It requires you to go a step further and means your conversation will be all the more difficult, but I admire your willingness to do that and I am supportive. The only downside for us is if our message is not “heard” and acted upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it. But that can be assessed down the road. The approach you outline is humane and a reasonable way to proceed.
1) Spanier takes responsibility. This is the end of the story as far as Joe is concerned.
2) This confirms that what Tim proposed was not eliminating any of the steps originally discussed, but was adding an additional step.
3) He praises Tim for his willingness to have an uncomfortable conversation with Jerry and he terms the proposal as "humane and a reasonable way to proceed". Hardly what you would expect regarding an incident that could blow up in their face.
4) I believe the "only downside" sentence is completely misinterpreted. Rather than how it is portrayed in Freeh's narrative, it proves that they weren't dealing with a report of CSA by citing an if/then scenario. In other words, how would they not have been "vulnerable" as long as Jerry took their message to heart if there was an abused child involved? That makes no sense. It wouldn't matter in the least what Jerry did or did not do in the future if what he did in the past involved the sexual abuse of a child. The possibility that AM would go to the authorities would have left them vulnerable forever, regardless of Jerry's future actions.
This was about preventing a future he said/he said scenario, similar to '98, not concealing a crime.
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But Sandusky was an ex-assistant coach of Joe’s. No reason for Curley to have involved him after the initial conversation. I don’t think it’s a huge deal, it just put Joe in a spot he didn’t need to be in.
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I get that. My point would be that if MM had told Tim and Gary of sexual abuse, there would have been nothing to discuss. I think Tim wanted to circle back with Joe after they met with MM to compare notes. I also know how close Tim and Joe were. He valued Joe's counsel. What I'm arguing is that what Tim proposed after talking with Joe has been misinterpreted.
My argument has always been that if the notes and emails are read from the perspective that Tim and Gary testified truthfully to the grand jury they make perfect sense, but make no sense at all if their intent was to conceal a reported crime.
Let me give you one more example. After their initial meeting with Joe and before even meeting with MM, Schultz wrote:
-Talked w TMC, reviewed 1998 history
-agreed TMC will discuss with JVP & advise we think TMC should meet w/JS on Friday
-unless he “confesses” to having a problem, TMC will indicate we need to have DPW review the matter as an independent agency concerned with child welfare
Think about what that last point actually means. If Jerry won't admit he has a problem, they'll have to report him to DPW. However, if he does admit it, they won't have to report to DPW. That's completely backwards if, by problem, we're talking about pedophilia. The only way it makes sense is if, by problem, we're talking about boundary issues.
I think you're sorta missing my point. I'm not saying Joe's behavior can't be explained. I was pointing to the narrative and Joe's legacy. Effectively, it would take some earth shattering bombshell to get people to look at this, and even then, I feel like you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Even if some huge bombshell dropped, Sandusky is innocent, gets released, MM admits he was manipulated, I don't see all of a sudden PSU putting the statue back up. I don't think you'll hear announcers during games speak of him fondly etc.
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Not a huge thing but I don’t think he should have circled back to Joe. Not to compare notes, not for advice, not for suggestions. He was being paid an nice salary and this was his thing to handle, not Joe’s. Joe did his part and shared the information with Curley. That should have been the end of it. Do you think Curley would have circled back to Joe if Joe reported the same information about another person not previously related to the football team? I’m guessing not. Again, not a huge deal and not something that should have gotten any of these people crucified but something that I don’t think should have occurred.
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It wasn't that simple. MM was a whistleblower and employed as a GA by the university. He might have even formally been a job applicant at that point. Someone should be counseling the manager/hiring manager on the intricacies of the whistleblower's protections.
This whole thing is much more complex than the media can handle.
When you work together in an institution you build relationships over a period of years. Tim had/has great respect for Joe's insight and wisdom. Sometimes when in a difficult situation you like to bounce things off of people that you know will be honest and forthright in their opinions and assessments. I think that is all this was.
You are correct if you drew this situation up on a blackboard. But it involved people Joe had a great deal of experience with.
What does that have to do with Curley circling back to discuss Sandusky with Joe? I could see him coming back to him to discuss the situation as far as it involves his GA.
I get that. But this not a subject that should have been discussed with anybody other than those that absolutely needed to be involved with it. In my opinion at least.
Except -
deputy Attorney General Jonelle Eshbach was trying to calm Mike McQueary, her distraught star whistle-blower.
McQueary had emailed Eshbach earlier that day to tell her that the grand jury report that told the world that McQueary had witnessed a naked Sandusky in the Penn State showers having anal intercourse with a 10-year-old boy was wrong. In that same email, McQueary complained to the A.G.'s office that they had "twisted" his words about "whatever it was" that he had actually seen or heard in the showers.
Now there's a star witness you can have confidence in.
In a second email sent that same day, McQueary complained to Eshbach about "being misrepresented" in the media. And then McQueary tried to straighten out a couple of misconceptions, writing that he never went to Coach Joe Paterno's house with his father, and that he had never seen Sandusky with a child at a Penn State football practice.
"I know that a lot of this stuff is incorrect and it is hard not to respond," Eshbach emailed McQueary. "But you can't."
That email exchange, divulged in a couple of posts by Penn State blogger Ray Blehar, have people in Penn State Nation talking about prosecutorial misconduct. Naturally, the A.G.'s office has nothing to say about it, as an office spokesperson declined comment today.
The 2011 grand jury report said that back when he visited the Penn State showers in 2001, Mike McQueary heard "rhythmic, slapping sounds." Then, he peered into the showers and "saw a naked boy, Victim No. 2, whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Jerry Sandusky."
But McQueary wrote Eshbach, while copying Agent Anthony Sassano, "I feel my words are slightly twisted and not totally portrayed correctly in the presentment."
"I cannot say 1000 percent sure that it was sodomy. I did not see insertion," McQueary wrote. "It was a sexual act and or way over the line in my opinion whatever it was."
McQueary also complained about the media attention he was getting.
"National media, and public opinion has totally, in every single way, ruined me," McQueary wrote. "For what?"
Later that same day, McQueary wrote a second email to Eshbach and Sassano.
"Also," McQueary wrote, "I never went to Coach Paterno's house with my father . . . It was me and only me . . . he was out of town the night before . . . never ever have I seen JS [Jerry Sandusky] with a child at one of our practices . . . "
The reference about his father not accompanying him to a meeting with Joe Paterno was probably McQueary's attempt to correct a mistake in a Nov. 5, 2011 Sara Ganim story about the grand jury presentment that ran in the Harrisburg Patriot News.
In her story, Ganim wrote that according to the indictment, "On March 1, 2002, the night before Spring Break, a Penn State graduate assistant walked into the Penn State football locker room around 9:30 p.m. and witnessed Sandusky having sex with about 10 years old . . . The next morning, the witness and his father told head football coach Joe Paterno, who immediately told athletic director Tim Curley."
Then, McQueary returned to the subject of the bad publicity he was getting over the grand jury report.
"I am being misrepresented in the media," McQueary wrote. "It just is not right."
That's what prompted Eshback to write, "I know that a lot of this stuff is incorrect and it is hard to to respond. But you can't."
Former NCIS and FIS Special Agent John Snedden, a Penn State alum, was blown away by Eshbach's email response to McQueary.
"It's incredible, it's evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, trying to steer a witness's testimony," Snedden said. "It shows that the prosecution's manipulating the information, throwing out what they don't want and padding what they do want . . . It very strongly suggests a fictitious presentment."
During the defamation suit McQueary filed against Penn State, Eshbach was sworn in as a witness and asked to explain what she meant by telling McQueary not to talk.
"My advice to Mr. McQueary not to make a statement was based on the strengthening of my -- and saving of my case," Eshbach testified. "I did not want him [McQueary] making statements to the press at that time that could at some time be used against him in cross-examination. He [McQueary] was perfectly free to make a statement, but I asked him not to."
There's another angle to the prosecutorial misconduct story line -- this email exchange between McQueary and Eshbach that was reported on by Blehar was not turned over by the prosecution to defense lawyers during the Sandusky trial and the trial of former Penn State president Graham Spanier.
While we're on the subject of prosecutorial misconduct, at the Spanier trial, it was McQueary who testified that during the bye week of the 2011 Penn State football season, he got a call on his cell phone from the attorney general's office, tipping him off that "We're going to arrest folks and we are going to leak it out."
The fact that Mike McQueary didn't see a naked Jerry Sandusky having anal intercourse in the showers with a 10-year-old boy isn't the only erroneous assumption that came out of that shoddy 2011 grand jury report, Blehar wrote.
"The Sandusky grand jury presentment of Nov. 4, 2011 provided a misleading account of what eyewitness Michael McQueary reported to Joe Paterno about the 2001 incident," Blehar wrote. "Rather than stating what McQueary reported, it stated he reported 'what he had seen' which led the media and the public to erroneously conclude the specific details were reported to Paterno."
Keep in mind what the grand jury report said McQueary had seen -- a naked Sandusky having anal intercourse in the showers with a 10-year-old boy -- never actually happened, according to McQueary.
The grand jury report said:
"The graduate assistant went to his office and called his father, reporting to him what he had seen . . . The graduate assistant and his father decided that the graduate assistant had to promptly report what he had seen to Coach Joe Paterno . . . The next morning, a Saturday, the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno and went to Paterno's home, where he reported what he had seen."
Blehar cited the words of Joe Paterno, who issued a statement on Nov. 6, 2011, saying that McQueary had "at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the grand jury report."
McQueary agreed.
On Dec. 6, 2011, McQueary was asked under oath whether he had ever used the term "anal sodomy" in talking to Paterno.
"I've never used that term," McQueary said. "I would have explained to him the positions they were in roughly, but it was definitely sexual, but I have never used the word anal or rape in this since day one."
So what exactly did you tell Paterno, the prosecutor asked McQueary.
"I gave a brief description of what I saw," McQueary testified. "You don't -- ma'am, you don't go to Coach Paterno or at least in my mind and I don't go to Coach Paterno and go into great detail of sexual acts. I would have never done that with him ever."
Blehar also points out that not even the jury in the Sandusky case believed that Sandusky had anally raped Victim No. 2 in the Penn State showers, because they came to a not guilty verdict on the count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
Blehar then cites four other witnesses in the case who also testified that McQueary never used sexual terms in describing what he had allegedly seen in the shower.
"Subsequent testimony in numerous proceedings from 2011 through 2017 by John McQueary, Dr. [John] Dranov, [former Penn State Athletic Director Tim] Curley and [former Penn State VP Gary] Schutz confirmed that no explicitly sexual terms were used by McQueary when he described what he actually saw," Blehar wrote.
In his second email to Eshbach, McQueary stated, "I never went to Coach Paterno's house with my father . . . It was me and only me . . . he was out the night before . . ."
In the email, McQueary doesn't say who the he was who was out the night before. In his blog post, Blehar takes the he as a reference to McQueary's father.
"Wait, what?" Blehar writes. "Paterno was in State College on Friday night. If this statement is true, then Mike did NOT meet with his father (and Dr. Dranov) immediately after the incident(because John Sr. was 'out of town.')"
"Another fabrication?" writes Blehar. "And the AG knew it."
In handwritten notes written in 2010, McQueary doesn't mention any meeting with his father and Dr. Dranov. Instead, he writes that he "drove to my parents' house" and "spoke with my father about the incident and received advice."
He also reiterates, "to be clear: from the time I walked into the locker room to the time I left was maybe one minute -- I was hastened & a bit flustered."
A hazy one-minute memory that McQueary himself admitted he had no idea "whatever it was" he had actually witnessed.
But it was a hazy, one-minute memory that the AG's office wrote an entire grand jury presentment around. How weak is that?
It was flimsy evidence like this that led Special Agent Snedden to conclude that McQueary was not a credible witness back in 2012 when Snedden was investigating whether former Penn State President Spanier deserved to have his high-level security clearance with the federal government renewed. Snedden wrote a recently declassified 110-page report that concluded there was no cover up at Penn State because there was no sex crime to cover up.
Because McQueary gave five different accounts over the years of what he supposedly witnessed during that one minute in the Penn State showers.
"I'd love to see McQueary's cell phone records, absent whatever dick pics he was sending out that day," Snedden cracked, referring to the day McQueary witnessed the shower incident, and then called his father to figure out what to do.
"Did he even call his dad?" Snedden wondered.
Snedden renewed his call for an independent investigation of the entire Penn State scandal, and the attorney general's role in manipulating evidence in the case.
"Anybody who cares about justice needs to be screaming for a special prosecutor in this case," Snedden said.
John Ziegler, a journalist who has covered the Penn State scandal since day one, agreed.
"This seems like blatant OAG misconduct and an indication that they were acutely aware their case had major problems," Ziegler wrote in an email. "Eshbach's response is stunning in that it admits errors in grand jury presentment and tells Mike to shut up about it."
Ziegler said the possibility that Mike McQueary never met with his father and Dr. Dranov, his father's boss, in an emergency meeting, if true, was big news.
"This is HUGE for several reasons," Ziegler wrote. The meeting, which supposedly occurred on the night McQueary witnessed the shower incident was the "ONLY piece of evidence that has EVER been consistent with Mike witnessing something horrible/dramatic" in the Penn State showers. And that's why "Dranov was brought in to meet with him [Mike McQueary] late on a Friday night in February," Ziegler said.
The AG's office, Ziegler speculated, "is desperate for evidence that Mike did something dramatic in reaction to" witnessing the shower incident.
And if the he McQueary was referring to in the email to Eshbach wasn't his father but was really Joe Paterno, Ziegler said, then that's another problem with the official Penn State story line. Because according to his family, Joe Paterno was in town that night and presumably available for an emergency meeting with a distraught assistant who had just witnessed a horrible sex crime in the shower.
If he really did see an anal rape ongoing in the shower, however, does the McQueary story, in any of its versions, make any sense?
McQueary didn't rush into the shower and try to save a helpless, 10-year-old boy.
first, I am unsure of the protections circa 2002 The catholic priest scandal only blew up the spring of 2002 with the Boston Globe article.
Second, because MM didn't report it to Joe until at least the next morning, there was nothing Joe could do except hand it to the school (JS was not an employee and MM watered down the description). Curley and Schulz could only ask JS for the boy's name (who didn't corroborate the story) and MM said he never really directly saw anything wrong. It was the MM testimony COMBINED with a dozen kids saying JS molested them that got him convicted. That boy in the shower has never been identified and never filed charges/claims.
In fact, after researching for several years, the NCAA guidelines are to do exactly what JVP did: report it to authorities outside of the sports reporting verticle (To Schultz, who was in charge of campus police).
Isn't it typical of this case that the prosecution told Mike to keep his mouth shut, but C/S/S/P never did?
I honestly think there’s a good chance Tim wanted to circle back with Joe because after Tim and Gary spoke with Mike, they learned the incident was actually much milder than they expected based on what Joe stated when he first contacted them.
Remember Joe did not personally like Sandusky, so when Joe contacted Tim about Jerry’s latest incident, Joe may have shown more disgust in his voice compared with what the incident really merited. I think Tim contacted Joe because he wanted to make sure Joe wasn’t then going to get on his ass about be too nice to Jerry. Remember Joe never wanted him bringing kids into the locker room in the first place. Also, with Jerry recently almost becoming Virginia’s coach, I am sure Joe didn’t look kindly on a potential rival coach using their facilities.
Also, if you look at all the emails /notes in context, the plan was for Tim to contact Jerry. It was only after Tim started getting cold feet about a potential awkward encounter did they consider involving CYS. Finally, Tim decision to not get CYS involved was actually him manning up and being willing to have this potentially difficult conversation. A gentleman named Adam Clark details this on a Twitter thread.
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Allan Myers did claim to be V2 in his claim against PSU, and PSU paid him as V2.
There’s actually even more to the story to this guy than Ziegler gets into during his latest podcast. After Shubin provided the OAG with the statement which described in great detail horrific abuse against Myers , a postal inspector interviewed Myers (not sure why a postal inspector) and Myers stated he had not yet spoke to anyone about the details of his abuse including his lawyer.
That was a clear act of Obstruction of Justice by Andrew Shubin, and reportedly, Frank Fina nearly had Shubin arrested for it. Fina ultimately decided against it, likely because he knew that arresting the attorney who represented 3 of 8 Sandusky trial accusers for providing a false statement alleging abuse of an accuser would potentially kill their case against Sandusky. That is why they came up with the “known only to God” BS.
In any scenario, the fact that they were talking about the incident beyond personnel with a “need to know” absolutely destroys the whole cover-up narrative.
All I have to say is that if Sandusky gets released, but PSU still does not put the statue back, some people will need to be beat in the streets.
Of course. That narrative never made any sense. One of the things in this whole thing that there is no question about is whether or not there was a coverup.
