Believe what you want to believe.
In 1998, v6 did not believe he was a victim. V6 and Sandusky maintained a friendly non-sexual relationship over the next 13 years. Please tell me what you believe is the strong evidence of CSA that Gricar ignored.
With the Benefit of Hindsight - Ziegler's new documentary podcast on scandal to start in 2021
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Believe what you want to believe.
In 1998, v6 did not believe he was a victim. V6 and Sandusky maintained a friendly non-sexual relationship over the next 13 years. Please tell me what you believe is the strong evidence of CSA that Gricar ignored.
Connorpozlee said:
Just to be clear, you don't want to reference any evidence or testimony that supports each verdict specifically?
The Dahmer thing is apples and oranges. I don't really want you to go down this rabbit hole though.
Since YOU believe that trained state professionals made a huge mistake that led to EVERY subsequent victim's alleged abuse... wouldn't a better use of your time be trying to highlight those failures in an attempt to prevent future abuse, rather than spending your time on these sort of threads repeating your position over and over?
I'm not really arguing that 1998 proves CSA. What I am saying is the argument that Jerry was "cleared" by a competent investigation in 1998 is not correct in my opinion.
Mr. Accuweather was cut a deal that if he got help with his problem he wouldn't be charged. I'm sure that Gricar cut a similar deal for Jerry.
Just clarify - are you saying you know Gricar cut a deal with Sandusky or you think Gricar cut a deal with Sandusky?
Am I 100% certain? No. 95%? Yes. Gricar's not around (conveniently) to get confirmation which means relying on statements of others.
It's not clear whether this was directly between him and Jerry. It may have been through intermediaries.
This led to the real flaws.
The "fatal flaw" in Sandusky's appeal is that the collusion and leaks documented in the McChesney diary amount to "nothing more than speculation" about what "certain diaries entries and emails should be interpreted to mean," Buck told the judges.
"I think the allegations that we raised are new and they're very grave, and very, very important," countered Al Lindsay, Sandusky's lawyer. Lindsay argued that the McChesney diary is a breakthrough in the long running Sandusky case because it documents grand jury leaks and collusion between the AG's criminal investigation of Sandusky, and the supposedly independent civil investigation done on behalf of Penn State by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.
"We have to take testimony from the individuals involved," such as McChesney, Fina, and Freeh, Lindsay insisted to the judges during a half-hour of oral arguments in the case.
The 79-page diary was written in 2011 and 2012 by former FBI Special Agent McChesney, when she was acting as co-leader of the civil investigation of Penn State being led by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.
As an FBI agent, McChesney was a key member of the task force that arrested serial killer Ted Bundy, and she was prominently featured on camera last year in a Netflix documentary series, "Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes." After the Bundy case, McChesney rose in the ranks to become the only female FBI agent ever appointed to be the bureau's executive assistant director.
McChesney's credibility was such that in 2002, in the wake of the widespread sex abuse scandal involving the Catholic clergy, the U.S. Conference of Bishops hired McChesney to establish and lead its Office of Child and Youth Protection.
She's also the author of a 2011 book, "Pick Up Your Own Brass: Leadership the FBI Way." In state Superior Court, Sandusky's lawyers are hoping McChesney's unpublished diary will win a new trial for Sandusky, convicted in 2012 on 45 counts of child sex abuse, and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in jail.
In McChesney's diary, she not only documents grand jury leaks by Fina, but she also describes the AG's office supplying the Freeh Group with documents and grand jury transcripts that they didn't have a legal right to see. McChesney's diary also documented how Fina was actively involved in directing the Freeh Group's investigation, to the point of saying if and when they could interview certain witnesses.
For example, McChesney recorded that the Freeh Group had to notify Fina when they wanted to interview Ronald Schreffler, an investigator from Penn State Police who probed a 1998 shower incident involving Sandusky and a young boy that never resulted in criminal charges. After the Freeh Group notified Fina about the requested interview, McChesney wrote, "Fina approved interview with Schreffler."
In court, however, rather than take on those type of allegations, the AG has argued that Sandusky's lawyers did not produce the McChesney diary in a timely fashion, so that Sandusky's motion for a new trial should be dismissed on procedural grounds by the state Superior Court.
Sandusky's lawyers received a copy of the McChesney diary on Nov. 4, 2019, but they didn't bring it up at a Nov. 22, 2019 re-sentencing hearing, the state Attorney General has argued. Nor did Sandusky's lawyers bring up the diary at a Jan. 28th hearing on post-sentence motions. Instead, Sandusky's lawyers waited until May 9, 2020 to file their motion for a new trial, the AG complained.
But Lindsay has argued that in addition to the McChesney diary, Sandusky's defense team on March 10th received a summary of the Freeh Group's interview with one of the jurors at the Sandusky trial, which Sandusky's lawyers contend amounts to jury tampering.
In oral arguments, Lindsay said the procedural objections from the AG's office amount to a "remarkable response" that's an attempt to dodge the real issue involving evidence from a decorated FBI agent that documents corruption in the AG's office.
Lindsay said he waited to notify the court about the McChesney diary because he wanted "to show the impact" the AG's collusion and leaks had on Sandusky's criminal trial.
"We knew they [the AG and Freeh] were running a de facto joint investigation," Lindsay told the court, but he needed to gather more evidence, such as Freeh's interview with one of the jurors, and an affidavit from Joseph Amendola, Sandusky's trial lawyer.
In an affidavit, Sandusky stated that he had no idea of the collusion that was going on between the AG's office and Freeh. And had he known, Amendola would have sought to dismiss the juror from the case. Amendola stated in his affidavit that he would have also sought to question other jurors in the Sandusky case about whether they were also interviewed by Freeh.
"Is it your position that they [Freeh] may have tainted" one of the jurors, a judge asked.
"Absolutely, our petition alleges that," Lindsay shot back.
In response, Buck argued that an evidentiary hearing required "actual facts that warrant a hearing," she said, and that such a hearing "is not meant to be a fishing expedition."
"What we have at this juncture," Buck argued, was, "they criticize the Freeh report and are taking the diary entries and certain emails and interpreting them, rather than looking at cold hard facts."
A judge asked if the allegation of a "tainted juror" was enough of an argument to "warrant further development of those facts."
Buck agreed, but then asserted that even if true as alleged, "the new evidence doesn't change anything," as in the verdict in the Sandusky trial. As in let's keep moving, there's nothing to see here.
But, Lindsay argued that when she was questioned in court by Amendola and the trial judge, the "responses given by the potential juror seem to be different" than what was recorded in a summary on the juror's interview with the Freeh Group.
During jury selection on June 6, 2012, Laura Pauley, a professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State who served as a juror in the Sandusky trial, was asked by Amendola what she had previously told Freeh's investigators.
"It was focused more on how the board of trustees interacts with the president," Pauley told Amendola, as well as "how faculty are interacting with the president and the board of trustees . . ."
But the interview went much further than that, and also revealed clear bias by Pauley against Penn State and its handling of the Sandusky case. Although she hadn't heard any evidence yet, Pauly already had her mind made up about Sandusky's guilt, as well as whether top Penn Sate officials were guilty of a cover up.
According to a summary of the April 19, 2011 interview with Freeh's investigators, Pauley stated that she believed that the leadership at Penn State just "kicks the issue down the road."
"The PSU culture can best be described as people who do not want to resolve issues and want to avoid confrontation," Pauley told Freeh's investigators, according to their summary of the interview. She also stated that Penn State President Graham Spanier was "very controlling," and that "she feels that [former Penn State Athletic Director Tim] Curley and [former Penn State vice president Gary] Schultz are responsible for the scandal."
"She stated that she senses Curley and Schultz treated it [the scandal] the 'Penn State' way and were just moving on and hoping it would fade away," the summary states. In an interview with author Mark Pendergrast, the juror also disclosed that in her opinion, Freeh's investigators were trying to put words in her mouth, Lindsay told the Superior Court panel of judges.
When Pauley was questioned by Amendola at the Sandusky trial, "At no time during this colloquy, or any other time, did the prosecution disclose that it was working in collaboration with the Freeh Group, which interviewed this witness," Sandusky's lawyers contended in a brief.
In court, Buck continued to argue that whatever was written in the McChesney diary, "There's certainly no evidence of collusion."
But Lindsay argued that "the whole purpose is of having the hearing is so we can bring in the author of the diary," and "bring in witnesses" who can testify about the collusion, as well as the "virtual gushing of grand jury leaks."
Lindsay also told the judges he was tired of listening to frequent procedural objections from the AG's office.
"When it comes to this case, any procedural thing that they [the AG's office] can throw up that will keep us from getting to what actually happened, happens," Lindsay told the judges.
Now it's up to the Superior Court to see if the AG's office continues to get away with their coverup.
This is a bad analogy.
A better analogy would be that there were 3 dozen cupcakes on the counter that are now missing.
Your 3 year old daughter (not the most reliable witness) says your son ate one.
You see your son chewing/swallowing but he says he was eating a handful of raisins (which he allowed to have as a healthy snack). He vehemently denies any wrongdoing (including eating the one cupcake that the 3 year old says he ate), but admits being in the kitchen and eating a snack.
Sketchy? That’s all? My opinion is that the prosecutor is altering testimony at the least and more than likely making it up to suit her needs/ wants. But sketchy, NO.
I think he could cite the testimony of McQueary at to the shower charges which is evidence.
Which of Mike's multiple versions about what he heard for 2-3 seconds, is applicable to the 1998 shower incident... which we are clearly talking about?
Chewing and swallowing may not be the best analogy to use in this situation to make your case.
OK, more than sketchy? You pick the adjective. Obviously there were issues with prosecution, which I’ve acknowledged. But the Sandusky defenders also need to acknowledge the issues with his continued showering activities (and wrestling in otherwise deserted gyms) instead of just excusing it. It was inexcusable.
Don’t you think something like that would have leaked out by now given the heavy scrutiny of this case for the past 10 years?
I believe that you are attempting to minimize the “issues” with the prosecution. I am not a Sandusky defender only someone who believes that ANYONE deserves a fair trial, not the case in this instance. I believe most acknowledge the implications of showering with youngsters but it in itself does not make him guilty.
Some of it has leaked out but there hasn't been any investigative journalism on this case in 8 years. Any reporting on Sandusky now essentialy just covers what comes out in court documents/rulings.
What is available now I believe makes a strong case for Gricar working out some kind of deal. It's not a certainty but with Gricar missing and his file on Sandusky gone with him we'll probably never get 100% proof.
But his ADA says he did it...and he had done it in the past...as had other DAs in other counties in PA. It's not as rare as people believe or would hope.
Nope, not minimizing them at all. There were issues which is why I have continually said I’m fine with a retrial. The “Jerry is innocent” side either ignores, excuses, or justifies the showering nonsense. It cannot be ignored, excused, or up to this point, justified. There is a whole lot of starting from the end and found going backwards. If you start from the beginning and move forward, it makes sense from the other side.
Your question was what testimony or evidence supports each verdict. McQuery's testimony supports the verdicts for the shower incident. The fact that there may have been different versions which undermine the credibility of his testimony does not change the fact that there was in fact testimony/evidence which clearly supported those verdicts; and that was your question.
What specifically has leaked out? No investigative journalism in 8 years - what do you call what Ziegler has done?
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There were some interesting items on Gricar and the 1998 investigation in the McChesney diary for one.
Yes Ziegler and Blehar have been doing work on the case but mainstream papers/media have dropped it for years. Most just reprint the AP write ups if anything from the court cases comes out.
The “mainstream” media has by and large been lousy at covering Sandusky, so I don’t understand why their coverage would matter. Ziegler has clearly done more on the case than anybody, so I don’t see any basis for making such an odd statement about not having serious investigative journalism in the last 8 years. Ralph Cipriano has done some solid work as well. Interesting that you cite the AP - you should listen to Ziegler’s podcast about AP reporter, Mark Scolforo.
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GTACSA said:
Oh dear lord. You're just doubling down on stupid today. My question was what testimony or evidence supports each verdict for the 1998 shower incident. Since you don't seem to understand, McQueary was the earwitness in
Sure, if you had actually read the thread before responding, you would see post after post specifically reference 1998. I'm sure you will somehow try to dispute this, because "trolls gotta troll". As and example, look at post #1291. I ask specifically about "the first shower incident", and @Connorpozlee replies with the the charges specific to the 1998 shower incident. If you go to page 32 or 33 of this thread and search for 1998, you get MANY hits. This is were you apologize for jumping in the middle of a conversation with a stupid comment, and wasting my time.
@Connorpozlee Shame on you for liking post #1325, a post messing up absolutely basic facts in this case. It's a great move if you want people to think you don't understand this case, or are so desperate for someone to give you backup that you will like any post regardless how stupid and off topic it is. Think about that while you are formulating a response to post #1310.
I pity your partner (and society as a whole) if you think showering alone with boys and hugging them is a normal part of your day.
Shame on me? This is just a conversation, not a court of law. I consider this to be a virtual barroom, not a research lab where I am going to go back and find numbered posts to nitpick others in the conversation. But if we’re going to shame each other, shame on you for defending a grown man manipulating a situation so he can hug a boy in a shower.
Lousy they may be the mainstream media has a greater ability to get hold of relevant documents in this case that remain sealed.
Ziegler, Ciprano and Bagwell have a much greater difficulty gaining access to that material than someone at NBC. Unfortunately the former are the ones trying to so work on this case while the latter aren't. Hence potentially significant information isn't coming to light as it should.
It is definitely not a normal part of my day. But that doesn't make it inherently sexual, nor does it make it illegal. Inappropriate, yes. Consistent with abuse given all the other facts we have? No.
I beg to differ.
I believe that Cipriano has done very well getting access to sealed materials such as the McChesney diary, the alumni BOT's critical report of their Freeh Report review and the confidential settlement documents between Penn State and the 36 claimants. Each of these documents have been revealing, however it doesn't seem like the AP, NBC or any other major media outlet is at all interested in figuring out and reporting on what exactly happened.
I give credit to the likes of Mark Pendergrast, John Snedden, Ralph Cipriano, John Ziegler and Fred Crews for exposing and reporting on what exactly has happened in this fiasco. The main stream media has failed miserably and one day it will be apparent for all to see.
Getting that material out has been great but there's much more that's held in the PSU police files and PA courts that are much more difficult to access. I believe they can ultimately be released but it requires legal manpower that some of the networks and media centers have that individuals don't.
It’s indefensible, yet people still try to defend it. It’s baffling. At least here you’ve said it’s inappropriate and not tried to defend it.
Illegal or not it is damning circumstantial evidence that cannot be explained or ignored. There are people that have been convicted and executed on circumstantial evidence alone. The showering was believed by the jury to be enough to convict on those counts.
Just because you don't accept it does not invalidate their interpretation.
Jerry will die in custody.
It isn't indefensible but is inappropriate. I'm not sure why you can't separate the two.
It can and has been explained. Just because you don't accept it doesn't invalidate that intepretation.
It’s indefensible and inappropriate. As an average citizen it is indefensible. As a grown man working with youths it is even more so. If you think it is defensible, would you be OK with me walking up to you in a group shower where we were the only two in there and giving you hug? What excuse would I be able to give you to make you think, “Well, that was inappropriate but he presented a good defense so I’ll buy it”? This is a serious question.
Right, and that is where the case starts. The boys say they were sexually abused, Jerry says they weren’t. OK. Hard to prove either side, really. So we go with the little bit we know as facts. Jerry showering alone and having physical contact with boys in a shower. Well, that is certainly going to lead most people to lean towards the boys being the ones telling the truth because it defies all logic for that to happen innocently not only once, but again after already having been investigated for it by the police.
Fascinating.
Had Sandusky's lawyer seen the Freeh Group's report of their interview of the juror, they would have discovered that she was a disgruntled employee who was already convinced, based on what she'd read in the newspapers, that Penn State had orchestrated a cover up of Sandusky's alleged crimes with children.
Had Sandusky's lawyer read that report, he would have never allowed the disgruntled and highly opinionated Penn State professor to sit on the jury that convicted Sandusky. And when Joseph Amendola, Sandusky's overwhelmed trial lawyer, was questioning the juror, Frank Fina, sitting over at the prosecutor's table, stayed silent. He never divulged that he was collaborating with Freeh's investigators on a regular basis, and may have even had his own copy of the juror's interview with Freeh's investigators.
How does the Hon. Judge Nichols get around an ethical cloud over that juror?
And in the McChesney diary, written by a former FBI agent who rose up the ranks to become the first woman to ever hold the No. 2 job in the bureau, McChesney casually drops the fact that she's been told Judge John Cleland isn't going to let anything delay Sandusky's rushed trial date.
How did she know that? In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's appeal lawyers quote an affidavit from Amendola saying it wasn't him who told McChesney. So in their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's appeal lawyers propose subpoenaing Judge Cleland to the evidentiary hearing, so he can explain that situation.
So now we already have an ethical cloud over not only one of the jurors who convicted Sandusky, and we also have a mushroom cloud over Fina, who sat silently while the juror was being questioned. And we also have an ethical cloud over the trial judge, who was hellbent on convicting Sandusky before the start of the 2012 Penn State football season, so the NCAA and Penn State could strike a deal on voluntary sanctions that would save the Nittany Lions from the death penalty.
And how does the Hon. Judge Nichols get around that?
Meanwhile, Sandusky's appeal lawyers are seeking to comb through thousands of pages of confidential documents known as the "source materials" for the Freeh Report. These are thousands of pages still under seal as the corrupt majority on the Penn State board of trustees seeks to keep an ongoing cover up in operation.
But every day, more of these documents are being leaked, on the scale of a Frank Fina type operation. And these documents that the Penn State board of trustees would like to keep secret are filled with further proof of the scandal behind the scandal at Penn State.
Much of this information may be exculpatory, as the kind of evidence of prosecutorial misconduct that Judge Nichols said didn't exist when she wrote her boneheaded opinion that denied Sandusky a new trial based on the non-existent, since-shredded credibility of Frank Fina.
Such as on March 12, 2012, when Louie Freeh's investigators got a phone call from Ronald Schreffler, a retired detective with the Penn State University Police Department. Schreffler was the detective who investigated the so-called first shower incident involving Jerry Sandusky and a young boy, back in 1998. It was an investigation of possible sex abuse that multiple authorities subsequently concluded was unfounded.
In the phone call, documented in a report by Richard Sethman, one of Freeh's investigators, Schreffler stated that "it has been clear to him from the beginning that there has been a leak of information in the attorney general's grand jury investigation of Sandusky."
How did Schreffler know that?
"In March of 2011," the report says, "Sara Ganim, a reporter for the Patriot News in Harrisburg came to his residence and asked pointed questions about the 1998 Sandusky investigation," Sethman wrote after his conversation with the retired detective.
"Ganim advised Schreffler that she had a copy of the Pennsylvania State University Police report. She made specific reference to what Schreffler had written in the report. Schreffler asked Ganim how she got a copy of the report but Ganim would not reveal her source."
[But Frank Fina is still out looking for him, a search that could end the next time Fina looks in the bathroom mirror].
Schreffler subsequently told a neighbor who was a retired state police captain "about his encounter with Ganim and of his concern for a leak in the investigation."
On April 4, 2012, Sethman and another Freeh investigator, Tom Cloud, interviewed Schreffler. During the interview, the men at the table discussed the leak to Ganim of the 1998 police report.
"Schreffler stated that he wasn't sure of how information from the 1998 investigation has been leaked to the media but felt that it must be someone involved in the investigation."
Schreffler addd that the media somehow knew that there had been a conflict between the attorney general's office and the state police over whether to include the alleged victim of the 1998 shower incident, identified as Victim No. 6, in the official ranks of Sandusky's alleged victims, which according to Schrefler, "is information that only an insider would know."
In Pennsylvania, however, it can be dangerous to underestimate the level of official corruption. So if the Pennsylvania judiciary succeeds in circling the wagons again, and denying Sandusky's latest bid for a new trial, his only remedy will be, like Graham Spanier, to head to the federal courts, in search of a judge familiar with the U.S. Constitution.
It worked for Spanier, who, as soon as he escaped the corrupt Pennsylvania judiciary, found a federal magistrate who understood the Constitution. The magistrate immediately threw out the entire bankrupt case against the former Penn State president that had been ratified by every level of that corrupt Pennsylvania judiciary.
Either way, the truth will leak out, even amid a news blackout. Because no matter what the courts do, what's in those confidential documents will be shouted all over Big Trial.
More secrets that Frank Fina and Jonelle Eshbach and Louis Freeh and Mark Dambly don't want you to know.
Tracking the truth of the scandal behind the scandal at Penn State has been a lonely vigil. Besides Big Trial, the only media outlet covering the new developments in the Sandusky case has been Search Warrant, a podcast hosted by three cops.
Big Trial was interviewed on one of those podcasts; Search Warrant has devoted a second podcast to a character witness for Sandusky who had intimate knowledge of a couple of the so-called victims in the case. The character witness also had an interesting story to tell about how one of the prosecutors in the case allegedly attempted to intimidate her after she testified.
In a brief preview of what's coming on future Search Warrant podcasts, John Snedden, a former NCIS special agent, condemned the mainstream media's "failure to follow through on their obligation to be our watchdog."
"We at Search Warrant are currently unraveling the largest case of prosecutorial misconduct you will ever see," Snedden said. He talked about the McChesney diary written by the former FBI agent who "mistakenly thought it would never see the light of day."
"The diary details blatant collusion, corruption, and criminal acts on the part of the prosecution," Snedden said, before issuing what amounts to a declaration of war.
"Nobody hates a dirty cop or a a dirty prosecutor more than we do at Search Warrant," Snedden said.
"Follow along with us as we unravel this shocking, true story of how prosecutors denied men their constitutional and civil rights to fulfill a political vendetta. Join us as the tables are turned on dirty cops and dirty prosecutors who thought they could get away with it. It's a battle of good versus evil . . . It's about justice."
Meanwhile, the man at the center of this controversy called in today from the State Correctional Institute at Somerset.
In a phone interview, Sandusky said even he was optimistic about where his long-running case is headed next.
"I've been through so much that I don't want to get excited and very optimistic, but I am encouraged," he said. Despite being locked up for 30 to 60 years, "I've been hopeful forever," Sandusky said.
"I keep hoping the people are going to realize the travesty and all of the dishonesty and deception and everything that has transpired during this whole thing," he said. "That's my hope as much as anything. That they'll open their eyes and see."
"A lot of my coaching experiences weren't easy," recalled Sandusky, who was Joe Paterno's defense coach.
"But we were fighters who battled. I was surrounded by people like that and that's how I feel about this. This is wrong and I'm going to fight as long as I can fight."
Does not matter if I accept your explanation or not, I'm not the one hearing the case as a juror. And the jury decided to go with the same interpretation that I would have, and is pretty much what the majority of rational adults would have. They found him guilty on some of those related charges.
You can rationalize it till doomsday and it won't mean anything because Jerry is going to die in prison regardless of what you think.
It is true that it doesn't matter what I think, but it does matter what the facts are (which are not reflected in the trial verdict).
It does matter that there was prosecutorial misconduct during the trial.
It does matter that the judge was insanely biased in favor of the prosecution.
It does matter that police were dishonest in order to get depositions AND were caught lying about it on the stand.
Connorpozlee said:
We aren't talking about nitpicking minor details, we are talking about whether you understand the basics of a discussion you are actively engaged in. If you want to to look like a complete idiot to everyone in the "virtual barroom", be my guest.
Connorpozlee said:
When did I do that? Shame on you for lying.
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