The initial investigator into Jerry’s showering incident in ‘98 thought he should have been charged then. The mystery is why didn’t Gricar choose to do so?
With the Benefit of Hindsight - Ziegler's new documentary podcast on scandal to start in 2021
- Thread starter francofan
- Start date
Can you get a conviction when another coach was present in the locker room(Seasock's report)?
There is no mystery. Griar didn't charge because there was no indication of CSA. Jerry was a cooperative witness and he denied CSA. V6 was a cooperative witness and he also denied CSA. A sting operation was done when Jerry visited v6's house without success. The result was that no charges were filed and Jerry was not indicated.
The only mystery to me is why were the files of the 1998 investigation not expunged as they should have been for unfounded reports.
Let’s be honest, there are a lot of mysteries to the case.
Records were probably not expunged because they knew they’d have to come back to it because even if they thought there was not enough to charge him then, they knew there was no innocent reason for him to engaging in such inexcusable practices.
I’m not a lawyer, I don’t know. Was the other coach in the shower with them? The lawyer that was involved decided not to charge him so I have guess he has the ultimate say in it. The police investigator that investigated it at the time thought he should have been charged.
Do you have any evidence that that any investigator stated in 1998 that Sandusky should be charged?
That is the irony of 98 in that it appears the only crime committed was not destroying that report per requirements of PA law at the time.
I just read it the other day. Let me see if I can find it again.
Edit: Here is the quote:
"At the very minimum, there was enough evidence for some charges, like corruption of minors," Mr. Schreffler said on Wednesday, the day after Mr. Sandusky chose to waive his preliminary hearing on 52 counts that accuse him of molesting 10 boys over the last several years.
From this article:
Retired detective describes 1998 Sandusky investigation
Retired University Park Detective Ronald Schreffler believed he had enough evidence in 1998 to charge then-Penn State assistant football
www.post-gazette.com
As I thought, this was in 2011, not in 1998. This is looking at the case with a different lens. After the false grand jury presentment in 2011, everyone (myself included) thought Sandusky was a child molester. It seems like Schreffler 2011 comment may have been a CYA move. In any case, the charging decision was from Gricar and not Schreffler. Schreffler only provided input.I just read it the other day. Let me see if I can find it again.
Edit: Here is the quote:
"At the very minimum, there was enough evidence for some charges, like corruption of minors," Mr. Schreffler said on Wednesday, the day after Mr. Sandusky chose to waive his preliminary hearing on 52 counts that accuse him of molesting 10 boys over the last several years.
From this article:
Retired detective describes 1998 Sandusky investigation
Retired University Park Detective Ronald Schreffler believed he had enough evidence in 1998 to charge then-Penn State assistant football
Do you agree that as part of the investigation in 1998 that both Sandusky and v6 denied that CSA had occurred and that the sting operation failed?
That was my point, made pretty clearly I thought. The guy who’s job it was to decide whether or not charges should be made decided not to charge. That’s on him. The one who actually interacted with the victim and the assailant thought he should be charged. He stated here that he was frustrated at the time that charges were not brought. If you want to perform mental gymnastics to make it something other than what it says, have at it. If Simone Biles had your ability to focus she’d be walking around with a gold medal right now. I’m just reading what it says and have no reason to make it something other than what he said.
Yes, I’ve read that both denied it. Do you agree that it is pretty par for the course for a child victim of sexual abuse to deny it? Do you also agree that most people accused of sexually abusing a child deny it as well?
Did the sting operation fail? Yes, because Gricar decided not to charge him. The police officer believed he should have been charged so from his perspective at the time, he got Sandusky to admit enough to be charged with a crime. Ultimately however, he was convicted on three charges related to that victim so I guess in the long, long run it worked to a degree.
Last edited:
I asked you "Do you have any evidence that that any investigator stated in 1998 that Sandusky should be charged?" and you apparently misunderstood my question.
I believe that Schreffler made his 2011 comment with hindight bias. I don't know if Schreffler believed in 1998 that Sandusky should be charged
I also don't know that it is par for the course for a CSA vistim to deny it.
I believe that the 1998 investigation was by the book and that Gricar and CYS came to the correct conclusion.
Ganim leaks were fiction.
Problem No. 1 with Ganim's new story is that the scoop the reporter was peddling directly contradicted one of her previous scoops. Where she claimed that Paterno, who's no longer around to defend himself, knew about a previous allegation of sex abuse regarding Sandusky dating back to 1971.
She also writes in her latest story about the 1998 shower incident as though it's some kind of mystery, even though Ganim, who did not respond to a request for comment, was intimately familiar with all the details.
So when did Joe know that Jerry might be a pedophile, Sara? Was it in 1998? Or was it way back in 1971? Or was it in 1976, with another alleged incident involving a "John Doe 150" that Ganim covered in her Saturday story.
Problem No. 2 with Ganim's latest scoop -- the reporter has an ethical conflict that is undisputed.
At Sandusky's trial, the prosecutors from the state attorney general's office admitted in a legal stipulation that Ganim, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on Sandusky while working for The Patriot News of Harrisburg, had meddled in a supposedly secret grand jury investigation. An investigation that was in danger of expiring if the prosecutors didn't find more alleged victims of Jerry Sandusky.
So how did Ganim meddle? By acting as an agent for the state attorney general's office when she contacted the mother of the naked 10-year old who was allegedly hugged in the shower back in 1998.
Ganim's ethical conflict was laid out in a legal brief filed by Sandusky's lawyers in their arguments for a new trial. In the brief, Sandusky's lawyers wrote that Ganim "approached the mother of accuser 6," Deb McCord, according to the testimony of State Police Corporal Joseph Leiter, and gave the mother the name and phone number for an investigator assigned to the attorney general's office.
Ganim, according to the brief, left this message for McCord:
"Debra, it's Sara from the Patriot. I just want to pass along this agent's name and number. The Attorney General has expressed interest in helping you."
So when Sara Ganim writes another story about Joe Paterno and the Penn State sex scandal, it's not exactly like Bob Woodward opining about Richard Nixon and Watergate. But that didn't prevent Ganim from making a splash with her bogus scoop in gullible mainstream media outlets, such as The Philadelphia Inquirer, by generating a fresh round of headlines asking What did Joe Know and When Did He Know It?
Let's get to Ganim's new evidence and lay out why the source of it is tainted, as well as the product of an investigation marked by blatant police and prosecutorial misconduct.
The one page Pennsylvania state police report from 2011, supposedly obtained from a source, Ganim wrote, is "described here for the first time." The report "lays out an account from whistleblower Mike McQueary," who was telling Paterno about the infamous shower incident from 2001 starring a naked Jerry Sandusky and a 10-year-old boy.
"Paterno allegedly told McQueary in 2001 that the claim against Sandusky 'was the second complaint of this nature he had received," according to the police report, which was written after Sandusky's arrest 10 years later," Ganim wrote.
"Paterno, upon hearing the news, sat back in his chair with a dejected look on his face," the report states, adding that McQueary "said Paterno's eyes appeared to well up with tears."
Nice dramatic touches for a police report. Next, Ganim writes:
"Then he [Paterno] made the comment to McQueary this was the second complaint of this nature he had received about Sandusky," the report states, citing McQueary's recollection."
The police report also noted, Ganim wrote, that Paterno allegedly told McQueary that Dottie Sandusky, Jerry's wife, had told Sue Paterno, Joe's wife, that "Jerry doesn't like girls."
Let's start with McQueary, who, according to Ganim, is now writing a book about his exploits as the alleged Penn State whistleblower.
As former NCIS Special Agent John Snedden has said, McQueary is not a credible witness. As a special agent for the Federal Investigative Service, Snedden investigated former Penn State President Graham Spanier in 2012, to determine whether his top secret security clearance should be renewed by the federal government. Snedden wrote a recently declassified 110-page report that concluded there was no sex crime at Penn State and no coverup.
Snedden didn't believe McQueary was credible because he told five different versions of what he saw and heard in the Penn State showers, featuring slapping sounds and fleeting glimpses of naked people in the shower. The day he witnessed the shower event, McQueary was repeatedly questioned by his father, a doctor, and a friend of his father's, another doctor, about what happened. McQueary could not definitely say whether he had witnessed a sexual attack or horseplay. And that's why neither of the two doctors, both mandated reporters, ever told the police.
McQueary was also questioned by two Penn State administrators, who came to the same conclusion as the two doctors, that McQueary wasn't sure what he saw or heard in the showers. So they didn't report it to the police either.
"I've never had a rape victim or a witness to a rape tell multiple stories about how it happened," Snedden said in a previous interview with Big Trial, to describe why McQueary wasn't a credible witness. "If it's real it's always been the same thing," Snedden said.
"In my view, the evolution of what we saw as a result of Mike McQueary's interview with the AG's office" was the transformation of a story about rough horseplay into something sexual, Snedden said.
"I think it would be orchestrated by them," Snedden said about the AG's office, which has never responded to multiple requests for comment.
That didn't stop the attorney general's office from running with their exaggerated version of McQueary's story.
The 2011 grand jury report was built around a lie. It claimed that McQueary witnessed a 10-yar-old boy in the showers being subjected to “anal intercourse” by a “naked Jerry Sandusky.” McQueary supposedly told Joe Paterno about it, and two other university officials, but Penn State covered it up, the grand jury report says.
But McQueary himself was shocked when he read the grand jury report. He emailed the prosecutors, saying they had “twisted” his words. ”I cannot say 1,000 percent sure that it was sodomy,” McQueary wrote. “I did not see insertion.”
The investigation conducted by the state police in the Sandusky case also included stone-cold proof of police misconduct on tape. On April 21, 2011, the state police made the mistake of leaving a tape recorder on, and the machine caught the police deliberately lying to one alleged victim to get him to tell the story they wanted him to tell.
State Troopers Joseph Leiter and Scott Rossman were interviewing alleged victim Brett Houtz at the police barracks, with Houtz’s attorney Benjamin Andreozzi present. While Houtz took a cigarette break the two troopers continued talking with Houtz’s lawyer. They assumed the tape-recorder was turned off but it wasn't.
In their conversation captured for eternity, the troopers talked about how it took them months to get details of sex attacks out of Aaron Fisher, Victim No. 1 in the Penn State case, and how they’re sure that Houtz was a rape victim too. The troopers then discussed how to get more details of sex abuse out of Houtz.
Attorney Andreozzi had a helpful suggestion: “Can we at some point say to him, ‘Listen, we have interviewed other kids and other kids have told us that there was intercourse and that they have admitted this, you know. Is there anything else you want to tell us.’ ”
“Yep, we do that with all the other kids,” Trooper Leiter said. Sure enough, when Houtz returned, Trooper Leiter told him, “I just want to let you know you are not the first victim we have spoken to.”
The trooper told Houtz about nine adults that they had already talked to and said, “It is amazing. If this was a book, you would have been repeating word for word pretty much what a lot of people have already told us.”
The troopers, however, had only interviewed three alleged victims at that point, and only one – Aaron Fisher – had alleged prolonged abuse. But Houtz didn't know that.
“I don’t want you to feel ashamed because you are a victim in this whole thing,” Trooper Leiter told Houtz. “He [Sandusky] took advantage of you . . . [but] We need you to tell us as graphically as you can what took place as we get through this procedure. I just want you to understand that you are not alone in this. By no means are you alone in this.”
That's what you call coaching a witness, to manufacture testimony.
The condemnation of Ganim's most recent story came from many quarters.
"Well CNN published a lie from Sara Ganim," tweeted Scott Paterno, a lawyer who defended his father during the Sandusky scandal. "Sue [Paterno] never said that Dottie [Sandusky] told her anything and this was categorically denied before publication."
"To be clear Sara Ganim and @CNN is using triple hearsay to get clicks and it's false. And enough is enough."
"To my knowledge we were not contacted by Sara Ganim for a response," Dottie Sandusky wrote. "If we had been, I would have told her that this is old news which actually exonerates both Joe and Jerry. The incident in question is the 1998 episode which, according to [Former Penn State Athletic Director] Tim Curley's testimony, Joe knew was fully investigated by the D.A. and determined to be unfounded. I never said that Jerry doesn't like girls and the factual record, including at trial, makes that extremely obvious to anyone not invested in this entire fairy tale."
"On the brighter side, I'm glad to see that Sara and the rest of the news media has seemingly dropped the absurd notion that Joe Paterno was told in the 1970s about abuse that never happened by accusers who made up stories for Penn State money," Dottie Sandusky wrote.
Former Special Agent Snedden called Ganim's scoop "revisionist history."
"The whole thing is absurd," Snedden said about the supposedly new police report from 2011. "It was written ten years after the fact," Snedden said about the 2001 shower incident supposedly witnessed by McQueary, and described to the state police in 2011.
"Police reports are supposed to be contemporaneous," Snedden said. About the 2011 police report concerning the 2001 shower incident, Snedden asked, "How is that contemporaneous?"
The CNN story, Snedden said, is the product of either "trying to either cover your ass or bolster your position. It appears to me that she [Ganim] doesn't even go through the motions of asking if it's accurate."
John Ziegler, a reporter who has covered the Penn State story for years, was even harsher in his assessment of Ganim's work.
"This one [Ganim's new story] is the biggest piece of crap yet," Ziegler said. "Ganim is pretending that we don't know" about the 1998 shower incident, Ziegler said. "If she was at the [Sandusky] trial she would know that what she's reporting is ancient news. It's got cobwebs on it."
Ziegler went at Ganim's work from another angle -- logic.
"This is actually exculpatory," Ziegler said about Ganim's latest scoop.
When McQueary is telling Joe about the 1998 shower incident, which is almost identical to the 2001 shower incident, Ziegler said, "Joe is immediately flashing back to 1998."
"That tells us that McQueary never said anything [to Paterno] about a sexual assault because Joe already knows that 1998 [the first alleged shower incident] is a nothing burger," Ziegler said. "Had McQueary actually said something about a sexual assault Joe would have never connected it to 1998, because the [Centre County] D.A. had already cleared Sandusky."
Ziegler said he has come to the conclusion that Ganim "was a very ambitious and also very naive or stupid person who got used" by the prosecutors in the Sandusky case to basically "put out a Craig's list ad" for more victims of sexual abuse.
Ziegler said that Ganim's story goes beyond any claims of the prosecutors. Former Chief Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina, the lead prosecutor in the Sandusky case, went on 60 Minutes Sports in 2013 and declared that there was no evidence that Joe Paterno had ever participated in a cover up.
"I did not find that evidence," Fina said on 60 Minutes Sports.
"It does reek of deception," Ziegler said about Ganim's latest effort to prop up the official Penn State story line. "They have to be worried about something," Ziegler said, who devoted a podcast to it. "This story makes me think that even she doubts it."
Mark Pendergrast, an author who has written a book about Jerry Sandusky, The Most Hated Man In America; Jerry Sandusky and the Rush to Judgment, said that McQueary "revised his memory a decade after the Feb. 2001 shower incident, in which he heard slapping sounds but did not see Sandusky and a boy in the shower -- he only fleetingly saw a boy, in the mirror."
McQueary's "memory of his meeting with Paterno in 2001was also subject to revisions and this appears to be more evidence of that," Pendergrast wrote in an email. "In other words, this is Sara Ganim once more raising a non-issue based on Mike McQueary's revised memory, and referring as well to highly questionable anonymous allegations dating back to the 1970s."
”I believe that Schreffler made his 2011 comment with hindight bias. I don't know if Schreffler believed in 1998 that Sandusky should be charged”. Color me shocked that you don‘t believe something that might shine a negative light upon Jerry. Something is stated and you just naturally assume the opposite is true. Silly.
It is common for victims of CSA to deny the abuse occurred.
Ok, this is why responding to you is useless. I would challenge you to produce a post of mine where I even mention Gricar's name. You seem to be very keen on putting your words as coming out of other people's mouths. I've not said squat about him.
And apparently you did not read the part about not wasting your or my time with your normal MO spouting your dogma. As I said, it does not matter. I don't care about his guilt/innocence because it does not affect me in the least and there are much more important things that do. Jerry is noise level BS.
Once again I'll state that the root cause for Jerry's current fate is Jerry's decisions and actions. If you lie down with dogs don't be surprised if you wind up with fleas. No bad decisions/actions = no charges/verdicts/prison.
Sorry, I confused your posts with didier's.
I am also sorry that you don't care about Jerry's guilt or innocence. I do because I believe that a miscarriage of justice has taken place that has had enormous consequences for a number of good people and their families.
yeah nobody ever is in prison who is ultimately innocent, that's a good point
think of it this way, if you believe that Jerry is innocent, as francofan obviously does and has stated, why would you not argue and fight for him? because if he is innocent it is just about the worst thing in the world when you think about it....a dude who just wanted to help young kids being put in jail while some of the kids he actually helped turn on him
when this whole thing started I said to my wife and my friends that the worst thing is that there are no good endings to this story, either Jerry didn't do any of this and it won't matter because everyone will hate him and his name will be mud forever which is horrible, or the only worse thing which would be he did do it and all these poor boys were subjected to that
I am not ready to say that Jerry is innocent but it sure looks different from the story that most of America knows doesn't it?
It just seems a strange way to indicate you "don't care" by taking time to explain to us that you" have much more important things to do". Why aren't you doing them?
Sorry to take so long in responding, I was spending time with my wonderful wife and playing with the dog. Great times! Much more important than spending hours debating the innocence or guilt of Jerry, don't you agree?
Whelp, gotta go, Poz needs to be walked. Thanks for asking.
One theory which surrounds this case is that arguably all the people touting Jerry's innocence have reasons to want to normalize and de-stigmatize his admitted and confirmed behavior patterns.
This is why they will argue in favor of showering naked with unrelated kids, giving them bear hugs is fine. That "wrestling" behind rolled mats in a deserted gym is fine. That taking kids out of school without Parental permission is fine.
Most of Jerry's defenders are not just Jerry defenders- they take up the cause for multiple accused pedophiles.
The insidious rationale is to blur what most people would think of as clear boundaries.
This is why they will argue in favor of showering naked with unrelated kids, giving them bear hugs is fine. That "wrestling" behind rolled mats in a deserted gym is fine. That taking kids out of school without Parental permission is fine.
Most of Jerry's defenders are not just Jerry defenders- they take up the cause for multiple accused pedophiles.
The insidious rationale is to blur what most people would think of as clear boundaries.
It gets better.
Even though 15 years had gone by since McQueary had allegedly witnessed a naked Sandusky cavorting in the showers with an underage boy.
But a few reporters familiar with the case have long believed that McQueary was lying. And that when the investigators from the state Attorney General's office showed up, McQueary had an entirely different reaction -- he actually was in a panic because he thought he was in big trouble for a couple of bad habits.
Why? McQueary, a former Penn State quarterback and assistant coach, supposedly was betting on Penn State football games. McQueary also supposedly had used a Penn State phone to text photos of his privates to women who weren't his wife.
Today, one of those reporters who believes McQueary was lying just blew up McQueary, a female source, and quite possibly himself. John Ziegler did it by posting text messages and graphic photos on his website to show that seven years after that visit from the AG, McQueary allegedly is still texting photos of his privates. And this time, to keep the scandal all in the PSU soap opera family, the gal McQueary allegedly was texting was the former fiancé of Joe Amendola, Sandusky's former defense lawyer.
It's a story about porn but the reporter who broke it has a serious purpose behind his tawdry tale.
The whole Penn State grand jury report was built around Mike McQueary's alleged witnessing of Jerry Sandusky's alleged anal rape of a boy in the showers.
Even though the prosecutors subsequently admitted that they never found the alleged victim of that alleged 2001 rape, and that his identity was known "only to God." McQueary himself also told the AG's office that he never said he had witnessed penetration, and that the grand jury report had "twisted" his words.
So the entire Penn State cases rises and falls on the credibility of Mike McQueary, the state's star whistleblower.
If McQueary was lying from minute one about knowing what the AG's investigators were there to talk to him about, Ziegler wrote, "It also meant that Mike was particularly vulnerable to being manipulated by the authorities."
Ziegler is the crusading reporter who is convinced that Jerry Sandusky was innocent of the 45 charges that he was found guilty of. In what may be construed as the actions of a suicide bomber, Ziegler in his blog post revealed that a couple of his original sources for the dirt on Mike McQueary were none other than former Penn State president Graham Spanier, and Jay Paterno, son of the late football coach Joe Paterno.
Ziegler also credits Jay Paterno with the funniest line in the story. It happened when Jay quipped after allegedly seeing a crotch shot from McQueary, "Well, it's either Mike or Ronald McDonald," alluding to McQueary's flaming red hair.
But Ziegler isn't the only reporter who was onto the McQueary sexting story. On his website, Ziegler posted a tape from 2014 where ESPN reporter Don Van Natta "bragged he had the entire penis picture story covered, all the way down to the phone records of Mike's panicked calls to friends convinced that his career would be over once Joe Paterno found out about the pictures," Ziegler wrote.
The penis pictures, however, never made it into the ESPN story. But the posted audio clearly shows Van Natta was convinced he had that part of the story nailed down.
Deadspin also speculated in 2014 that way back in 1995 during a blowout victory over Rutgers, McQueary, then a Penn State QB, came in off the bench to throw a last-minute Hail Mary just to beat the point spread. A video from the game shows a clearly surprised and perturbed Paterno on the sidelines, along with a pissed off Rutgers coach.
Piling on an opponent was not what Joe Paterno was known for.
John Snedden, a former special agent for the federal government who did a background check on Graham Spanier and found no coverup at Penn State, said he found the sexting story disturbing.
"It certainly doesn't seem to be indicative of somebody who would be a credible witness in a sex-related case," Snedden said about the state attorney general's star witness. "It certainly casts doubt on any credibility he [McQueary] might have if you're running around doing that."
In his blog post, Ziegler explains why he outed the woman in the story that McQueary was allegedly sexting. First, Ziegler says, the woman was the instigator in contacting both Ziegler and McQueary. She also promised to come on Ziegler's podcast and tell all, the reporter writes.
"One, when she backed out of our agreement, I was no longer bound by my part of it," Ziegler wrote. "Second, I just don't give a damn anymore."
Personally, Sandusky issues aside, this post alone proves you to be 100% asshole.
Don't you agree?
Yet the simpleton that has better things to do....researches my posts to ascertain that my wife is deceased and I recently posted that I lost my longtime pet puggle Poz. I would ask what kind of sick, sinister, baleful human being resorts to this on a message board?
They really out themselves with little prompting. Again, this is someone who has investment $$$$ in the Sandusky Narrative.
What research have you done on most of "Jerry's Defenders." I'll answer for you, NONE. In addition, if you weren't reading and comprehending at a 3rd grade level(I prefer to be generous), you would admit that there are very few here that claim Jerry is innocent. The vast majority of us are appalled at the irregularities of the investigations and the trial. Some of us find issues with several of the claimants.
I would like to see another trial. Let the outcome follow the real evidence.
What are you afraid of?
The problem Marshall, is that some people are appalled at the irregularities of the investigation and trial but not by a grown man manipulating situations to shower with and initiate physical contact with boys. The lack of being appalled at the latter makes them being appalled at the former seem disingenuous. I think a reasonable person can see issues with the prosecution of Jerry while also acknowledging that there is no defense for Jerry being in that situation repeatedly. I honestly (and obviously) don’t get how people can try to rationalize and/or defend Jerry’s showering practices with boys.
I am not defending any such thing. You'll never find a post where I said it was a good thing. I may have mused that I once showered with all ages at the Y.
Jerry clearly gave prosecutors a rusty knife to thrust into him.
But, I keep going back to how investigators insisted that Jerry was the worst pedophile they have ever encountered. If true, please explain the crying janitor myth, "only God knows," The PSP that perjured themselves, The Grand Jury Presentment that the authoress admitted wasn't fact, the race to trial......with every plea for continuance given no consideration, the only powerful witnesses for the defense were indicted so they could not testify....
So please .....just as you lean to consider Jerry as guilty because of his strange predilection of showering with boys ....
use the same consideration for the rather strange behavior by investigators and prosecutors.
If you do, regardless of what your instincts may suggest, you will admit that Sandusky did not get a fair trial.....and at least we can agree that everyone in this country deserves that.
No I'm not defending Jerry's questionable showering practices. Although what is at issue is what may or may not have happened in those situations.
I've said this before.....#1 I became interested in this case because I am a 60 years PSU football fan. An unabashed and proud JoeBot. I'd like to know before I check out what is the real truth. While I do believe in justice for everyone, I've never been a Jerry Sandusky loyalist.
Finally for the 3rd or 4th time, one of the most influential people in my life was a very close longtime friend of JS. He and his wife (now deceased) never believed for one moment that Jerry was guilty. Just as you may have to overcome the showering issue, this weighs heavily on my thoughts.
Insidious...is that like categorically?
Remember, McQueary quickly left the building and called his father, John McQueary, and told him his suspicions. His father advised him to come right over to talk about it. Then John McQueary called his employer and friend, Dr. Jonathan Dranov, a nephrologist, asking him to come over and help them sort out Mike’s disturbing experience.
Dranov attempted, using the diagnostic and interviewing skills that he used with patients, to get a clear description of the scene that had so upset his friend’s son. Dranov was unable to get Mike McQueary to put into words anything sexual he had seen, in spite of asking several times, “But what did you see?” McQueary explained that he had seen a boy in the shower, and that an arm had then reached out to pull him back. Dranov asked if the boy had looked scared or upset. No. Did Mike actually see any sexual act? No. McQueary kept returning to the “sexual” sounds.
Upon the advice of his father and Dr. Dranov, Mike McQueary took his concerns to legendary head coach Joe Paterno at his home the next day. Apparently because McQueary did not actually witness anything sexual, they did not suggest he contact the police, nor did they feel called upon to do so.
This was the only initiative McQueary ever took connected with the shower incident. Paterno subsequently told his immediate supervisor, Athletic Director Tim Curley, about it, who told Vice President Gary Schultz and university President Graham Spanier. Curley and Schultz met with McQueary to hear what he had seen and heard. From that conversation, they concluded that Sandusky had been “horsing around” with a kid and that, while it was not sexual abuse, it wasn’t a good idea, particularly because they remembered that a parent had complained back in 1998 about Sandusky showering with her child (details on that incident shortly).
So Curley told Sandusky that as a result of someone (he didn’t name McQueary) complaining about the shower incident, he should stop working out with Second Mile kids on campus, and there the matter was left, case closed.
McQueary apparently calmed down and accepted that he may have overreacted and that perhaps Sandusky had just been “horsing around.” He remained at least overtly friendly with Jerry Sandusky over the following years. He signed up for the Sandusky Celebrity Golf Event in the fall of 2001, just four months after the shower incident, then took part in other Sandusky charity-related events, such as flag football fund-raisers coached by Sandusky in March 2002 and April 2004 and another golf event in 2003.
By the time the police questioned McQueary about the shower incident in late 2010, he couldn’t remember exactly when it occurred, and he said that it happened during spring break of 2002, more than a year after the actual date. At the time, McQueary was a 6’ 4”, 220-pound 26-year-old. Some critics would later question why, if he had witnessed horrifying child sexual abuse, he would not have rushed in to put a stop to the behavior.
McQueary’s story changed several times after the police told him that they knew Sandusky was a pedophile, as we will see in Chapter 12. In response to the police telling him that Sandusky was a child molester, McQueary searched his decade-old memory and now “remembered” something that he had not reported back in 2001 -- that he had seen Sandusky with his hips moving against a boy’s backside in the shower.
In short, Mike McQueary did not witness Jerry Sandusky sodomizing a 10-year-old boy in the shower, although he later came to believe that he had. At the time of the incident, he overheard slapping sounds and interpreted them as being sexual.
We know a great deal more about this incident because we know the identity of that boy, a Second Miler named Allan Myers, who was nearly 14 years old at the time, not ten, and who remained friends with Sandusky until after the allegations created a public furor in November 2011. Sandusky later recalled that shower with Myers in a 2013 interview with reporter John Ziegler:
“He [Allan] turned on every shower [and] he was like wild, he put soap on himself and was sliding, he was seeing how far he could slide. I remember that. Then we may have been like slapping towels, slap boxing, doing something like that.”
Here Sandusky laughed, remembering that “he [Allan] always, no matter what, he’d always get the last lick in."
Recalling his relationship with Allan Myers, Sandusky said, “He was like family. We did all kinds of things together. We studied. We tutored. We worked out. He went to California with my wife and me twice. He spoke for the Second Mile numerous times.” This all took place after the 2001 shower incident. “He asked me to speak at his high school graduation, and I did. He stayed with us the summer after his high school graduation, worked part-time jobs with classes. He would go home on weekends. We went to his wedding.”
Indeed, Myers, a Marine who had recently received an honorable discharge at the time the allegations broke, came forward to defend Sandusky, telling Sandusky’s lawyer and his investigator, Curtis Everhart, what had actually happened.
Myers, born on Feb. 28, 1987, had endured his parents’ volatile marriage, in which he witnessed his father threatening his mother with a gun. His guidance counselor suggested Myers for the Second Mile program, which he attended as a fourth and fifth grader, getting to know Jerry Sandusky the second year. Myers said that Sandusky was a “father figure” associated with “many positive events” in his life. On “Senior Night” at a West Branch High School football game, Myers asked Sandusky to walk out onto the field with his mother, as the loudspeaker announced, “Father, Jerry Sandusky,” along with his mother’s name.
About the McQueary shower incident, Myers said, "This particular night is very clear in my mind.” In the shower after a workout, he and Sandusky "were slapping towels at each other, trying to sting each other. I would slap the walls and would slide on the shower floor, which I am sure you could have heard from the wooden locker area." Myers said that he recalled hearing a locker slam but he never saw who closed it. Although McQueary would later claim that both Sandusky and Myers saw him, neither of them had any idea he was there that night.
Myers repeatedly and emphatically denied that Jerry Sandusky had ever sexually abused him. “Never, ever, did anything like that occur.” Yes, Sandusky had put his hand on his left knee while he was driving, but that didn’t bother him. “I often would stay at Jerry’s home overnight,” he said. “Jerry never violated me while I was at his home or anywhere else. On many occasions there were numerous people at his home. I felt very safe and at ease at his home, whether alone with Jerry or with others present.”
The only thing that made Myers feel uncomfortable and violated was his September 2011 interview with Pennsylvania State Police officers. “They would try to put words in my mouth, take my statement out of context. The PSP investigators were clearly angry and upset when I would not say what they wanted to hear. My final words to the PSP were, ‘I will never have anything bad to say about Jerry.’”
Allan Myers also wrote a letter to the newspaper and the Pennsylvania attorney general and submitted a sworn statement to both the Pennsylvania State Police and a private investigator to the effect that he was not abused that night or any other time by Jerry Sandusky.
“I am one of those many Second Mile kids who became a part of Jerry’s ‘family.’ He has been a best friend, tutor, workout mentor and more,” Myers wrote to the attorney general. “We’ve worked together, competed together, traveled together and laughed together. I lived with Jerry and Dottie for three months. Jerry’s been there for me for 13 years; and stood beside me at my senior parent’s football night. I drove twelve hours to attend his mom’s funeral. I don’t know what I would have done without him.”
Myers wrote that letter on May 1, 2011. But like so many Second Milers, Myers subsequently found a lawyer, Andrew Shubin, and joined the throng of those seeking millions of dollars in compensation for alleged abuse. He did not testify at the trial, however. Both prosecution and defense lawyers knew that Allan Myers was the boy in the 2001 McQueary shower incident, but for their own strategic reasons, neither chose to identify him, so that the jury never learned that Myers was in fact the anonymous “Victim Number 2.”
The McQueary story of the alleged sodomy-in-the-shower became the linchpin of the entire case against Sandusky, lighting a fire under the investigation and creating a media firestorm, and it is what led to the firing of Penn State University President Graham Spanier and football Head Coach Joe Paterno, as well as subsequent lawsuits against Spanier and former Penn State administrators Gary Schultz and Tim Curley.
Ironically, the sodomy charge of “involuntary deviate sexual intercourse” in the McQueary incident was among the few for which the jury found Sandusky not guilty, since the witness did not say that he had literally seen penetration. The jury did find Sandusky guilty of four other McQueary-related charges: “indecent assault, unlawful contact with a minor, corruption of minors and endangering a child's welfare.”
To note, I didn’t specify that you were one that did the things I said in my post. I think you kind of dance around it a bit.
You engage here in a strange thing that has developed in responses to me. I have never said that I know with 100% certainty that Jerry is guilty. Nor have I said anything about Jerry getting another trial other than I have no problem with him getting another one if it is warranted. I believe in a fair trial for all accused of a crime. I also believe there is corruption in the legal system. So again I will say, if a new trial is warranted I hope he gets it. I’m not in the law field so have no useful insight into what warrants a retrial. As I’ve said for years now, I hope the worst out of all of this is that Jerry lost years of his life in jail and that the men that accused him on abusing them as children were lying. Because if what accused him of is true, losing slime years of his life in jail is going to be a far than I believe eternity would have in store for him.
As for you friend that is friends with Jerry, it’s completely understandable for him to not believe it. If Herry was doing these things, he surely wasn’t sharing details with his friends about it.
Did Jerry ever share his showering practices with your friend before it became public or before he was investigated for it?
I never got into those specifics with him. But I'm sure he was aware of what happened during "office hours." The evening shower with Allan Myers was not the usual. He was almost 14 and from all accounts living on and off with Jerry and Dottie.
One person who knew all the details was Jack Raykovitz PHD and a clinical psychologist. Not only was Raykovitz the Executive Director of TSM, but he did contract work with CYS in Centre County. When Raykovitz was informed by Tim Curley that Jerry could no longer bring kids to Lasch, he spoke to Bruce Heim (TSM Board) and obtained permission from him for Jerry to use a fitness facility in one of his hotels in State College. Is this the actions of a child care professional who has any inclination that Sandusky is a pedophile?
Apparently Raykovitz didn't see the same red flags you do. Although he did tell Jerry that perhaps he should don swim trunks. LOL
Now they say truth is stranger than fiction......not only was Raykovitz never charged, but was actually a witness against Graham Spanier. Someone please explain this!
Oh, Dr. Jack's license to practice is a go and he's available by appointment!
Not really questionable.
Myers couldn't remember when a picture of him posing with Sandusky had been taken, even though it was at Myers' own wedding.
Myers couldn't remember telling a couple of state troopers who interviewed him in 2011 that Sandusky had never abused him.
Myers couldn't remember what he told a private investigator, that Mike McQueary was a liar, and that nothing sexual ever happened in the shower. And finally, Myers couldn't remember what he told the state attorney general's office after he flipped, and was claiming that Jerry had abused him.
Myers made all these fuzzy statements during a Nov. 4, 2016 hearing where he was called as a witness as part of Sandusky's bid for a new trial. A 48-page transcript of that hearing was released for the first time earlier this week, in response to a request from a curious reporter for a major mainstream media news outlet. Myers' pathetic performance on the witness stand proves what a screwed-up case this is, featuring overreaching prosecutors and a hysterical news media.
The media blew it in part because they showed no skepticism about witnesses like Myers, who, going by the transcript, clearly wasn't credible.
Myers, who was on the witness stand for less than an hour before Centre County Senior Judge John M. Cleland, said he couldn't recall or didn't remember 34 times.
Either he was dealing with early-onset Alzheimer's, or else he was lying about everything.
Before Myers was brought in as a witness, Sandusky was sworn in and the judge explained to him that since nobody knew what Myers was going to say, his testimony "could be harmful to your case."
So is this a chance you're willing to take, the judge asked. Sandusky told the judge his mind was made up.
"It is my decision to have Allan Myers testify," Sandusky told the judge.
Myers, a former Marine, testified that he originally got to know the former Penn State assistant football coach through his Second Mile charity.
"Did you think of Mr. Sandusky as a father figure," Alexander Lindsay, Sandusky's lawyer, asked.
"Yes, I did," Myers said.
Myers was shown a picture of himself posing with Sandusky at Myers's wedding. Lindsay asked if Myers remembered when that picture was taken.
"That I do not remember," Myers said.
Lindsay showed Myers a photo of a football camp when Myers served as a coach, and posed for a picture with some boys, along with Sandusky. Lindsay asked Myers how old he was in the photo.
"I don't remember," Myers said. "I don't even know what year that was."
"Well, were you an adult," Lindsay asked. "Do you know that?"
"I wasn't an adult," Myers said.
"Can you give us any estimate of your age," the lawyer asked.
"No," Myers said.
Myers recalled that he lived in Sandusky's home "right after I graduated high school to attend Penn State."
"And I left there because he [Sandusky] was controlling and I left," Myers said. "And that was the end that I ever lived with him."
Sandusky was controlling, Myers said, but he didn't say anything about Sandusky being abusive.
Lindsay asked Myers if he remembered being interviewed on Sept. 20, 2011, by state Trooper James Ellis and Corporal Joseph A. Letter.
"I recall being interviewed," Myers said.
Lindsay gave Myers a copy of the police report and asked if it reflected what he told the state troopers.
"Yes," Myers said, before snapping at the lawyer, "Please don't raise your voice at me."
Lindsay asked if Myers remembered telling the troopers that he and Sandusky had often worked out at the Lasch Building.
"I don't remember that interview," Myer said.
Lindsay asked Myers if he recalled telling the troopers "nothing inappropriate occurred" in the shower with Jerry, and that at "no time were you made to feel uncomfortable."
"I don't recall," Myers replied.
Lindsay asked Myers if he remembered telling the troopers that after workouts with Sandusky, he and Jerry would return to the coach's home and shower in separate facilities.
"I said it," Myers said, "But I don't remember it."
Lindsay asked Myers if he remembered an interview he gave to an investigator named Curtis Everhart who at the time was working for Joseph Amendola, Sandusky's inept trial lawyer.
Myers remembered the interview.
Lindsay asked if he remembered telling the investigator, "I am alleged Victim No. 2."
"I'm sure I did," Myers said, before adding, "I don't remember everything."
Lindsay asked Myers if he recalled telling the investigator that on the day McQueary heard "slapping sounds" and thought there was an anal rape going down in the showers, Myers said, "Jerry and I were slapping towels at each other trying to sting each other."
Myers was a month short of his 14th birthday in 2001 when the infamous shower incident occurred. The official grand jury report, however, says that Mike McQueary witnessed Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy in the shower.
Oh well, nobody expects the prosecutors to get the details right when they're on a witch hunt to put an alleged pedophile in jail. Whether or not they have to make up the evidence themselves. And apparently, nobody expects the witnesses to remember whatever stories they told.
"I don't recall everything I told Mr. Everhart," Myers said.
Did Myers recall telling the investigator that he used to slap the walls and slide on the shower floor when he was taking a shower with Jerry?
"I can't recall everything I said in that interview back then," Myers said.
Lindsay read out loud a quote from a report that stated what Myers had supposedly told Everhart:
"The grand jury report says Coach McQueary said he observed Jerry and I engaged in sexual activity. That is not the truth and McQueary is not telling the truth. Nothing occurred that night in the shower."
"Do you recall telling him that," Lindsay asked the witness.
"Like I said, I can't recall everything I said back then," Myers said. "But if it's in there, I said it then, yes."
Lindsay asked Myers if he told the investigator that "I never saw McQueary look into the shower that night," another claim by McQueary. "I am sure" it didn't happen, Myers told the investigator.
On the witness stand, Myers wasn't sure.
"That's what I said back then," Myers said. "Once again, I can't recall what I said then."
Lindsay read Myers more quotes from the interview with the investigator. In the quotes, Myers:
-- denied having sex with Sandusky;
-- repeated that "McQueary did not tell the truth;"
-- repeated that "I am alleged Victim No. 2 on the grand jury report;"
-- again claimed that Sandusky "never sexually assaulted me."
"That's what I said then," Myers said. "And once again, I can't recall everything I said then."
Lindsay asked Myers if he told the truth when he spoke to the investigator.
"Yes," he said.
Allan Myers had once been Jerry Sandusky's biggest defender. He even wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper stating what a great guy Jerry was.
At the beginning, Myers kept saying that Mike McQueary was a liar, Jerry was a great guy, and that Jerry had never touched him inappropriately.
Then Myers hired attorney Andrew Shubin, who represented eight victims in the Penn State sex abuse scandal. Myers became Shubin's ninth victim. He flipped on Jerry, claimed he'd been abused, and collected nearly $7 million.
When asked how much he received from his settlement, Myers said," I'm not allowed to answer that question."
Lindsay asked Myers, who wasn't called as a witness during the Sandusky trial, where he was when the trial took place.
"I believe I was somewhere in central Pennsylvania," he said. "Now exactly where I was, I can't recall. I might have been working. I don't know exactly, but I was here in Pennsylvania . . . I was somewhere inside Clinton County or Clearfield County, somewhere in that little Trifecta."
Asked if he could recall being in a specific place, Myers replied, "I can't recall where I was when the trial was going on . . . I can't tell you exactly where I was, I don't remember that."
It was Lindsay's contention that Sandusky deserved a new trial because the prosecutor, Joseph McGettigan, lied to the jury when he stated that the existence of Victim No. 2, the boy in the showers, was "known only to God."
As far as Lindsay was concerned, McGettigan knew that Myers was Victim No. 2, but didn't want to call him as a witness during the Sandusky trial because he had formerly defended Jerry.
On cross examination, the prosecution had a simple script. To reiterate that when he finally got his story straight, Myers was indeed a victim of Jerry Sandusky's.
Jennifer Peterson, a lawyer representing the Commonwealth, asked Myers if he remembered speaking to to Special Agent Anthony Sassano of the state Attorney General's office.
The old axiom, “two wrongs don’t make a right” applies here. How Raykovitz has skated away on this whole thing is baffling.
I recall Dick Anderson testifying at Sandusky’s trial about it not being uncommon for boys to be showering with the coaches, in sort of a typical public group shower type of setting and saying that he didn’t see anything inappropriate. I don’t recall Anderson saying anything about himself or any of the other coaches doing so one on one with boys or if in those group showers with others that he saw Jerry lather them up and hug them. Do you have. Any recollection of any of that?
I do not. However, none of the other coaches were affiliated with TSM...
I can only offer my opinion that coaches and perhaps others were accustomed to seeing Jerry with TSM kids in and around the PSU football facilities.
I think we know Joe didn't like it.....not because he had suspicions about CSA, but because he viewed it as a distraction, and a potential liability concern for PSU. You will recall that Joe was opposed to giving JS access to Lasch (prior to the Emeritus agreement) but he was over ruled.
Joe was right and I would assume Joe had more than one reason to not want it happening.
My point about Jerry showering with boys with others present is that if it didn’t include lathering them up and hugging them, that is another red flag. Why would he only be hugging them when nobody else was around?
Let me answer you with a question......why would Raykovitz or Heim facilitate his activities?
If everyone had your train of thought....then
All the coaches at PSU knew Jerry was a pedophile and didn't care
Raykovitz and Heim knew and didn't care
Tim and Gary knew and didn't care
Schreffler who claims he wanted to charge JS (so he said 13 year later) didn't protest
Gricar knew and didn't prosecute
Not likely, sorry
Ziegler is a "reporter" and I'm a brain surgeon.
Nope, you're misinterpretI get what I am saying. The TSM guys would allow Sandusky access for one of two reasons:
1. They never suspected him to be a pedophile
2. They knew he was pedophile and were fine with it
Without knowing either individual, I would suspect the first option to be more likely option.
What I am saying Is that if Jerry’s witnessed showering practices with these boys were different with other people around than they were one-on-one, that’s a pretty big red flag about his actions with them alone. If it was just natural for him to be hugging kids and lathering them up in the shower because of the way he was raised as some have used as a defense for him on here, then it shouldn’t matter if anybody was around to witness it, right? I just read some of the old testimony from Anderson and he didn’t say anything about Jerry hugging them or sharing a shower head with them with other coaches around. Why would it be different?
True, but TSM makes head explode.
On March 30, 2012, McChesney noted that Sandusky's trial was rescheduled to June 5th of that year. Meanwhile, Greg Paw related to McChesney what he learned during a call with Frank Fina, that Fina was "relooking at [Penn State President Graham] Spanier," and that Fina was "not happy with University & cooperation but happy to have 2001 email."
McChesney was referring to an email chain, conducted over Penn State’s own computer system, where President Spanier and two other top administrators discussed confronting Sandusky about his habit of showering with children at Penn State facilities. The officials discussed simply telling Sandusky to stop, rather than report him to officials at The Second Mile, Sandusky's charity for at-risk youth, as well as the state Department of Public Welfare.
In the email chain, Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley described the strategy as a “more humane approach” that included an offer to provide Sandusky with counseling. Spanier agreed, but wrote, “The only downside for us if the message isn’t ‘heard’ and acted upon [by Sandusky] and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it.”
In her diary, McChesney seemed to know what's going on with the supposedly secret grand jury proceedings being conducted by the state attorney general's office. She wrote that "40+ more people before grand jury." She also knew that the grand jury judge was "not happy with" Penn State Counsel Cynthia Baldwin," specifically "what she [Baldwin] said about representing the university."
In the grand jury proceedings, Baldwin asserted that she had represented the university, and not Spanier, Athletic Director Curley, and Penn State Vice-President Gary Schultz. Apparently, the grand jury judge had a problem with that, McChesney wrote.
Baldwin's grand jury testimony was described by McChesney as "inconsistent statements." McChesney also noted that "we are getting" copies "of the transcripts." On April 2, 2012, McChesney recorded being notified by fellow investigator McNeill that "AG documents received re: Curley and Schultz."
McChesney's diary also portrayed Fina as not only leaking grand jury secrets to the Freeh Group, but also being actively involved in directing the Freeh Group's investigation, to the point of saying if and when they could interview certain witnesses. McChesney recorded that the Freeh Group was going to notify Fina that they wanted to interview Ronald Schreffler, the investigator from Penn State Police who probed the 1998 shower incident. After he was notified, McChesney wrote, "Fina approved interview with Schreffler."
In her diary, McChesney continued to log grand jury secrets that not even the defendants in the Penn State case were aware of.
On April 16, 2012, McChesney recorded "next week more grand jury," and that Spanier would be charged. She added that Spanier's lawyer didn't "seem to suspect" that Spanier was going to be arrested. She also recorded that Spanier's lawyer "wants access to his emails," but that Fina did not want Spanier "to see 2001 email chain."
She wrote that the grand jury was meeting on April 25th, and that an indictment of Spanier might come as soon as two days later. She also recorded that Fina "wants to question [people]; then it turns into perjury," which McChesney noted was "not fair to the witness."
McChesney also wrote that Paw was scheduling meetings with lawyers for Schultz and Curley. "Have not seen emails," she wrote, without saying whom she was referring to.
As part of their investigation, the Freeh Group was also looking at former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. The Freeh Group contacted the state attorney general's office for help but the AG's office advised them that they had "nothing further on Paterno [other] than what" the Freeh Group already had.
On April 19, 2012, Paw "spoke with Fina," and was advised that the deputy attorney general "does not want Spanier or other [defendants] to see documents; next 24 hours are important for case & offered to re-visit over weekend re: sharing documents."
McChesney further recorded that "attys and AG's office staffs are talking & still looking to charge Spanier." Paw, she wrote, was scheduled to meet with Spanier's lawyer tomorrow, and that "Fina said the 4 of them [including Wendell Courtney] are really in the mix." McChesney was presumably referring to Spanier, Curley, Schultz and Courtney, then a Penn State counsel.
The emails from the trio of Penn State administrators, McChesney wrote, would be "released in a [grand jury] presentment and charging documents."
The night before Spanier was arrested, Paw sent an email to his colleagues at the Freeh Group, advising them of the imminent arrest. The email was contained in other confidential records connected to the Freeh investigation, records that the Penn State board of trustees has repeatedly refused to release.
The subject of Paw's email: "CLOSE HOLD -- Important."
"PLEASE HOLD VERY CLOSE," Paw wrote his colleagues at the Freeh Group. "[Deputy Attorney General Frank] Fina called tonight to tell me that Spanier is to be arrested tomorrow, and Curley and Schultz re-arrested, on charges of obstruction of justice and related charges . . . Spanier does not know this information yet, and his lawyers will be advised about an hour before the charges are announced tomorrow."
Other members of the state attorney general's office were helpful to Freeh's investigators. McChesney wrote that investigator Sasssano divulged that he brought in the son of Penn State trustee Steve Garban because "he had info re [Jerry Sandusky] in shower." The AG's office also interviewed interim Penn State football coach Tom Bradley about his predecessor, Joe Paterno and the 1998 shower incident.
"Bradley was more open & closer to the truth," McChesney wrote, "but still holding back."
On April 26, 2012, McChesney noted in her diary that "police investigators have interviewed 44 janitors, 200+ victims." On May 1, 2012, she wrote that Fina told them that "Spanier brings everyone in on Saturday." Fina also told the Freeh Group that he found out from Joan Coble, Schultz's administrative assistant, and her successor, Kim Belcher, that "there was a Sandusky file," and that it supposedly "was sacrosanct and secret."
McChesney recorded that Fina told the Freeh Group that one of Schultz's administrative assistants "got a call on her way to work on Monday from Schultz." She was told she had to surrender keys, presumably to the locked file. "She's emotional," McChesney wrote. " She may have been sleeping w Schultz."
Both Coyle and Belcher got immunity to testify against Schultz. Meanwhile, there were several leakers on Schultz's supposedly secret file that he was keeping on Sandusky. As McChesney recorded in her diary, "Fina got papers from two different sources."
In her diary, McChesney kept compiling more secrets. On May 22, 2012, McChesney wrote that the "FBI took DNA & handwriting samples" from Sandusky. Meanwhile, the cooperation between the attorney general's office and Freeh's investigators went both ways.
When Freeh's investigators, one of whom was McChesney, interviewed Penn State counsel Baldwin and learned somebody else in the attorney general's office was leaking her information, they knew they had to tell Fina.
"Paw: didn't tell Final that Baldwin heard @ the charges before they happened, but will tell him that," McChesney wrote. Baldwin, McChesney added, told Freeh's investigators " a colleague in the AG's office leaked that Curly, Schultz and Sandusky would be charged," and that Spanier "was stunned."
The Freeh Report concluded that Penn State officials had conspired to cover up Sandusky's sex crimes. The NCAA used the Freeh Report to justify draconian sanctions against Penn State that included a $60 million fine, a four-year bowl game ban, and the loss of 40 athletic scholarships.
In other confidential emails included in the source materials for the Freeh Report, McChesney used her experience with the Catholic bishops as a selling point to be hired by Freeh for the Penn State investigation.
"Louie: Just wanted to reach out to you in the event that any of my experiences with the Catholic Bishops Conference would be of use to your team," McChesney wrote. "Too many sad parallels between this case and the Church."
Freeh responded by telling his staff in an email that McChesney's experience in investigating the church would come in handy at Penn State because "the church has an insularity similar to what we are seeing" at Penn State.
Other emails contained in the source materials show Freeh was indeed angling to land the NCAA as a client.
On July 7, 2012, a week before the release of the Freeh Report on Penn State, McNeill, a senior investigator for Freeh, wrote to Freeh. "This has opened up an opportunity to have the dialogue with [NCAA President Mark] Emmert about possibly being the go to internal investigator for the NCAA. It appears we have Emmert's attention now."
In response, Freeh wrote back, "Let's try to meet with him and make a deal -- a very good cost contract to be the NCAA's 'go to investigators' -- we can even craft a big discounted rate given the unique importance of such a client. Most likely he will agree to a meeting -- if he does not ask for one first."
It took seven years but Freeh's efforts finally paid off. This past August, the NCAA hired five employees of the Freeh Group to staff its new Complex Case Unit.
According to the NCAA, the new unit will be paid to investigate allegations of infractions of "core NCAA values, such as alleged failures to prioritize academics and the well-being of student athletes; the possibility of major penalties; or conduct contrary to the cooperative principles of the existing infractions process."
Well there are only two explanations in my mind:
1. The one that I believe...everyone thought Jerry was (where TSM kids were involved) a big "kid" himself. A goof ball around kids who could enthusiastically play silly child like games. This seemingly endeared him to children and he was in a sense a "pied piper." He viewed his real purpose in life as rescuing boys that were disadvantaged in a variety of ways. He gained tremendous satisfaction by changing their lives for the better. Through the sheer power of his persona and commitment he built a massive charity that gained recognition nation-wide.....not to mention accolades from the President of the United States.
While there was wide spread admiration and respect for Jerry among those acquainted with his work......he could be "clueless" bullheaded and lacking in common sense. The aforementioned traits led Sandusky to actions that some called "boundary issues," and were frustrated that Jerry could not seem to understand how others could find these practices objectionable or suspect. Jerry couldn't make a "hit" with every child and often reacted as if failure to connect was a form of rejection.
However, keep in mind that overall his work was enthusiastically lauded and politicians in Pennsylvania, sports personalities and corporate giants all rushed to invest themselves in The Second Mile.
Or..... Jerry created TSM to identify, isolate and sexually abuse young boys. He was an evil genius who successfully concealed his pedophilia for more than 3 decades, having only one contemporaneous complaint filed with authorities. Which was quickly dismissed by the long time respected Count DA. The young man in that case remained a close friend, denied abuse and only after $$ was on the table, conjectured that perhaps Jerry was grooming him. Despite the fact that he was the most heinous and prolific pedophile ever seen by veteran investigators in the Commonwealth of Pa.,,, So cunning that he could operate with impunity right under the nose of the CYS of Centre County and the Courts that allowed TSM to run many programs for children and endorsed numerous adoptions and foster care situations for Jerry and Dottie.
Pendergrast explains -
"The behavior exhibited by Mr. Sandusky is directly consistent with what can be seen as an expected daily routine of being a football coach. This evaluator spoke to various coaches from high school and college football teams and asked about their locker room behavior. Through verbal reports from these coaches it is not unusual for them to shower with players. This appears to be a widespread, acceptable situation and it appears that Mr. Sandusky followed through with patterning that he has probably done without thought for many years."
The psychologist also concluded that since no one else had previously accused Sandusky of abuse, and that the psychologist knew of no case where a then 52-year-old man had suddenly become a pedophile.
As reported by Pendergrast, according to state law, the unfounded report of abuse should have been expunged by the state Department of Welfare, which it was. But the Penn State Police failed to expunge the report. And 13 years later, the report was suddenly relevant after the state attorney general issued a grand jury presentment about a second alleged shower incident where Sandusky allegedly raped a 10-year-old boy, as supposedly witnessed by former Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary.
The second shower incident, however, was investigated for the federal government by Snedden, who determined that the alleged facts made no sense, and that McQueary was not a credible witness.
McChesney's diary doesn't state how the Freeh team came up with the 1998 police report, but three lines later, McChesney writes: "Records - IT: Team working with Atty general, will receive in stages."
Besides working closely with the Attorney General's office, Freeh's investigators were also staying in constant contact with the NCAA.
McChesney wrote that during the investigation, fellow investigator McNeill "has standing telcall on Fridays with NCAA & Big 10." During those phone calls, the NCAA "will provide questions for" the Freeh Group," McChesney wrote, and that "NCAA high level execs will decide on enforcement actions."
The FBI was also involved in the Penn State probe, McChesney wrote. She speculated about the need to have somebody "handle, organize, channel data" for the attorney general's office. GP, she wrote, presumably, Greg Paw, discussed "Piggyback on AG investigation re: docs."
On Jan. 4, 2012, McChesney wrote that during a meeting with investigator Anthony Sassano and another official from the state attorney general's office, she learned that the "1998 police report" was "out of sequence and filed in administrative rather than criminal." And that the Penn State police chief and the original investigator from the 1998 incident were the "only ones who knew."
McChesney also listed in her diary the initials of numerous Penn State officials who got subpoenaed for the 2011 grand jury investigation. She also records that "AG got 2nd mile records from subpoena," referring to The Second Mile, the charity for at risk youth started by Sandusky.
She also noted that the AG interviewed Ruth Jackson, the wife of Kenny Jackson, a former Penn State assistant football coach, as well as another man who had "been to the grand jury - and possibly friends with JS," as in Jerry Sandusky.
McChesney described the "AG's strategies: may go to new coach to read riot act to [Penn State Associate Athletic Director Fran] Ganter et al."
On March 7, 2012, she wrote "No smoking gun to indicate coverup." She also wrote that the Freeh Group continued to be in "close communications with AG and USA," as in the U. S. Attorney.
According to McChesney, members of the Freeh Group "don't want to interfere with their investigations," and that she and her colleagues were being "extremely cautious & running certain interviews by them." McChesney wrote that the Freeh Group even "asked [Deputy Attorney General Frank] Fina to authorize some interviews." And that the AG's office "asked us to stay away from some people, ex janitors, but can interview" people from the Second Mile.
On March 30, 2012, McChesney noted that Sandusky's trial was rescheduled to June 5th of that year. Meanwhile, Greg Paw related to McChesney what he learned during a call with Frank Fina, that Fina was "relooking at [Penn State President Graham] Spanier," and that Fina was "not happy with University & cooperation but happy to have 2001 email."
McChesney was referring to an email chain, conducted over Penn State’s own computer system, where President Spanier and two other top administrators discussed confronting Sandusky about his habit of showering with children at Penn State facilities. The officials discussed simply telling Sandusky to stop, rather than report him to officials at The Second Mile, Sandusky's charity for at-risk youth, as well as the state Department of Public Welfare.
In the email chain, Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley described the strategy as a “more humane approach” that included an offer to provide Sandusky with counseling. Spanier agreed, but wrote, “The only downside for us if the message isn’t ‘heard’ and acted upon [by Sandusky] and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it.”
In her diary, McChesney seemed to know what's going on with the supposedly secret grand jury proceedings being conducted by the state attorney general's office. She wrote that "40+ more people before grand jury." She also knew that the grand jury judge was "not happy with" Penn State Counsel Cynthia Baldwin," specifically "what she [Baldwin] said about representing the university."
In the grand jury proceedings, Baldwin asserted that she had represented the university, and not Spanier, Athletic Director Curley, and Penn State Vice-President Gary Schultz. Apparently, the grand jury judge had a problem with that, McChesney wrote.
Baldwin's grand jury testimony was described by McChesney as "inconsistent statements." McChesney also noted that "we are getting" copies "of the transcripts." On April 2, 2012, McChesney recorded being notified by fellow investigator McNeill that "AG documents received re: Curley and Schultz."
McChesney's diary also portrayed Fina as not only leaking grand jury secrets to the Freeh Group, but also being actively involved in directing the Freeh Group's investigation, to the point of saying if and when they could interview certain witnesses. McChesney recorded that the Freeh Group was going to notify Fina that they wanted to interview Ronald Schreffler, the investigator from Penn State Police who probed the 1998 shower incident. After he was notified, McChesney wrote, "Fina approved interview with Schreffler."
In her diary, McChesney continued to log grand jury secrets that not even the defendants in the Penn State case were aware of.
On April 16, 2012, McChesney recorded "next week more grand jury," and that Spanier would be charged. She added that Spanier's lawyer didn't "seem to suspect" that Spanier was going to be arrested. She also recorded that Spanier's lawyer "wants access to his emails," but that Fina did not want Spanier "to see 2001 email chain."
She wrote that the grand jury was meeting on April 25th, and that an indictment of Spanier might come as soon as two days later. She also recorded that Fina "wants to question [people]; then it turns into perjury," which McChesney noted was "not fair to the witness."
McChesney also wrote that Paw was scheduling meetings with lawyers for Schultz and Curley. "Have not seen emails," she wrote, without saying whom she was referring to.
As part of their investigation, the Freeh Group was also looking at former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. The Freeh Group contacted the state attorney general's office for help but the AG's office advised them that they had "nothing further on Paterno [other] than what" the Freeh Group already had.
On April 19, 2012, Paw "spoke with Fina," and was advised that the deputy attorney general "does not want Spanier or other [defendants] to see documents; next 24 hours are important for case & offered to re-visit over weekend re: sharing documents."
McChesney further recorded that "attys and AG's office staffs are talking & still looking to charge Spanier." Paw, she wrote, was scheduled to meet with Spanier's lawyer tomorrow, and that "Fina said the 4 of them [including Wendell Courtney] are really in the mix." McChesney was presumably referring to Spanier, Curley, Schultz and Courtney, then a Penn State counsel.
The emails from the trio of Penn State administrators, McChesney wrote, would be "released in a [grand jury] presentment and charging documents."
The night before Spanier was arrested, Paw sent an email to his colleagues at the Freeh Group, advising them of the imminent arrest. The email was contained in other confidential records connected to the Freeh investigation, records that the Penn State board of trustees has repeatedly refused to release.
The subject of Paw's email: "CLOSE HOLD -- Important."
"PLEASE HOLD VERY CLOSE," Paw wrote his colleagues at the Freeh Group. "[Deputy Attorney General Frank] Fina called tonight to tell me that Spanier is to be arrested tomorrow, and Curley and Schultz re-arrested, on charges of obstruction of justice and related charges . . . Spanier does not know this information yet, and his lawyers will be advised about an hour before the charges are announced tomorrow."
Other members of the state attorney general's office were helpful to Freeh's investigators. McChesney wrote that investigator Sasssano divulged that he brought in the son of Penn State trustee Steve Garban because "he had info re [Jerry Sandusky] in shower." The AG's office also interviewed interim Penn State football coach Tom Bradley about his predecessor, Joe Paterno and the 1998 shower incident.
"Bradley was more open & closer to the truth," McChesney wrote, "but still holding back."
On April 26, 2012, McChesney noted in her diary that "police investigators have interviewed 44 janitors, 200+ victims." On May 1, 2012, she wrote that Fina told them that "Spanier brings everyone in on Saturday." Fina also told the Freeh Group that he found out from Joan Coble, Schultz's administrative assistant, and her successor, Kim Belcher, that "there was a Sandusky file," and that it supposedly "was sacrosanct and secret."
McChesney recorded that Fina told the Freeh Group that one of Schultz's administrative assistants "got a call on her way to work on Monday from Schultz." She was told she had to surrender keys, presumably to the locked file. "She's emotional," McChesney wrote. " She may have been sleeping w Schultz."
Similar threads
