Oh good lord. 1. Being charged with a crime based on a law that was not in effect at the time is NOT a technicality. Spaniel didn’t skate. He won on the merits, as he should have. 2. Curley and Schultz pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor violation of that same failure to report law. They were not tried and convicted. That could have taken the same route as Spanier, but decided minimal white collar jail time was better than risking their pensions at trial or on appeal. Anyone who understands how prosecutors overcharge and can squeeze people (which you obviously don’t) knows this. Now go home son, and don’t forget your shine box. End of lesson.
But they did plead.
"I can't recall the specifics," Curley said about a meeting he had with former football Coach Joe Paterno to discuss what Mike McQueary heard and saw in his infamous 2001 visit to the Penn State locker room. "I have no recollection of that particular encounter," Curley said about a Sunday morning powwow he and Schultz had at Paterno's house to discuss what McQueary had witnessed in the showers. "I don't recall what his [Paterno's] response was."
About a meeting he and Schultz had with Spanier, Curley said, "We gave Graham a head's up." But he added, "I don't recall what the conversation was."
About another meeting Curley and Schultz had in President Spanier's office, Curley said, "I don't recall any of the conversation."
Well, asked the prosecutor, Deputy Attorney General Patrick Schulte, wasn't the meeting about what Mike McQueary said he heard and saw in the showers?
"I don't remember the specifics," Curley said.
Did McQueary say what he saw Jerry Sandusky doing with that boy in the showers was "sexual in nature," Schulte asked.
"No," Curley said.
Did McQueary say what he witnessed in the shower was horseplay, the prosecutor asked.
"I don't recall Mike saying that," Curley said. "I just walked through what Joe [Paterno] told us" about what McQueary told him about his trip to the locker room.
Well, the frustrated prosecutor asked, did you ever do anything to find out the identity of the boy in the shower with Jerry?
"I did not," Curley said. "I didn't feel like someone who is in danger," he said about the alleged victim.
But when the subject returned again to Curley's talks with Paterno, Curley responded, "I don't recall the specific conversation I had with Joe."
Curley downplayed the problems with Sandusky.
"I thought Jerry had a boundary issue," Curley said about Sandusky's habit of showering with young boys.
And what happened when Curley talked with Sandusky about that boundary issue, the prosecutor asked. Did Sandusky admit guilt?
"No, he didn't," Curley said.
Well, what did he say?
"I don't recall the specifics of the conversation," Curley replied.
The prosecutor reviewed for the jury's benefit Curley's guilty plea on one misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child. In the guilty plea, Curley admitted that he "prevented or interfered with" the reporting of a case of suspected sex abuse, namely the boy that Mike McQueary saw in the showers with Sandusky.
"You know other kids got hurt" after the McQueary incident, the prosecutor asked Curley.
"That's what I understand," Curley said.
On cross-examination, Spanier's lawyer, Samuel W. Silver, asked Curley about his guilty plea. The defense lawyer specifically wanted to know who was it that Curley prevented or interfered with to keep that person from reporting a suspected case of child sex abuse.
Faced with the chance to finger Spanier, Curley blamed only himself.
"I pleaded guilty because I thought I should have done more," Curley told Silver. "At the end of the day, I felt I should have done more."
Silver, seemingly delighted with that answer, ended his cross-examination after only a couple of minutes.
"I appreciate your candor," Silver told the witness. The prosecutors, however, appeared to have a different opinion of Curley's performance while they glared at him.
The day in Dauphin County Court began with the prosecution calling a couple of witnesses who worked as assistants to Gary Schultz, and used to do his filing.
Joan Cobel recalled how Schultz told her about a manilla folder he was starting with Jerry Sandusky's name on it.
"Don't look at it," Cobel recalled Schultz advising her about the Sandusky file, which was kept under lock and key.
"He never used that tone of voice before," Cobel conspiratorially told the prosecutor.
Lisa Powers, a former spokesperson for PSU and a speechwriter for Spanier, told the jury how she "kept feeling that something wasn't right" about the Sandusky rumors that reporters were asking her about. She recalled that when she asked another Penn State official about what was really going on with Sandusky, she was told, "The less you know the better."
The implication was that a big sex scandal was brewing at Penn State. Whether the jury buys all this hokum is another matter.
The prosecution, which rested its case today after only two days of testimony, seemed to be playing up the drama in the absence of hard factual evidence against Spanier.
Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka, Iron Mike's niece, got Powers to tell the jury how Spanier insisted on posting statements from lawyers defending both Curley and Schultz on the university's website after the sex scandal broke.
Then Ditka got Powers to admit that while the university was posting those defenses of Curley and Schultz, it didn't run a statement expressing sympathy for Sandusky's alleged victims.
Ditka also managed to give a speech, in the form of a question, asking Powers if Spanier told her "they did nothing to locate that child that was in that shower with Jerry Sandusky."
To hammer home the plight of the alleged victims in the scandal, the prosecution put "John Doe" on the stand, a 28-year-old known previously at the Sandusky trial as "Victim No. 5."
Judge John Boccabella seemed to cooperate with the theatrics. John Doe was sworn in as a witness in the judge's chambers. And when he came out to testify, the judge had extra deputies posted around the courtroom, to make sure that no spectator used their cellphone to take photos or video of the celebrity witness.
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