if the work product supported the conclusions, Freeh would have been delighted to show back up to defend his conclusions. He didn't and it doesn't.
Status check: Lubrano - Lord - Freeh Report
- Thread starter Evan Ceg
- Start date
I'd think they would be allowed to express their opinions as to it's validity.
One would think
Of course, in and of itself, if that is ALL we hear - that His Honor's findings are as substantive as a fart in the wind - it is not a whole lot different than what we've already been saying and hearing........or what anyone with an IQ above room temperature has already deduced
The trustees will have to go back to the judge to get permission to turn the information over to law enforcement or to otherwise disclose it.
Even if the judge is corrupt and denies permission, if they find evidence of illegal activity (for example some kind of conspiracy to commit fraud or misappropriate public resources) they can probably argue that they are legally obligated to bring it to the attention of law enforcement.
This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Also, re: Evan's question, the trustees don't need to disclose the identities of freeh's interviewees to communicate the report is unsubstantiated, etc.....all they need to say is, we have reviewed the source docs/interviews and saw that there were 5 people that had bad things to say about Joe/Fb program/admins (and who had an axe to grind) and 400 people that had glowing things to say and freeh only included and based his report on the minority with an axe to grind and didn't even entertain what the majority was saying.
A comprehensive and unbiased report, which is what freeh's farce was touted as, would evaluate and include all interviewees/data points and not only the ones that fit a predetermined outcome.
Just look at freeh's interpretation of cherry picked emails. He never spoke to the senders/receivers and didn't provide the full email chain for context and yet he assigned the WORST possible interpretation to them and didn't even mention the possibility that they were all fooled by Jerry, you know, just like the trained professionals at CC CYS/TSM who's job it is to spot nice guy predators like JS.
Or, they could just state they didn't find anything to support Freeh's conclusions, and in fact found Freeh and several of the interviewed trustees to be flat out lying. Its not like anyone who would be called out could countermand the accusations without releasing everything. Its a nasty game of chicken where at the worst the alumni trustees have to say they were faking it and give their reason why as they bask at everything being released.
"There was not a shred of evidence that Paterno (or CSS for that matter) knew that Sandusky was abusing boys and they willfully covered up for him. Not a shred."
That is quite a reach. If you look at the key findings of the Freeh Report as to the 2001 event you will see findings that do have facts to support them. Now you are free to ignore those facts or to challenge the conclusions based upon those facts, but it is intellectually dishonest to assert that there is not a shred of evidence that Sandusky was abusing boys which fact was willfully covered up.
I believe this would also invalidate the indemnification protections enjoyed by the old guard trustees. And people wonder why they're fighting tooth-and-nail with PENN STATE'S MONEY to prevent the release of such materials, lol.
I'll slightly amend the statement
There is not a shred of evidence that Joe covered up .... Period end of story!
That's a good point Chi
People don't really understand that if the "corporate veil" is ever actually "pierced" then there is absolutely no protection for those folks - literally ALL their personal assets are then at stake
It truly is an "All or nothing" proposition
Yes. They can do that. They could say something like "we have found that Freeh
The contemporaneous email traffic doesn't support the deliberate cover up story.
There is no mention of hiding anything. Zilch.
To the contrary, there is ample evidence that undermines Louis the Liar's kooky "coverup" conspiracy theory.
What kind of people go blabbing to all kinds of outsiders when they are trying to cover up something?
What kind of people draw up a plan for going to various authorities if they are trying to cover up something?
What kind of people fail to secure the silence of the only witness when they are trying to cover up something?
The idea of a deliberate cover up is completely and absolutely ludicrous.
Bingo. If they acted criminally or deliberately acted against the university's interests for their own personal interests they are not indemnified.
Cruising Route 66
Well-Known Member
Honestly, the more I think about the gag order on releasing info, the more I like it. The alumni trustees could make up any story they want and release it and there's no way to dispute it without releasing everything.
There is no "corporate veil" for a Trustee of charity/NPO, most especially a NPO owned by all citzens of the Commonwealth via the "Public Trust". They have a legal Fiduciary Obligation where the "Prudent Man Rule" applies under Common Trust Law. IOW, no "corporate veil" to pierce - the only thing that needs to be shown is "gross negligence" or outright violation of "duty of care" under the "Prudent Man" principle.
There's a question waiting for you in post #15 of this thread.
Stop being a pussy and answer it.
What is truly ironic in all of this is that our folks had to file suit to even see the documents, and there are pages and pages of new rules and orders on what can't be done with documents once the Alum Trustees have seen them. But when the report was dropped on the University back in 2012, and led almost immediately to ruinous sanctions, massive settlements with victims and others and other huge outlays of assets from the coffers of the University, most of this University's trustees did not read the report, did not read the source documents, and maybe did not even watch the grandstanding Freeh press conference. Thus, the same trustees who were utterly unprepared in November 11 for Linda Kelly's grandstanding press conference, were likewise utterly unprepared for the Freeh Report and for the consent decree, which was signed by the University president, and never formally debated and voted upon by the BoT.
For people serving on the Board of a UNIVERSITY, they are awful particular about resistance to information. They did not do their homework in 2011 and 2012, and the University got slammed as a direct result. Now they do not want anyone else to check the homework they should have done, and they want to make sure they can control the information arising from any check of the documents.
Look, some bad pub would have flowed to PSU just from Kelly's presser. But Freeh doubled down on it. And the OG BoT was at best a passive bystander when it needed to defend the University.
In the novel 92 in the Shade by Thomas McGuane, one of the characters, a former rock star, explains why he drinks and takes drugs: "It's my only defense against information." He should have met some of these characters.
They have. Seems the cabal has offered money.
There is, but it will require a petition.
Per Ken Frazier, Freeh was given full access to all Penn State employees. This means that he chose not to investigate the Penn State trustees and executives who served in the same (or in similarly influential) capacities within the Second Mile and also chose to focus his investigation on Joe Paterno & Penn State football.
These are very interesting choices.
But were they choices or directives?
chose to or was instructed to by his paymasters
While I agree with your characterization of Freeh, the point of the exercise (at least on its face) was to find out what was wrong at Penn State--not TSM--and suggest fixes. At most he could have noted that Penn State needed to be careful in what charities they associated themselves with and how.
He was not being paid for an investigation into TSM. Same goes for looking into how the DA/state handled the situation. Both need to be investigated, sure. But that wasn't Freeh's job. Even if it were, all TSM had to say was "no, we're not talking to you" (and may well have done so), as he had no subpoena powers or any means to compel testimony (at Penn State, he could compel testimony, as jobs were at risk). Given that TSM probably was under investigation at the time, a "no comment" to anyone other than law enforcement would have been appropriate.
Look I dislike Freeh as much as anyone here. But getting mad with him over this issue is like getting mad when you can't get a Coke out of a Pepsi machine.
"At most he could have noted that Penn State needed to be careful in what charities they associated themselves with and how.........Given that TSM probably was under investigation at the time, a "no comment" to anyone other than law enforcement would have been appropriate."?
Well, Curley/McQueary/Schultz/Spanier etc were involved in legal actions at the time, and may have been very reticent to meet with him......
- I don't think he talked to Curley, McQueary, or Schultz at all. Would they have met with him? IDK
- I don't believe he talked to Spanier - DESPITE Spanier's attempts to TRY to get an audience with him (until providing a "courtesy" interview after the "report" was already written)
- I do not believe he spoke with Paterno, DESPITE Paterno offering to meet with him
But that didn't stop His Honor from making all kinds of "reasonable to conclude" statements regarding those folks. Did it?
____________________________________
This was the "independent investigation" that was sworn to go "WHEREVER THE FACTS MAY LEAD!" (remember that little ditty?)
But with gigantic flashing lights, billboards, neon signs, honking horns.....all saying "WTF was going on at the 2nd Mile, the OAG, the BOT, and the State Child Welfare Agencies?".....His Honor said "Nothing to see here....move along"
......
He didn't need to run a thorough investigation to conclude there were problems in those orgs. Besides, its not like Heim is a quiet individual.
Especially given that the Pennsylvania Law Enforcement entities that worked most closely on the case, including the highest ranking Law Enforcement Office and Officer in the State - the OAG, flatly stated that there was zero evidence that would suggest Paterno (or the Football Program in general) did anything wrong or participated in any kind of conspiracy whatsoever and was not a "person of interest" of any kind other than as a valuable "State's Witness" along with MM. Rather odd that Freeh came to the diametrically opposite "conclusion" with basically zero evidence and pure "conjecture" especially relative to the massive amount of information that Pennsylvania Law Enforcement had via investigative resources and subpoena power!! Almost like Freeh drew his conclusions first and then back-fitted his conclusions to his pre-ordained "conspiracy" false narrative (the narrative that the folks who gave him $8 million told him they wanted him to come to!).
Look, we all want a proper investigation of everything in this case. But that was not Freeh's job. He was looking for the problems at Penn State. Not elsewhere.
I get that, but this was publically available information that was highly relevant to PSU and what he (Freeh) was doing, and he completely ignored it. How hard was it to do a screen capture of TSM's website?
