Here is a link to the Bob Costas interview. 54 minutes long.
John and Liz talk with legendary sports broadcaster Bob Costas
John and Liz talk with legendary sports broadcaster Bob Costas
With the Benefit of Hindsight - Ziegler's new documentary podcast on scandal to start in 2021
- Thread starter francofan
- Start date
The addition of Liz to the mix to moderate Ziegler is a big improvement. Ziegler still asked a bunch of leading questions that Costas deftly dealt with, and Liz kept the interview generally on track. Although there wasn't much of interest, I was at least able to get through the entire podcast.
Ziegler has some sort of mental disorder that I have seen in other people before. He starts out calmly, but once he gets wound up, he becomes wild and incoherent in his speech patterns. Liz is doing a good job at keeping that issue mostly under control.
Having Liz as a co-host is also interesting because she was very strongly in the "Jerry is guilty/Joe Knew" camp and as she learns more and more about the case, she is coming around. She seems genuinely outraged at some of the facts as they come out.
Were someone who didn't know a lot about the case (or only knew what ESPN told them) was listening, they would be "learning/changing" along with Liz.
And his voice gets more shrill. It's annoying, and maybe I'm just used to it, but I cut him slack because this whole case is so obviously effed up, I think JZ's perpetual case of exasperation is understandable.
I would imagine that also happens at his kitchen table. “I mean, could somebody pass me the corn?!?! It doesn’t make any sense that I’ve asked for the corn, you see the corn, but I don’t have any corn on my plate! All I want is some corn!!!”
I honestly think people obsess on the date because it completely destroys the boy in the shower rape narrative, but in reality, the actions of everyone involved kind of destroy it and it doesn't really matter. Sorry, MM doesn't tell anyone, or even imply a child was being raped and NONE of these men, his father and a doctor included, do nothing about it.
Mike saw JS showering with a kid and thought it was weird. When he's approached 10 years later and the cops tell him they suspect Jerry of being a pedophile, Mike fills the blanks in himself, or the cops do it for him.
There really is no other realistic explanation.
I didn't listen to the Costas interview (yet).
For those who have, will this interview make any real difference? Zig forecasts everything as bombshell. Will it be published by anyone significant in the media in order to really make a splash?
I will listen, and maybe that will help answer my first question.
I just really think most of the people listening to this podcast series are just Penn Staters. I just don't see how this amounts to anything without a broader audience or a better person to carry the torch other than Ziegler.
The biggest thing that Costas says is that Joe was treated unfairly and his legacy should not be tarnished by this saga. He says he is open to the idea that Jerry isn't guilty but is not familiar enough with all of John's work to come to that conclusion.
In order for this to make dent, it needs to get picked up by some other media outlet. Hell, even if something like "barstool" picked it up "Costas says 'Joe Didn't Know'") that would help.
One thing that might help is that JZ is doing interviews with other podcasts; for example his recent one with an Michigan State podcast (in which the host seems to be very receptive to what JZ has to say).
Last edited:
Zig starts out by re-playing his initial claims that Costas believes Jerry is innocent.
Costas essentially wanted to go on record saying that Jerry is likely guilty of the majority of the charges against him.
He goes well beyond that and says that Joe Paterno bears blame for the scandal but that Paterno's legacy should not be defined by it.
John then spends another 20 minutes rehashing and reframing what Costas clearly said, and essentially argues that Bob thinks Zig's theories are plausible. Again, Costas went out of his way to deny that.
Zig completely gaslighted Costas and surrounded the new interview with his own blither blather "view" of Costas's view, instead of letting Bob just say it form himself.
This is not what Costas says at all. Please listen to it again.
Boils down to junk factors -
"In March 2011 [Gov.] Corbett proposed a 52 percent cut in PSU funding," Snedden wrote. "Spanier fought back," publicly declaring the governor's proposed cutback "the largest ever proposed and that it would be devastating" to Penn State.
At his trial last week, Graham Spanier didn't take the witness stand. But under oath while talking to Snedden back in 2012, Spanier had plenty to say.
"[Spanier] feels that his departure from the position as PSU president was retribution by Gov. Corbett against [Spanier] for having spoken out about the proposed PSU budget cuts," Snedden wrote.
"[Spanier] believes that the governor pressured the PSU BOT [Board of Trustees] to have [Spanier] leave. And the governor's motivation was the governor's displeasure that [Spanier] and [former Penn State football coach Joe] Paterno were more popular with the people of Pennylvania than was the governor."
As far as Snedden was concerned, a political battle between Spanier and Gov. Corbett, and unfounded accusations of a coverup, did not warrant revoking Spanier's high-level security clearance. The special agent concluded his six-month investigation of the PSU scandal by renewing the clearance and giving Spanier a ringing endorsement.
"The circumstances surrounding subject's departure from his position as PSU president do not cast doubt on subject's current reliability, trustworthiness or good judgment and do not cast doubt on his ability to properly safeguard national security information," Snedden wrote about Spanier.
At the time Snedden interviewed the key people at Penn State, former athletic director Tim Curley and former PSU VP Gary Schultz were already under indictment.
Spanier was next in the sights of prosecutors from the attorney general's office. And former FBI Director Louie Freeh was about to release his report that said there was a coverup at Penn State masterminded by Spanier, Curley and Schultz, with an assist from Joe Paterno.
Snedden, however, wasn't buying into Freeh's conspiracy theory that reigns today in the mainstream media, the court of public opinion, and in the minds of jurors in the Spanier case.
"I did not find any indication of any coverup," Snedden told Ziegler on the podcast. He added that he did not find "any indication of any conspiracy, or anything to cover up."
Snedden also said that Cynthia Baldwin, Penn State's former general counsel, "provided information to me inconsistent to what she provided to the state." Baldwin told Snedden that "Gov. Corbett was very unhappy" with Spanier because he "took the lead in fighting the governor's proposed budget cuts to PSU."
That, of course, was before the prosecutors turned Baldwin into a cooperating witness. The attorney-client privilege went out the window. And Baldwin began testifying against Spanier, Curley and Schultz.
But as far as Snedden was concerned, "Dr. Spanier was very forthcoming, he wanted to get everything out," Snedden said.
"Isn't possible that he just duped you," Ziegler asked.
"No," Snedden deadpanned. "I can pretty well determine which way we're going on an interview." Even though he was a Penn State alumni, Snedden said, his mission was to find the truth.
"I am a Navy veteran," Snedden said. "You're talking about a potential risk to national security" if Spanier was deemed untrustworthy. Instead, "He was very forthcoming," Snedden said of Spanier. "He answered every question."
On the podcast, Ziegler asked Snedden if he turned up any evidence during his investigation that Jerry Sandusky was a pedophile.
"It was not sexual," Snedden said about what Mike McQueary allegedly heard and saw in the Penn State showers, before the prosecutors got through hyping the story, with the full cooperation of the media. "It was not sexual," Snedden insisted. "Nothing at all relative to a sexual circumstance. Nothing."
About PSU's top administrators, Snedden said, "They had no information that would make a person believe" that Sandusky was a pedophile.
"Gary Schultz was pretty clear as to what he was told and what he wasn't told," Snedden said. "What he was told was nothing was of a sexual nature."
As for Joe Paterno, Snedden said, "His involvement was very minimal in passing it [McQueary's account of the shower incident] to the people he reported to," meaning Schultz and Curley.
Spanier, 68, who was born in Cape Town, South Africa, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1955. When Snedden interviewed Spanier, he couldn't recall the exact date that he was approached by Curley and Schultz with the news about the shower incident supposedly witnessed by McQueary.
It was "approximately in the early 2000 decade," Snedden wrote, when Spanier recalled being approached by Schultz and Curley in between university meetings. The two PSU administrators told Spanier they wanted to give him a "head's up" about a report they had received from Joe Paterno.
"A staff member," Snedden wrote, "had seen Jerry Sandusky in the locker room after a work out showering with one of his Second Mile kids. [Spanier] knew at the time that Jerry Sandusky was very involved with the Second Mile charity," Snedden wrote. "And, at that time, [Spanier] believed that it only involved high school kids. [Spanier] has since learned that the charity involves younger disadvantaged children."
Because it was Spanier's "understanding at that time that the charity only involved high school kids it did not send off any alarms," Snedden wrote. Then the prosecutors and their friends in the media went to work.
"Curley and Schultz said that the person who had given the report was not sure what he had seen but that they were concerned about the situation with the kid in the shower," Snedden wrote.
Curley and Schultz told Spanier that the person who had given the report "was not sure what he saw because it was around the corner and that what he has reported was described as "horse play" or "horsing around." In his report, Snedden said that Spanier "assumed the terminology of horse play or horsing around came from Joe Paterno."
"They all agreed that Curley would talk to Jerry Sandusky, tell him not to bring kids into the locker room facilities," Snedden wrote. "And Curley was to tell the Second Mile management that it was not good for any of the Second Mile kids to come to the athletic locker room facilities, and that they should suspend that practice."
Spanier, Snedden wrote, never was told "who the person was who made the report. But "nothing was described as a sexual or criminal in any way," Snedden wrote.
The initial conversation between Spanier, Curley and Schultz about the Sandusky shower incident lasted 10 minutes, Snedden wrote. A few days later, Curley told Spanier "in person that the discussion had taken place and that everything went well."
"The issue never came up again with Curley, Schultz, Paterno, Sandusky, or anyone," Snedden wrote. "It did not appear very significant to anyone at the time."
Gary Schultz corroborated Spanier's account. Schultz told Snedden that back in February 2001, Tim Curley told him "something to the effect that Jerry Sandusky had been in the shower with a kid horsing around and wrestling. And Mike McQueary or a graduate assistant walked in and observed it. And McQueary or the graduate assistant was concerned."
Schultz believed the source of Curley's information was Joe Paterno, and that the conduct involved was horseplay.
"McQueary did not say anything of a sexual nature took place," Snedden wrote after interviewing Schultz. "McQueary did not say anything indicative of an incident of a serious sexual nature."
While Snedden was investigating Spanier, Louie Freeh was writing his overpriced $8.3 million report where he came to the opposite conclusion that Snedden did, that there was a coverup at Penn State. Only Louie Freeh didn't talk to Curley, Schultz, Paterno, McQueary or Sandusky. Freeh only talked to Spanier relatively briefly, at the end of his investigation, when he had presumably already come to his conclusions.
Ironically, one of the things Spanier told Freeh was that Snedden was also investigating what happened at Penn State. But that didn't seem to effect the conclusions of the Louie Freeh report, Snedden said. He wondered why.
He also wondered why his report had no effect on the attorney general's office, which had already indicted Curley and Schultz, and was planning to indict Spanier.
"I certainly think that if the powers that be . . . knew what was in his report, Snedden said, "They would certainly have to take a hard look at what they were doing."
Freeh and the AG, Snedden said, should have wanted to know "who was interviewed [by Sneddedn] and what did they say. I mean this is kind of pertinent to what we're doing," Snedden said of the investigations conducted by Freeh and the AG.
"If your goal in any investigation is to determine the facts of the case period, the circumstance should have been hey, we'll be happy to obtain any and all facts," Snedden said.
Snedden said he understood, however, why Freeh was uninterested in his report.
"It doesn't fit the narrative that he's [Louie Freeh] going for," Snedden said.
Freeh was on a tight deadline, Ziegler reminded Snedden. Freeh had to get his report out at a highly-anticipated press conference. And the Freeh report had to come out before the start of the football season. So the NCAA could drop the hammer on Penn State.
"He [Freeh] doesn't have time to read a hundred page report," Snedden said. He agreed with Ziegler that the whole disclosure of the Freeh report was "orchestrated" to come out right before the football season started.
It may have been good timing for the news media and the NCAA, Snedden said about the release of the Louie Freeh report. But it didn't make much sense from an investigator's point of view.
"I just don't understand why," Snedden told Ziegler, "why would you ignore more evidence. Either side that it lands on, why would you ignore it?"
Costas defended Paterno. Costas said he doesn’t know the facts therefore he won’t give an opinion one way or another. I am sure he thinks Jerry is likely guilty because he doesn’t know the details which point to Jerry being a stupid naive guy who had boundary issues. Costas admitted to thinking that Amendola was incompetent. Costas also said some of Zig’s theories were plausible.
That's some pretty weak sauce then. Maybe I won't listen to it now.
JMO but I would take everything that poster says with a huge grain of salt.
I listened. Not only is Bob having audio issues he says nothing that would move any needles. Not only that, he pretty much says without saying he doesn't have all that much interest into looking into the story any further.
This is a good synopsis. I would add that Ziegler then attempts to re-characterize Costas' interview into something consequential, after the Costas interview is over and JZ is recapping with Liz.
I haven't listened. I may not listen because I personally find Ziegler's communication approach insufferable as I've said several times. That said, I don't expect this interview to move the needle at all, regardless of content. The public and mass media no longer care about this story. That, and any sort of mass market statement that Jerry may be innocent (in a hypothetical media sense, this is not my personal opinion) would be completely toxic publicly. Unless there's some sort of smoking gun, which there isn't or it would have come out by now and a smoking gun to prove a negative is essentially impossible, the narrative is never going to change. Ziegler will continue to tease "bombshells" because that's one way he generates clicks but his bombshells are always duds.
Yeah I'm listening now. Basically Costas just says John's theories are plausible but he doesn't have the depth of knowledge to say he personally believes them. Costas gives himself an out on just about everything he says. It's very obvious he doesn't want to go on the record on anything that would be controversial. He plays it very very safe and expresses his reasons for that at the end. From that standpoint, "Nothing to see here".
I haven't listened to all of it yet but from what I've heard so far I have to agree.
I actually thought this might be the weakest of these recent podcasts.
And maybe its just me but unless he (Costas) flat out said Joe was framed I don't think it moves the needle at all.
Bombshell!
If what you say is true, I can't say that I blame Costas one bit for playing it carefully.
You have been an integral part of every Sandusky related thread since forever. Why are you asking questions like this?
Because I don’t remember. There were things that were known and then people claim they were not true. Just checking to see what the belief is about this part of the story. I follow the story but don’t have an encyclopedic memory of it by any means.
Needs clarity, like Beaver av.
On March 21st, Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka asked McQueary when he first heard that Jerry Sandusky was going to get arrested. Sandusky is the retired coach that McQueary allegedly saw naked in the Penn State showers with a boy.
It was during a bye week in the 2011 football season, McQueary told Ditka.
"I was on my way to Boston for recruiting and I was going from the F terminal over to the B terminals over in Philadelphia Airport," McQueary said. "And there was one of those little trams. The AGs called," he said, specifically naming Assistant Deputy Attorney General Jonelle Eshbach. And, according to McQueary, Eshbach "said we're going to arrest folks and we are going to leak it out."
Then, McQueary, perhaps catching himself, said, "Let me back up a little bit. We heard rumors that I had heard that -- the week before that arrests were imminent and that it was going to be more than Jerry Sandusky."
The state Attorney General's office has a known problem with leaks. Former state Attorney General Kathleen Kane lost her job after she was convicted last August of nine criminal charges, including leaking "confidential investigative information" in 2014 from a past grand jury probe to Chris Brennan, then a Philadelphia Daily News reporter.
Kane had to resign from her job and was sentenced to 10 to 23 months in jail after she was convicted of perjury, conspiracy, leaking grand jury information and then lying about it, to cover it up.
In the Jerry Sandusky case, prosecutors testified at a post-trial hearing last August that they had no knowledge of how the media found out that Sandusky and others in the Penn State scandal were about to be arrested. And how the media knew that there was a grand jury investigation of Sandusky in progress.
"If we can establish there were leaks by government agents, it could result in dismissal of case," Al Lindsay, Sandusky's lawyer, told reporters after the appeals hearing last August.
When reached for comment late today, Lindsay was on the case.
"We received a portion of that transcript from Mike McQueary," Lindsay said. "And it's certainly something we're studying to see whether or not it might be a fertile field for us to develop with regard to Mr. Sandusky's motion for a new trial," Lindsay said on behalf of client, now serving 30 to 60 years in prison.
A spokesperson for the state Attorney General's press office, where they're known for hiding under their desks, did not respond to a request for comment.
On the witness stand at the Spanier trial last month, McQueary testified that immediately after the AG's office told him they were going to leak news of the impending arrests, he ran over to the office of Assistant Athletic Director Fran Ganter.
"I remember it clearly," McQueary testified. "And I said, you gotta call Timmy's. Those guys are in trouble."
"Tim Curley," Ditka asked, referring to the former athletic director at Penn State.
"Yeah," McQueary testified. "And, you know, he kind of passed it off or shrugged me off," McQueary said about Ganter. "I'm not sure they believed me. And that's all that happened with that."
"So, a week later, I'm in that airport and I get a call," McQueary testified. "And then the media starts gettin' ahold of everything, and it's all kind of downhill after that."
Amen, brother.
When McQueary testified about the AG planning to "leak it out," I was in the courtroom but did not grasp the significance of what McQueary said. I had to have others explain it to me. And then it took a while to get the court transcript via a money order sent out snail mail to the Dauphin County Courthouse, to verify what McQueary had to say.
But Penn State veterans got it right away. Like Maribeth Roman Schmidt, the head of Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship.
"Mike's assertion under oath that the AGs leaked information about the PSU admins' arrests confirms suspicions we've had all along about prosecutorial misconduct on a number of levels," she said.
"It's now exceedingly obvious that the Attorney General was trying to manipulate public perception of the Penn State case from the very beginning, and they were willing to commit a crime to do it."
"This bombshell places the integrity of the entire Penn State case squarely at the feet of [newly elected AG] Josh Shapiro," Schmidt said about the new Attorney General who's yet to come out of hiding.
"If he's serious about restoring confidence in the AG's office," Schmidt said, "There is no other place for him to start than reviewing the conduct of prosecutors in this case from top to bottom."
Ray Blehar, who writes a blog, notpsu.blogspot.com, first reported the McQueary admission on March 25th, after he was tipped by Schmidt, who called it the "shocker of the day."
"McQueary Becomes Real Whistleblower," was Blehar's headline. In his blog post, Blehar quoted a transcript from McQueary's whistleblower and libel suit against Penn State, where McQueary scored a total of $12 million.
In the transcript from the McQueary trial, McQueary recounts how he was traveling to Boston, from Philadelphia Airport terminal B. It was Friday Nov. 4th after the Illinois game. McQueary testified how he got a phone call from then Deputy Attorney General Jonelle Eshbach.
"And she said a screw up had occurred or some kind of leak or a computer system malfunction, and she said all of the charges are going to be released," McQueary testified.
"However, it appears that McQueary's testimony at the Spanier trial goes a step further to state that Eshbach intentionally leaked the information," Blehar wrote.
"For years, Penn Staters have complained about the lack of an investigation into the leaks related to Jerry Sandusky," Blehar wrote. "Now, AG Josh Shapiro has the name of at least one of the Sandusky leakers. And it came from the Commonwealth's star witness in the Sandusky and Spanier cases."
Blehar called for Eshbach to be prosecuted "just as vigorously as former AG Kathleen Kane."
Eschbach, now running for York County District Attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.
For reporter John Ziegler, another regular chronicler of the Penn State scandal, the McQueary admission at the Spanier trial shines some light on a bigger picture.
"Anyone who uses his brain can only interpret this statement as an accidental admission that, just as I have long assumed, the AG's office prematurely leaked the grand jury presentment so that their favorite reporter, Sara Ganim, could 'find' it and start to set their false narrative," Ziegler said.
I think Jerot has a new screen name.
I believe what I've believed the last several years but have become MUCH more convinced and am open to the possibility Jerry is 100 percent innocent, although I am not there yet.
I like most believed initially Jerry was guilty as hell. For the last few years I thought Jerry was a pedophile that likely never truly acted on those urges in the form of any real assaults. I still think that, but Ziegler is painting a picture that makes me believe it's very highly possible he was a complete and total weirdo, but not guilty of anymore than that.
I don't really have an opinion regarding Sandusky's guilt. I suspect he was merely a weird, dopey guy who had significant boundary issues, but I don't know that for sure.
The far more consequential matter to me is what crimes were committed by key members of the Penn State BOT. Some folks believe that members of the BOT were motivated by a hatred of Joe. These BOT members used the Sandusky matter to get rid of Joe, and things just got out of hand.
But in my view, the far more likely case is that we can't even imagine the level of depravity of some of the 2011-12 BOT members. They needed to throw Joe and the football program under the bus in order to distract from their crimes. Those crimes were being conducted via the Second Mile and other ventures.
I'm not sure the BOT was driven by some pure evil motivations (and I'm saying this as someone who hates the 2011 BOT).
I think Surma (and some others) wanted to get rid of Paterno. I think others (political appointees) were beholden to Corbett who had a beef with Spanier (and PSU in general). And the rest were too cowardly to stand up for what was right (although it is possible that, the way the BOT is structured, that minority couldn't have fought it anyway).
Once Paterno and Spanier were fired, the BOT put on their corporate hats to enter post-crisis management mode. They managed the crisis as if the were managing the BP oil spill, i.e. the stockholders don't really care about the public perception of BP (to an extent); they really just want the news cycle to move to something else and the lawsuits to go away. So PSU did what BP did; they blindly threw money at the problem, hoping that it would go away.
Beyond the philosophical problems I have with this approach, the reason that it is inappropriate for a University is that alumni (analogous to stockholders) care A LOT about the public perception. PSU saying "mea culpa" when the facts clearly suggest it was NOT PSU's fault enraged a lot of people.
The BOT won't admit that they botched this, partially because it would expose the amount of money wasted (Freeh Report, poorly vetted settlements, etc).
I tend to agree here. They were convinced of everyone's guilt by Corbett and became so invested in the "move on" strategy that once they fired Joe and Spanier, there was just no turning back.
I want to know what role Lanny Davis played in all this!
The real crime is what Freeh was hired to do. By then, Joe was dead, yet they felt it necessary to destroy his legacy to show the public how PSU had purged itself of the "evil" within its ranks. Part of this included getting the NCAA to sanction the program.
The Freeh report, the NCAA sanctions and removing the statue was the BOT's/Corbett's version of
"shock and awe".
I think there's still a Pulitzer in this for the right investigative reporter.
Surma and Corbett knew precisely what they were doing. I get that some members of the BOT were busy at the onion dip and schrimp....Surma, Suhey, Tsar Ira the Terrible and Judas knew exactly what the plan was. Kenny had career and corporate brownie points to muster.
I will tell you, and I've said this to many people many times, if you don't believe the railroading of Joe, Spanier and Schultz was bought and paid for you aren't paying attention.
I want you to think of it this way to keep it simple. Go back and watch the Freeh press conference back in 2012.
The PSU BOT paid for the Freeh investigation, this is not debatable. This is also not the first or last time in situations like this a school or sports organization has hired a firm to investigate one of these scandals. You know what was a first? The investigation team holding a national press conference that was breaking news on every major news network in the country, and allow the investigator to completely eviscerate his own client, with inciteful language and pure opinion in said national television press conference.
Add this to the fact, this press conference happened before anyone had a chance to read the actual report so they could ask proper questions about it, was an incredibly calculated move.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is doing that to a multi million dollar client unless they have permission, and more likely INSTRUCTIONS to do so. Those types of internal investigations are done as part of PR pieces and then used internally to help understand their failings. There would have been clear cut terms in those contracts that Freeh in no way is allowed to speak on this ever. Any organization on planet earth, would be smart enough to make him sign an NDA. If PSU didn't pay Freeh to do what he did, they could have and would have sued the holy hell out of him and won.
I want you to think of it this way to keep it simple. Go back and watch the Freeh press conference back in 2012.
The PSU BOT paid for the Freeh investigation, this is not debatable. This is also not the first or last time in situations like this a school or sports organization has hired a firm to investigate one of these scandals. You know what was a first? The investigation team holding a national press conference that was breaking news on every major news network in the country, and allow the investigator to completely eviscerate his own client, with inciteful language and pure opinion in said national television press conference.
Add this to the fact, this press conference happened before anyone had a chance to read the actual report so they could ask proper questions about it, was an incredibly calculated move.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is doing that to a multi million dollar client unless they have permission, and more likely INSTRUCTIONS to do so. Those types of internal investigations are done as part of PR pieces and then used internally to help understand their failings. There would have been clear cut terms in those contracts that Freeh in no way is allowed to speak on this ever. Any organization on planet earth, would be smart enough to make him sign an NDA. If PSU didn't pay Freeh to do what he did, they could have and would have sued the holy hell out of him and won.
Freeh promised to make every effort to deliver the desired result.
One would have to be a window licker to question who "desired" the results he delivered.
Freeh will hold the world record for $$$ paid for an opinion forever.
If what Surma, Peetz, Lubert and Frazier did to PSU is not a crime....then my name is PinkHippoPeanutButter....
You nailed it with that summery. This does NOT happen without BOT approval.
I think the possibility that Sandusky is completely innocent is far more likely than the idea that he’s a pedophile that didn’t act upon his desires.
I think what most everyone who has followed this case can agree on is that JS did not get a fair trial. I'd be very interested to see another trial and let the truth prevail.
Freeh never got paid.
Throughout the Freeh investigation, which was the legal basis for the NCAA's unprecedented sanctions imposed against Penn State that included a record $60 million fine, there were "substantial communications" between the AG's office and Freeh's investigators, the motion states. Those communications included a steady stream of leaks to Freeh's investigators emanating from the supposedly secret grand jury probe overseen by former Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina, a noted bad actor in this case.
The collusion and leaks between the AG's office and the Freeh Group are documented in three sets of confidential records filed under seal by Sandusky's lawyers; all those records, however, were previously disclosed on Big Trial. The records include a private 79-page diary kept by former FBI Special Agent Kathleen McChesney, the co-leader of the Freeh investigation, in 2011 and 2012; a seven-page "Executive Summary of Findings" of a 2017 confidential review of the Freeh Report conducted by seven Penn State trustees; and a 25-page synopsis of the evidence gleaned by the trustees in 2017 after a review of the so-called "source materials" for the Freeh Report still under judicial seal.
In documents filed Saturday in state Superior Court, Sandusky's lawyers argued in their motion for a new trial that the collusion that existed between the AG and Freeh amounted to a "de facto joint investigation" that not only violated state law regarding grand jury secrecy, but also tainted one of the jurors who convicted Sandusky
According to the motion for a new trial, "Juror 0990" was a Penn State faculty member who was interviewed by Freeh's investigators before she was sworn in as a juror at the Sandusky trial.
"At no time during this colloquy, or any other time, did the prosecution disclose that it was working in collaboration with the Freeh Group which interviewed the witness," lawyers Philip Lauer and Alexander Lindsay Jr. argue in the 31-page motion filed on Sandusky's behalf.
At jury selection, Joseph Amendola, Sandusky's trial lawyer, had no knowledge "about the degree of collaboration" ongoing between the AG's office and Freeh investigators, Sandusky's appeal lawyers wrote. Had he known, Amendola stated in an affidavit quoted in the motion for a new trial, Amendola would have "very likely stricken her for cause, or at a minimum, used one of my preemptory strikes to remove her as a potential juror."
Had he known the AG and Freeh Group were working in tandem, Amendola stated in an affidavit, he would have also quizzed all other potential jurors about any interaction with investigators from the Freeh Group. And he "would have sought discovery of all materials and statements obtained by the Freeh Group regarding the Penn State/Sandusky investigation."
Coercive Tactics By Freeh's Investigators
In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's lawyers describe the hardball tactics employed by Freeh's investigators as detailed in a seven-page June 29, 2018 report from the Penn State trustees who investigated the so-called source materials for the Freeh Report. In their report, seven trustees state that "multiple individuals have approached us privately to tell us they were subjected to coercive tactics when interviewed by Freeh's investigators."
"Investigators shouted, were insulting, and demanded that interviewees give them specific information," the seven trustees wrote, such as, "Tell me that Joe Paterno knew Sandusky was abusing kids!"
"Some interviewees were told they could not leave until they provided what the interviewers wanted, even when interviewees protested that this would require them to lie," the trustees wrote. Some individuals were called back by Freeh's investigators for multiple interviews, where the same questions were repeated, and the interviewees were told they were being "uncooperative for refusing to untruthfully agree with interviewers' statements."
"Those employed by university were told their cooperation was a requirement for keeping their jobs," the trustees wrote. And that being labeled "uncooperative" by Freeh's investigators was "perceived as a threat against their employment."
Indeed, the trustees wrote, "one individual indicated that he was fired for failing to tell the interviewers what they wanted to hear."
"Coaches are scared of their jobs," the trustees quoted another interviewee as saying.
"Presumably," Sandusky's lawyers wrote, as a Penn State employee, "Juror number 0990 was subject to this type of coercion."
Sandusky's Lawyers Seek To Depose Freeh, Fina
In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's lawyers ask the Superior Court for permission to conduct an evidentiary hearing so that Sandusky's lawyers could learn the depth of the collaboration that existed between the AG's office and Freeh's investigators.
At that evidentiary hearing, Sandusky's lawyers wrote, they would seek to depose Freeh, McChesney, and other Freeh investigators that include Gregory Paw and Omar McNeill. Sandusky's lawyers also seek to interview former deputy attorney generals Frank Fina, Jonelle Eshbach and Joseph McGettigan, as well as former AG agents Anthony Sassano and Randy Feathers.
According to the motion, the communications on the part of the AG's office "appear to have included information, and even testimony, from the special investigating grand jury then in session, which communications would be in direct violation of grand jury secrecy rules, and would subject the participants in the Attorney General's office to sanctions."
Sandusky's lawyers are also seeking disclosure of all of the so-called source materials for the Freeh Report. Those records, as previously mentioned, are still under seal in the ongoing cover-up of the scandal behind the Penn State scandal, as led by the stonewalling majority on the Penn State board of trustees.
Sandusky, 76, was re-sentenced on appeal last November to serve 30 to 60 years in prison for sexually abusing ten boys, the same sentence he originally got after he was convicted in 2012 on 45 counts of sex abuse.
According to a Dec. 2, 2011, letter of engagement, Freeh was formally hired by Penn State to "perform an independent, full and complete investigation of the recently publicized allegation of sexual abuse."
But instead of an independent investigation, the confidential documents show that Freeh's investigators were hopelessly intertwined with the AG's criminal investigation, tainting both probes. According to the confidential documents, the AG's office was supplying secret grand jury transcripts and information to Freeh's investigators; both sets of investigators were also trading information on common witnesses and collaborating on strategy.
The records show that former deputy Attorney General Fina was in effect directing the Freeh Group's investigation by telling Freeh's investigators which witnesses they could interview, and when. In return, Freeh's investigators shared what they were learning during their investigation with Fina. And when they were done, Freeh's investigators showed the deputy AG their report before it was made public.
In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's lawyers argue that their client's constitutional rights were trampled under the mad rush to save Penn State's storied football program from the NCAA's threat to impose the "death penalty" on the Nittany Lions.
To save Penn State football, the NCAA and Penn State's trustees had worked out a consent decree with voluntary sanctions. The consent decree, which called for the university's unconditional surrender, required that two things happen by the opening of the 2012 college football season to save Penn State football: Jerry Sandusky had to be convicted and the Freeh Report had to be published.
Sandusky was indicted by a grand jury on Nov. 5, 2011, the details of which were leaked to reporter Sara Ganim of the Patriot-News of Harrisburg.
On Nov. 21, 2011, Penn Stated agreed to hire Freeh.
The railroad was running right on schedule. And Judge John Cleland, who presided over Sandusky's trial, demonstrated time and time again that he was willing to sacrifice Sandusky's constitutional rights to keep the trains running on time.
On Dec. 12, 2011, an off-the-record meeting was held at the Hilton Garden Inn at State College, attended by the trial judge, John Cleland, the prosecutors, the defense lawyers, and a district magistrate judge. At the off-the-record hotel meeting, Sandusky's lawyers agreed to waive a preliminary hearing where they would have had their only pre-trial chance to question the eight alleged victims who would testify at trial against Sandusky.
For any defense lawyer, this unusual conference led to a decision that was akin to slitting your own throat. But Sandusky's defense lawyers were completely overwhelmed by the task of defending their client against ten different accusers -- two of whom were imaginary boys in the shower -- while confined to a blitzkrieg trial schedule.
On Feb. 29, 2012, Amendola sought a two-month delay for the trial that was denied by Judge Cleland.
On the eve of the Sandusky trial, Amendola and his co-counsel, Karl Rominger, made a motion to withdraw as Sandusky's defense lawyers because, as Amendola told the judge, "We are not prepared to go to trial at this time."
The motion was denied.
In an affidavit, Amendola stated that "no attorney could have effectively represented Mr. Sandusky" given the "time constraints" imposed by Judge Cleland. Amendola stated that in the days and weeks before the Sandusky trial, he was hit with "more than 12,000 pages of discovery."
Those time constraints, Amendola stated, kept two expert forensic psychologists from participating in Sandusky's defense, which would have included reviewing the discovery in the case.
But under Judge Cleland, the Pennsylvania Railroad that Jerry Sandusky was riding on had to stay on schedule. And everybody knew it, including the prosecutors in the AG's office, as well as Freeh's investigators.
In the McChesney diary, on May 10, 2012, she noted in a conference call with Gregory Paw and Omar McNeil, two of Freeh's investigators, that Paw is going to talk to Fina, and that the "judge [is] holding firm on date of trial."
In his affidavit, Amendola, Sandusky's trial lawyer, states that McChesney didn't receive this information from him.
