With the Benefit of Hindsight - Ziegler's new documentary podcast on scandal to start in 2021
- Thread starter francofan
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Please don't be sorry that I have the ability to think critically.
It is amazing to me that so many people have lost the ability to think critically when it comes to the topic of whether or not Paterno, Spanier, Curley, Schultz AND Sandusky were railroaded. The evidence is in plain sight, yet few people are willing to revisit the evidence and consider what seems obvious to the people who know the case the best that no crimes were committed by those who were convicted.
As amazing as it is to me that so many are able to believe Sandusky was just cleaning up with the boys in the shower while hugging them. Its very easy to see how Sandusky was convicted. Not sure how the others were.
100% agree on point 1. Not so sure on point 2. first of all I think we can almost all agree Jerry isn't a "normal" guy. Regarding 19998 I can see a situation going differently regardless of his guilt or innocence
1. If he was guilty and didn't get "caught" I could see it embolden him.
2 If he is innocent I could understand him saying to himself well if I just explain things like what happened here people will believe me.
Remember here is a guy who still thinks he is innocent, ,thought a local trial would benefit him, thought going on Costas would help, and repeatedly said just let me talk to those guys they will explain things. Which takes us back to "normal" He is either largely innocent and extraordinarily naive, or almost delusional. To be guilty and act the way he has is really strange. It has always seemed to me in order to be a decades long pedophile in a high visibilty position you would need to be pretty damn crafty and deceitful. JS seems none of them.
Without rehashing too much if you line up most of the dots
. porn on computer - nope.
. use of alcohol or drugs in seduction -nope
. crafty sneaky perp. - doesn't seem so
. only 1 contemporaneous.report -MM
. the witness with different stories and lot's of "baggage"
. all other vics relying on repressed memory
. Completely corrupt judicial system - yep
I lean rather heavily on innocence. For the longest time I din't really care about JS and just figured he must be guilty. My concern was for the railroading of Joe, Tim, Gary and Graham. Not so sure about Jerry anymore. One quick question for those in the know. Does anyone know if the scandals at UM, tOSU and Michigan State, was repressed memory technique been used often? [that is not rhetorical, I don't know]
I think it is night and day.
Can you provide any specific credible evidence that any crimes were committed in this case?
Can you provide me with any credible specific evidence of a man hugging a child naked in the shower without there being sexual intent?
As I’ve told you many times, I’m all for a retrial. But that doesn’t really have much to do with him being found guilty originally. You start with the known activities (inexcusable shower hugging) and follow that up with the witness statements of abuse with seemingly very little pushback from Sandusky and his lawyers and it’s easy to see why he was convicted, as I said.
I agree with you on point 1.
I don't think that JS is very crafty or deceitful nor do I think he is delusional. However, I do think he was naive in not taking the charges against him seriously, thinking he would be easily exonerated and not hiring competent lawyers that would be able to effectively defend him.
I have not heard of RMT being used in the UM, tOSU or the Michigan State cases. I don't believe it was a factor in the Nasser/MSU trial.
We have given you credible reasons and you have dismissed them because you cannot view this issue without bias. I think that is an issue for a lot of people.
It is very difficult for people who are victims of abuse or know people who are victims of abuse (or I would also postulate many people with children) to see this case dispassionately. If you use only logic and critical thinking, it is really clear that what most people believe to be true just frankly is not.
It’s not bias, it’s experience. Use logic and critical thinking for the known shower hugging. Do that. It’s illogical to think it’s for innocent purposes. Possible? Sure, anything is possible. Logical? Nope.
Strongly disagree with your logic as I've said many times before.
In the absence of context, you might be correct, but when you add the relevant context surrounding these allegations, it becomes clear that it is completely logical that this was innocent.
I asked this earlier in the thread and didn't get a response from you (I don't think):
Given that Jerry has denied all wrong doing, why did he admit to showering and horseplay? The only way that makes any sense is that it was not sexual in nature. If he is a pedophile and had denied everything else, he would have denied that too. There is no logical reason to deny everything else and admit to that, unless the shower incident was, in fact, innocent.
I’m sure I answered you and told you it was because he was caught. He didn’t come out and say, “Hey everybody, I’m Jerry Sandusky and I love hugging boys while I shower alone with them! Just like every other man!” He was investigated for it by the police and had no out so he admitted to it. He admitted to the McQueary shower incident as well because he was witnessed doing so that time.
So, you can't provide any specific credible evidence that crimes were committed in this case. I didn't think you could.
I don't want to go another round regarding the v6 shower incident. It has been discussed to death. That incident was thoroughly investigated by police, the Centre County DA, and CYS with no charges filed and CSA accusations being unfounded. The files should have been expunged. Sandusky and v6 maintained a friendly non-sexual relationship for the next ~13 years.
I do understand why Sandusky was convicted. The OAG committed serial acts of prosecutorial misconduct and Sandusky's lawyers were totally ineffective. What I don't understand is why people now can't look at the case dispassionately given what is evident today. In the 10 years since Sandusky was convicted we now have Mark Pendergrast's book "The Most Hated Man in America", John Snedden's federal investigation renewing Spanier's top-level security clearances, John Zigler's epic documentary WTBOH podcast and Fred Crews's comprehensive essay that all contain compelling evidence that Sandusky was wrongly convicted.
This is extremely flawed logic.
Using this logic he was caught/convicted of 40+ crimes, he must have admitted to all of those post-hoc then, correct? He has not admitted to any of them.
How to your reconcile that with him admitting to showering/horseplay?
He was convicted in that incident on 3 counts I think, in a trial by 12 of his peers. You left that part out.
I reconcile that by saying he can justify admitting to doing things he has no way to avoid admitting to by saying he did things that were not illegal. I mean, I get that you think he is innocent. But you don’t really think what I am saying is illogical, do you? You may not agree with it but it’s not illogical.
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So the evidence of his guilt is the fact that he was convicted?
That’s not what I said. Franco was pointing out that he was investigated and not charged in the first shower incident. But he was later was charged and convicted for 3 (I think; I don’t keep a memory of this stuff but I think I looked it up a couple months ago) counts in that incident so it’s not fully accurate to say he wasn’t charged. He was, just not at that moment. Similar to Jeffrey Dahmer having been investigated once for having a naked man (teenage boy maybe?) running away from him on the street and not being charged for anything after Dahmer explained it away.
Listen
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.
"Once you realize this is true, you must then also conclude that the entire basis of Ganim's article from March of that year revealing the existence of the grand jury was illegal AG leaks intended to jumpstart a case that was extremely weak because they had no credible accusers."
Related: Ziegler responds to those who want to get him fired.
Blehar: Is Frank Fina facing a perjury rap?
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.
"Once you realize this is true, you must then also conclude that the entire basis of Ganim's article from March of that year revealing the existence of the grand jury was illegal AG leaks intended to jumpstart a case that was extremely weak because they had no credible accusers."
Related: Ziegler responds to those who want to get him fired.
Blehar: Is Frank Fina facing a perjury rap?
To be clear my crafty or delusional comments applied to him if he were guilty. How could he pull off what he did for as long as he did without being pretty crafty. If he were guilty how could he have acted post arrest if he weren't delusional. I have heard it said even at they jury guilty verdict he was shocked.I have not heard one person who attended the trial come away except thinking he was guilty. [not that he was but the way the testimony went it sounded like it] so we are left with innocent and extremely naive.
Regarding RMT. You make my point. Lot's of testimony and if every case the witnesses seemed to remember just fine. without "coaching".
What evidence is there then of his guilt in the first shower incident? Did the victim testify to being abused?
That incident was looked into twice. They obviously got it right once and wrong once. So who got it right and why? The properly trained authorities who did a timely investigation, or a jury a decade+ later in a trial with many known issues?
You’re asking my opinion? The jury. A grown man showering alone with a boy (after only working out for a few minutes) and hugging him in the shower is guilty. Here are the charges he was tried for:
Count 28: Indecent assault
Verdict: Not guilty.
Count 29: Unlawful contact with minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 30: Corruption of minors
Verdict: Guilty.
Count 31: Endangering welfare of children
Verdict: Guilty.
Did they get that right in my opinion? Yep.
It is very twisted logic, but you are entitled to your opinion.
I do not believe your explanation answers that discrepancy (why admit to one thing, but nothing else).
If you've been paying attention at all, you'd have to acknowledge how messed up the trial was. So citing the trial results as "proof" of anything doesn't get you very far.
I'll ask again, what evidence or testimony supports each verdict specifically?
I will assume you agree that the trial had issues, since you didn't address that in my previous post, and it's painfully obvious to everyone regardless of their opinion on his guilt or innocence. Knowing that, and knowing that there were issues with a poisoned jury pool due to a false GJ presentment, and knowing that at least one specific juror should have not been on the jury due to a conflict of interest... that doesn't impact your opinion? So then you believe that trained professionals, who investigated this matter in a timely fashion, made a huge mistake and let a monster continue to prey on other victims?
I’m not sure how you don’t understand that logic. You left a double pack of cupcakes on the counter. You walk in the kitchen and there is your son with chocolate on his face and a half eaten cupcake in his hand and no sign of the other one. You ask him if he ate your cupcakes and he says, “Well, I ate this one but I didn’t eat the one that is missing.” Did he eat the other one? Of course, but you can’t prove it and he’s not going to admit to it because he knows there is no way for you to prove he ate it.
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Amazing that you don’t really pay attention to me after all this back and forth. How many times have I said that I’m all for a retrial? Was the trial messed up? I’m not a lawyer so my opinion is just a random dude’s opinion and I don’t really have other sexual abuse trials to compare it to but it seemed to be skewed towards the prosecution, yes. I’ve never said otherwise. On the other hand, to say Sandusky was investigated and not charged for the first shower incident is a half-truth. He was not charged at the time. He was later charged and convicted on three counts from that incident. When that part is left out it seem disingenuous to me.
No, that doesn’t change my opinion. Grown men do not create situations where they can shower alone with boys and hug them in the shower for no reason. Do I believe the trained professionals made a huge mistake? Yep, happens often. I noted the Jeffrey Dahmer incident earlier. Police called it a domestic spat and let Dahmer take the boy back to the apartment where he then killed the boy later that day.
I answered about the trial above this post. I’ve never been against a retrial.
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The thing that sticks out to me is that Eshbach lied about what McQueary said in the Grand Jury Presentment. It's documented in emails.
"I know that a lot of this stuff is incorrect and it is hard not to respond," Eshbach emailed McQueary. "But you can't."
I don't know what legally constitutes prosecutorial misconduct but if that isn't it I don't know what is.
A key question hanging over this is whether Jerry was really "investigated" in 1998. If he was...if the investigation was kosher...then that certainly paints subsequent events in a certain light, including for Jerry. It wouldn't prove his innocence but it would provide him some support.
But it is not at all clear that that investigation was "kosher". Far from it. And if it was manipulated or rigged from the start then that also paints all subsequent actions in a very different light...and doesn't bode well for Jerry at all.
But it is not at all clear that that investigation was "kosher". Far from it. And if it was manipulated or rigged from the start then that also paints all subsequent actions in a very different light...and doesn't bode well for Jerry at all.
Simple.
During jury selection on June 6, 2012, the juror in question, identified in the motion for a new trial as "Juror 0990," was asked by Joseph Amendola, Sandusky's trial lawyer, what she told Freeh's investigators. In an April 19, 2011 summary of that interview, the juror is identified by Freeh's investigators as Laura Pauley, a professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State, who could not be reached for comment.
"It was focused more on how the board of trustees interacts with the president," Pauley told Amendola, as well as "how faculty are interacting with the president and the board of trustees . . ."
In a summary of Pauley's interview, however, Sandusky's lawyers say, "it is apparent that the interview . . . included something more than how the Penn State faculty interacted with the president and the board of trustees."
In her interview with Freeh's investigators, Pauley stated that she was "an avid reader of the Centre Daily Times" and that she believed that the leadership at Penn State just "kicks the issue down the road."
"The PSU culture can best be described as people who do not want to resolve issues and want to avoid confrontation," she told Freeh's investigators, according to their summary of the interview.
Pauley, a tenured professor who served on the Faculty Advisory Committee for three years, had other opinions about the leadership at PSU that she supposedly shared with Freeh's investigators. She said that Penn State President Graham Spanier was "very controlling," and that "she feels that [former Penn State Athletic Director Tim] Curley and [former Penn State vice president Gary] Schultz are responsible for the scandal."
"She stated that she senses Curley and Schultz treated it [the scandal] the 'Penn State' way and were just moving on and hoping it would fade away."
It's the contention of Sandusky's appeal lawyers that Freeh's investigators were working in tandem with prosecutors and investigators from the state attorney general's office, and that this collaboration, which included the sharing of grand jury secrets and transcripts, tainted both investigations.
While Pauley was being questioned by Amendola, Sandusky's appeal lawyers wrote, "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."
Yep, at the prosecution table, then Deputy Attorney Frank Fina sat silently while Amendola was questioning Pauley about what she told Freeh's investigators, even though he probably knew about the interview, and may have even seen a copy of it.
That's why Sandusky's lawyers are asking the state Superior Court to hold an evidentiary hearing where Fina and Freeh can be deposed about their collaboration.
In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's lawyers state describe the hardball tactics employed by Freeh's investigators as detailed in a seven-page June 29, 2018 report from seven 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!"
"Presumably," Sandusky's lawyers wrote, as a Penn State employee, "Juror number 0990 was subject to this type of coercion."
But John Snedden, a former NCIS special agent, said after reviewing the summary of Pauley's interview with Freeh's investigators, that he believed it was Pauley who contacted Freeh.
According to Snedden, Pauley struck him as a "extremely disgruntled employee who was trying to pursue her own specific agenda."
Why does Snedden think it was Pauley who reached out to Freeh's investigators, rather than them reaching out to her?
As a professor of mechanical engineering, she was "not material to the investigation in any way," Snedden said. The school of mechanical engineering is "about as far away from the Lasch Building as you could possibly be," Snedden said, referring to the offices and training facility of the Penn State football team. Also, the summary doesn't indicate that the investigators in any way had sought out Pauley, Snedden said.
In the summary of her interview, Pauley states that her husband, who also taught in the engineering department, didn't receive tenure, and that she thought that the tenure process "was very political."
She also states that when she was director of undergraduate engineering studies, an employee that she reported for mishandling personal information on students began spreading rumors about her allegedly committing some kind of misconduct. She subsequently was removed as director of undergraduate engineering studies and received an annual appraisal that was "not as strong as usual."
She inquired about why she had been removed as director but was told the process was confidential. When the new director was announced, Pauley was never acknowledged or thanked for her seven years of service. "Many of her peers in the department confided in her that they felt she was not treated fairly throughout the process," Freeh's investigators wrote.
"She's trying to air her grievances in front of somebody whom she thinks can do something about it," Snedden said.
Imho, the 1998 investigation was 100% kosher. Please detail any irregularities that you are aware of. If there was any manipulation or rigging, there certainly would have been a big deal made of it.
Nah. Myers, Myers.
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."
The DA and ADA never met with Victim 6 or his mother. That's pretty much a clincher right there. If it was a gray-area kind of case they would have spoken to the victim to assess the strength of the case and the accuser firsthand. In other child abuse cases Gricar always met with the victims.
That's a major red flag.
I don't know if Ray Gricar spoke with v6 or his mother or with Sandusky for that matter, but I don't believe it is a red flag because police/CYS investigators certainly spoke with all 3 as documented in their reports and I believe their reports were shared with Gricar. Their interviews with v6 and Sandusky were their basis for their conclusion that CSA did not occur leading to Gricar not charging Sandusky with any criminal conduct and CYS finding CSA as unfounded. In my opinion, there has been nothing that has come to light since the 1998 investigation with respect to the v6 incident that raises any issues regarding that conclusion.
I wouldn't hazard a guess on the initial investigation however, anyone who would agree that a second investigation 11-13 years after the incident was more thorough should be in a strait jacket. The alleged victim, mother and even sister remained in contact with Sandusky. With big money being waived under his nose, what did he claim. Gee, in hindsight, I think Jerry was grooming me?
While Eshbauh's email doesn't fall under "fruit from a poisonous tree," it is certainly proof that one of the author's of the GJP new it was false.
Is Sandusky innocent? I don't know. But that alone should have everyone screaming for a new trial.
The SP perjuring themselves on tape
The excited utterance and permitting hearsay testimony.....in a totally false crying janitor fable.....come on....
Convicted of anything in the Lasch Shower with no victim...........LOL
While Eshbauh's email doesn't fall under "fruit from a poisonous tree," it is certainly proof that one of the author's of the GJP new it was false.
Is Sandusky innocent? I don't know. But that alone should have everyone screaming for a new trial.
The SP perjuring themselves on tape
The excited utterance and permitting hearsay testimony.....in a totally false crying janitor fable.....come on....
Convicted of anything in the Lasch Shower with no victim...........LOL
They met, just not well known.
Zachary Konstas (“Victim 6”) never actually claimed that Sandusky abused him, although under the influence of the investigation and trial, he came to believe that Sandusky had “groomed” him for abuse in a 1998 shower. The day after the shower, Konstas emphatically denied that any abuse had taken place. Over the subsequent years, Konstas expressed his admiration and gratitude to Jerry Sandusky for his role in his life through notes and greeting cards. In 2009, as a twenty-three-year-old, Konstas wrote: “Hey Jerry just want 2 wish u a Happy Fathers Day! Greater things are yet 2 come!” Later that year he wrote: “Happy Thanksgiving bro! I’m glad God has placed U in my life. Ur an awesome friend! Love ya!”
But Zachary Konstas’s perceptions were altered drastically between the fall of 2010 and June 2012. As Allan Myers did, Konstas got a lawyer. Although he never accused Sandusky of sexually abusing him, but he made it sound as though the coach had wanted to, that Sandusky had been “grooming” him for abuse. He also implied that perhaps Sandusky had abused him, but that he, Konstas, had forgotten it. Konstas may have come to believe that he had “repressed” the memories. He had asked his friend, Dustin Struble (“Victim 7”) “if [he] remembered anything more, if counseling was helping,” and Konstas himself was clearly undergoing psychotherapy. At Sandusky’s sentencing hearing, he said, “I have been left with deep, painful wounds that you caused and had been buried in the garden of my heart for many years.”
Konstas’s attorney, Howard Janet, explained in an interview how Konstas and the other alleged victims could “create a bit of a Chinese wall in their minds. They bury these events that were so painful to them deep in their subconscious.”
Zachary Konstas may not have recovered specific memories of abuse, but his reinterpretation of his past, along with implications that he may have repressed the memories, were enough for the jury to find Sandusky guilty of planning to abuse him.
Dustin Struble (“Victim 7”) admitted to me that he was in repressed memory, and his trial testimony makes that obvious as well. He had no abuse memories until the police contacted him, and he considered Sandusky a friend and mentor until then. State Trooper Joseph Leiter interviewed Struble for the first time on February 3, 2011. By that time Struble had been thinking about the way Sandusky used to put his hand on his knee while driving, and now he thought he remembered Sandusky moving his hand slowly up towards his crotch sometimes. And other times, he thought Sandusky may have been trying to slide his hand down his back under his underwear waistband. Yes, he had taken showers with Sandusky, but nothing sexual had taken place there. He’d given him bear hugs at times, but not in the shower. They had wrestled around, but Sandusky had never touched him inappropriately.
At the end of the interview, Leiter was excited that Struble was open to the idea that Sandusky might have abused him, but that wasn’t enough. In ending the interview he “advised Struble that as he recalls events to please contact me and we can set up another interview. Also, if he begins having difficulties with his memories to contact me so that assistance can be found.” Struble entered psychotherapy less than three weeks later.
By the time of the trial, Struble had changed his story, asserting that Sandusky gave him bear hugs, washed his hair in the shower, and then dried him off. He said that Sandusky had put his hand down his pants and touched his penis in the car, that Sandusky had grabbed him in the shower and pushed the front of his body up against the back of Dustin’s body. On the stand, he explained: “That doorway that I had closed has since been re-opening more. More things have been coming back…. Through counseling and different things, I can remember a lot more detail that I had pushed aside than I did at that point.” Struble went on to explain more about how his repressed memories had returned in therapy. He further explained: “The more negative things, I had sort of pushed into the back of my mind, sort of like closing a door, closing—putting stuff in the attic and closing the door to it. That’s what I feel like I did.”
In 2014, I interviewed Struble in his home in State College, PA. In a follow-up email, he wrote: “Actually both of my therapists have suggested that I have repressed memories, and that’s why we have been working on looking back on my life for triggers. My therapist has suggested that I may still have more repressed memories that have yet to be revealed, and this could be a big cause of the depression that I still carry today. We are still currently working on that.”
Phantom Victim (“Victim 8”) is the product of double hearsay testimony that should never have been allowed at the trial. A janitor named Ron Petrosky said that another janitor, Jim Calhoun, had told him in the fall of 2000 that he saw Sandusky giving oral sex to a young boy in a Penn State locker room shower. By the time of the June 2012 trial, Calhoun had Alzheimer’s and could not testify, but the judge allowed Petrosky to do so. Sandusky was found guilty of molesting this unidentified boy.
But in a taped interview on May 15, 2011, Jim Calhoun had told the police that Sandusky was not the man he saw giving oral sex to a young man in the shower. The defense apparently had not listened to the tape and never entered it into evidence in the trial.
Sabastian Paden (“Victim 9”) came forward after the explosive Grand Jury Presentment became public on November 4, 2011, and the Office of the Attorney General publicized a hotline for prospective Sandusky victims. At that point, it was clear to civil lawyers and alleged victims that there was a possible financial windfall to be had.
Paden’s changed attitude towards Sandusky occurred incredibly quickly, after his mother called his school to ask them to contact the police. When the police appeared at his door, Paden denied having been abused. Sometime in October 2011, the high school senior was seated in Beaver Stadium beside Sandusky, enjoying a Penn State football game with a friend. Less than a month later, however, Paden rocked the grand jury with accounts of his former life as a virtual captive in the Sandusky basement, where he claimed to have screamed for help, to no avail, even though the basement was not soundproofed and there was no way to lock him down there. Paden said that he was forced to perform oral sex on numerous occasions, and that Sandusky attempted anal intercourse over sixteen times, with actual penetration at times.
It is unlikely that repressed memory therapy was involved in encouraging Sabastian Paden’s memories, at least at the outset, since his grotesque allegations arose within just a few days of his mother’s initial phone call. It is instead likely that he was either telling the truth or that he was consciously lying, at the urging of his mother and in search of remuneration and sympathetic attention.
Ryan Rittmeyer (“Victim 10”) also responded to the Sandusky hotline after the case exploded in the media. He had been incarcerated twice—for burglary in 2004, at age seventeen, and in September 2007, when he was twenty, for burglary and assault. He and a teenager assaulted an elderly man on the street, punching him in the face and leaving him with permanent injuries. Rittmeyer was sentenced to twenty-one months in prison and was released in 2009. At the time of the trial, he was married, with a pregnant wife. After he called the hotline, Rittmeyer was represented by lawyer Andrew Shubin.
At his first police interview with officer Michael Cranga on November 29, 2011, Rittmeyer said that Jerry Sandusky had groped him in a swimming pool. Then, while driving a silver convertible, Sandusky had allegedly opened his pants to expose his penis and told Rittmeyer to put it in his mouth. When he refused, Sandusky became angry and told him that if didn’t do it, Rittmeyer would never see his family again. “His life went downhill” subsequently, Cranga wrote in his report, which Rittmeyer apparently blamed on this traumatic event.
During his grand jury testimony on December 5, 2011, Rittmeyer changed and amplified his story. Now he said that something sexual occurred almost every time he saw Sandusky throughout 1997, 1998, and part of 1999, once or twice a month. Finally, Rittmeyer said that he eventually complied and gave Sandusky oral sex, and vice versa.
Jerry Sandusky never owned any kind of convertible, nor was it likely that he borrowed or rented one, which would have been quite out of character for him. The Ryan Rittmeyer testimony, filled with inconsistencies as well as a mythical silver convertible, appears even more questionable because the Sanduskys said that they couldn’t even remember him, whereas they readily admitted knowing the other Second Mile accusers. He may have been one of the Second Mile kids who came to their home, but Dottie Sandusky didn’t know his name, and Jerry Sandusky said that if he met him on the street, he would not recognize him.
There was apparently no repressed memory therapy necessary in Rittmeyer’s case, though it is likely that Shubin sent him for subsequent counseling.
Matt Sandusky didn’t testify at trial, so he never received a victim number. The last of the six children to be adopted by Dottie and Jerry Sandusky, at the age of 18, Matt had supported his accused parent during the investigation. In 2011 he had testified in front of the grand jury that his adoptive father had never abused him. But in the middle of the June 2012 trial, apparently after entering psychotherapy, he “flipped,” going to the police to say that Jerry Sandusky had abused him.
Matt told the police that he was working with a therapist and that “memories of his abuse are just now coming back,” according to the NBC announcer who played portions of the leaked interview tape. When the police asked whether Sandusky had sodomized him or forced him into oral sex, Matt answered: “As of this time, I don’t recall that.”
But by the time Matt appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s television show in 2014, he had remembered oral sex. He made it clear to Winfrey that he had not recalled sexual abuse until he was in repressed memory therapy, but this apparently did not make her skeptical in the least. “So based upon what you’re telling me,” Winfrey said to him, “you actually repressed a lot of it.” And Matt replied, “Uh-huh, absolutely. The physical part is the part that, you know, you can erase.”
When she asked him about first coming forward to talk to the police during the trial, he said, “It was a confusing time.” It wasn’t as if he heard Brett Houtz and all his own abuse memories came rushing back. “My child self had protected my adult self,” he explained. “My child self was holding onto what had happened to me—and taken that from me—so I, I didn’t have the memory of—I didn’t have these memories of the sexual abuse—or with him doing all of the things that he did.”
As he listened to the testimony of Brett Houtz and other alleged victims, he felt somehow that “they were telling my story,” but he apparently didn’t remember abuse right away. “They were telling—you know, all of these things start coming back to you, yes, [and] it starts to become very confusing for me and you try and figure out what is real and what you’re making up.”
In summary, then, repressed memories were key to many of the Sandusky accusations, including the first case which was also the only case for the first two years of the investigation. Then, when Mike McQueary’s memory of the 2001 shower morphed into actually seeing abuse, the police began a frantic search for more alleged victims, who were “developed,” as prosecutor Jonelle Eshbach put it, through suggestive, leading interview tactics and civil lawyer and therapist involvement. The jurors did not have the information they needed to evaluate the spoken testimony in its proper context. If they had known how the testimony was nurtured and created, their opinions about the authenticity of the event might have been altered.
Instead, as we know, they found Sandusky guilty. After the verdict, Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly held a triumphant press conference outside the courthouse, during which she referred directly to the importance of repressed memories in the Sandusky case: “It was incredibly difficult for some of them to unearth long-buried memories of the shocking abuse they suffered at the hands of this defendant.”
Gricar made the final call. Regardless of what information he was getting from other sources it's unprecedented that he didn't meet with the victim at some point. Even with a weak case you meet with the victim before making a final decision.
Schreffler interviewed V6 and felt that CSA occurred.
Lauro did not interview V6 and also did not have access to Seasock or Chambers reports.
Miller for CYS interviewed V6 and V6 claimed later in a civil suit that Miller's interview was more traumatizing than his experience with Sandusky. Two independent CSA experts have looked at his interview and agree it appears Miller was trying to force V6 to recant.
None of this suggests an honest investigation.
And ultimately it was Gricar's call and he didn't prosecute. But it wasnt the first time he let an alleged pedophile off the hook in Centre County in spite of strong evidence so there is definitely precedent in his past history for this.
