It's time to officially Pit Joe Paterno and the Penn State football program.

The BBQ Pit
5643

Re: In post 5558, I noted how Moidalize made a good attempt in retracing the sequence of reporting events, but that his summary was flawed (perhaps through no fault of his own) after reviewing the portion of the Freeh report that leaves out important information:

TIMELINE

FRIDAY:
2/9/01: Mike McQueary walks into Lasch football facility, observes Jerry Sandusky with boy in showers.
2/9/01: MM leaves boy alone with Jerry Sandusky in showers/lockers facility, walks home.
2/9/01: MM tells his father (a mandated reporter) Dr. John McQueary that he saw JS with boy in shower.
2/9/01: MM tells family friend (also a mandated reporter) Dr. Jonathan Dranov he saw JS with boy inshower. MM is asking Dr. Dranov’s professional opinion on most appropriate handling of story. Dranov asks MM 3 times if he specifically saw any sexual activity. 3 times MM denies seeing anything sexual. Mike McQueary, Dr. John McQueary and Dr. Jonathan Dranov all agree this is not a mandated reporting event (for 911 or police) and Dranov testifies that he advised Mike to report observations to his superior at work.

SATURDAY:
2/10/01: MM takes dog for a walk in the morning.
2/10/01: MM reports self-described “watered down” version to his superior Joe Paterno.

SUNDAY:
2/11/01: Joe Paterno reports incident to his superior Athletic Director Tim Curley.
2/11/01: Joe Paterno also reports incident to the head of the Penn State Police force Gary Schultz.

Note from page 118 in Freeh report: “McQueary, Paterno and Curley did report incident to Schultz who was ultimately in charge of the University Police Department.”

2/11/01: Schultz consults with outside legal counsel Wendell Cpurtney.

MONDAY:
2/12/01: Schultz’s confidential notes indicate he spoke to Curley, reviewed the history of the 1998 incident, and agreed that Curley would discuss the incident with Paterno and recommend that Curley meet with Sandusky. Schultz notes state: “Unless he confesses to having a problem, (Curley) will indicate we need to have DPW review the matter as an independent agency concerned w child welfare.”

2/25/01: Schultz’ notes outline a potential alternative plan: 1) Tell Sandusky to avoid bringing children alone into Lasch Bldg. 2) Report to Dept of Welfare. 3) Tell chair* of Board of Second Mile

2/27/01: Curley emails Spanier and Schultz: “After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday—I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps. I am having trouble with going to everyone, but the person involved. I think I would be more comfortable meeting with the person and tell him about the information we received. I would plan to tell him we are aware of the first situation. I would indicate we feel there is a problem and we want to assist the individual to get professional help. Also, we feel the responsibility at some point soon to inform his organization [at The Second Mile] and maybe the other one about the situation. If he is cooperative we would work with him to handle informing the organization. If not, we do not have a choice and will inform the two groups. Additionally, I will let him know that his guests are not permitted to use our facilities. I need some help on this one. What do you think about this approach?”

Note: Curley is electing to proceed forward with Gary Schultz’ initially proposed plan on 2/12/01. Additionally, if anyone cares to read the 26 pages of Curley’s GJP testimony, he makes it abundantly clear that the course of action they followed was his decision alone and it wasn’t influenced, guided or steered by anyone else such as Joe Paterno. Despite the evidence pointing to Paterno’s lack of influence, is it still possible that JVP encouraged Tim Curley to engage in a cover-up? Sure, anything’s possible, but I’m leaning away from that possibility. Can discuss further for those interested.

3/5/01: Curley meets with Sandusky and says “we were uncomfortable” about the incident and would report it to the Second Mile. Curley says he also told Sandusky to stop bringing children to the athletic facilities. Sandusky’s counsel later reports that no accusation of sexual abuse was made at this meeting and that Sandusky offered to provide the name of the boy to Curley.

3/19/01: Tim Curley meets Sandusky’s superior from The Second Mile, CEO Jack Raykovitz, who is double qualified as a mandated reporter by overseeing a children’s-based charity and being a licensed psychologist. Curley reports Sandusky’s inappropriate behavior to Raykovitz who has a legal obligation to immediately suspend Jerry Sandusky, inform DPW/CYS and participate in investigation of JS. Instead, Raykovitz and his wife CFO Katherine Genovese (whose combined compensation exceeds 10% of the massive charity’s total operating budget) choose to do nothing further.

5644

It’s a bit disingenuous to describe Gary Schultz as “head of the Penn State Police force”. Schultz was a Vice President. Reporting a perceived crime to him would be like reporting one to a town mayor; yes, the mayor is in charge of the police in an administrative capacity but he is not part of the police force and reporting to him is not the same as reporting a crime to the police (even to the police chief) in an legal or other reasonable sense. Let’s not pretend that the Penn State police were involved here.

Also, you seem to give a lot of credence to Curley’s grand jury testimony. This is the same testimony, mind you, that the grand jury did not find credible and which got him indicted for perjury. It needs to be taken with a very large grain of salt for the time being.

5645

Gyrate, Louis Freeh says it himself on page 118:

“McQueary, Paterno and Curley did report incident to Schultz who was ultimately in charge of the University Police Department.”

And just to be clear, are you stating your belief that JVP induced Curley to engage in a cover-up?

5646

That is exactly right. Our mayor is in charge all of the township employees. When it comes to budgeting and personnel issues. He has NO police powers. Reporting anything to him is meaningless. He is just another citizen when it comes to such issues. The police were not notified in this case. At all.

5647

Thanks for the explanation NLP. Can you provide a link to Curley’s testimony? Because, yes, I would like to discuss it further.

5648

Sure thing. Curley’s testimony begins on page 178 at the following link:
[ul]http://wearecentralpa.com/images/Multi_Media/wearecentralpa/nxd_media/dox/pdf/2011_12/3193.pdf[/ul]

5649

Well, looks like there’s no reason to single out Paterno - lots of people screwed up.

There’s no real reason to exonerate Paterno, either, though I can understand not bothering to further investigate him because he’s, y’know, dead.

5650

Which worked out as being quite fortunate for him, Curley, and Schultz. In Paterno’s grand jury testimony, he testified that McQuery told him that he witnesses more than just “horseplay”.

*"Q: Without getting into any graphic detail, what did Mr. McQueary tell you he had seen and where?

Mr. Paterno: Well, he had seen a person, an older — not an older, but a mature person who was fondling, whatever you might call it — I’m not sure what the term would be — a young boy.

Q: Did he identify who that older person was?

Mr. Paterno: Yes, a man by the name of Jerry Sandusky who had been one of our coaches, was not at the time.

Q: You’re saying that at the time this incident was reported to you, Sandusky was no longer a coach?
Mr. Paterno: No, he had retired voluntarily. I’m not sure exactly the year, but I think it was either ‘98 or ‘99.

Q: I think you used the term fondling. Is that the term that you used?

Mr. Paterno: Well, I don’t know what you would call it. **Obviously, he was doing something with the youngster.

It was a sexual nature.** I’m not sure exactly what it was.

I didn’t push Mike to describe exactly what it was because he was very upset. Obviously, I was in a little bit of a dilemma since Mr. Sandusky was not working for me anymore.

So I told — I didn’t go any further than that except I knew Mike was upset and I knew some kind of inappropriate action was being taken by Jerry Sandusky with a youngster.."*

Then, Paterno goes onto testify:

*"Q: To whom or with whom did you share the information that McQueary had given you?

Mr. Paterno: I talked to my immediate boss, our athletic director.

Q: What is that person’s name?

Mr. Paterno: Tim Curley.

Q: How did you contact Mr. Curley?

Mr. Paterno: I believe I did it by phone. As I recall, I called him and I said, hey, we got a problem, and I explained the problem to him.

Q: **Was the information that you passed along substantially the same information that Mr. McQueary had given you?

Mr. Paterno: Yes.***

With Paterno dead, it is questionable whether or not his testimony will be used to contradict Curley’s testimony and/or to go into details about what he told Curley. The upcoming perjury trial against Curley and Schultz is much weaker with Paterno not being around to testify.

5651

It’s hard to know about this.

Obviously those who have argued long and hard on one side of the argument are unlikely to change their mind about this (or anything). But there could be any number of wavering readers. And it’s hard to measure in cases like this, where people on the minority side of the argument have come in for a bit of rough treatment, and there could be any number of people who are reluctant to speak up and attract this type of attention but who might privately agree.

But that having been said, I agree in general that arguments on message boards generally don’t change many minds, relative to the effort put into them. Anyone who is posting primarily in order to change other people’s minds is making a mistake and would be better served to try to make a productive contribution elsewhere.

This is all just recreation, IMO.

I completely disagree with this, and don’t think history bears this out at all.

There are any number of major historical figures who are still the subject of very divergent viewpoints, and a lot of others who have had their reputations revised after centuries. So there’s no reason to assume that history eventually corrects itself.

More significantly, this happens to be a hot story at the moment, but JP is not a particularly significant historical figure. Even if opinion would be open to change once passions die down, it’s likely that by that time very few people will be paying attention.

I completely agree with all of this.

I was only saying that the claim was internally consistent, and could not be refuted by counter-arguing that “if so then why didn’t the defense have this witness testify at the trial”. This was in response to another poster who put forth that counter-argument. You are of course correct that claims by defense attorneys need to be viewed with some suspicion, and I’ve already expressed some skepticism about this claim in particular earlier in this thread.

Sorry if my post was unclear.

5652

Careful, guys. Keep this up and u just might make a perfectly polluted thread suddenly reasonable, respectful and productive!

5653

NLP, the next sentence on p. 118 of the Freeh report states: “However, Schultz was not a law enforcement officer and was not the person designated to receive Clery Crime reports or to collect Clery Crime statistics for the University.” The bit your are quoting doesn’t exonerate anyone; it just adds to the list of people who failed to act appropriately.

Also, do you have a citation to Dr. Dranov testifying to your description of his testimony? The sources I’ve read say that Dr. Dranov testified McQueary saw something that should have been reported, and he testified that every time he pressed McQueary for details, McQueary just went back to the sounds he heard. Descriptions of Dr. Dranov’s testimony suggest that he believed McQueary was too distraught to put the scene into words. What have you read that leads you to different conclusions?

5654

You can spare us the condescension. We were always capable of discussing the subject seriously - it’s your buddy Starving Artist who injected all the ridiculousness.

5655

Yeah, you were all serious about making ridiculous unfounded assertions about Joe Paterno and the entire Penn State administration - that they knew about and were perfectly fine with Jerry Sandusky orally and analy raping children for the last ten years because they were probably doing the same things themselves.

And you were serious in accusing me of being a throwback to the old days when child abuse was covered up and not spoken about, or of being a pedophile sympathizer, enabler, or more likely a pedophile myself - for no reason other than my suggestion that you wait until you have evidence before condemning Joe Paterno with such horrendous accusations.

And of course you were serious about your refusal to look at Mike McQueary’s description of what he saw in an effort to determine whether it really added up to anal rape or was more likely something else, maintaining that to take a close look at what he described (i.e., the evidence) was too squicky and something that only a pervert like me would do.

And of course once I was forced to come up with the paper towel tube experiment in order to force you to face the facts you were determined to ignore when I tried to suggest them in a less graphic way, you were far more serious about mocking it on its surface than you were about trying to glean how difficult and unlikely it would have been for Sandusky to have actually been raping the boy in the position Sandusky described.

And of course since the jury has acquitted Sandusky of raping the boy that night and no evidence has arisen even a year later to show that Joe Paterno knew Sandusky was raping kids either orally or anally, nor that any of Penn State’s administrative staff did either, nor that they had engaged in any sort of cover up intended to protect their football program, alumni donations or Penn State’s reputation, you remain serious about your claims he and they did just that.

So, sorry chum. The ridiculousness…and serious ridiculousness it is…is all on you and yours.

(As history - and the evidence I suggested a year ago that you wait for - has shown. :))

5656

Thanks for your concern and advice, SL, but I’m not so concerned with changing minds at this point. Jury verdicts and an utter lack of evidence to support claims I’ve been disputing for a year now have left my opponents with nothing but baseless denial as a defense, and those who remain have shown they’ll cling to that no matter what.

The thrust (if Hector will forgive the salacious word choice) of my posts now is to rub my opponents’ noses in the stink of their disproven claims and meritless accusations, for I don’t take kindly to the insults and accusations that have been hurled at me in this thread for the offense of seeking to expose the truth.

5657

And there you go again, invoking “rape” as if it was armor.

5658

You mean he cherry picked a quote that supported his point but left out the very next sentence which blew his point out of the water? Let me find my hand fan. I think I’m getting a case of the vapors.

To be fair, you were only mocked because it was the most ridiculous thing ever posted on this board. Congratulations on that by the way.

5659

Robb,

Thx for the feedback.

  1. Good question about the possible significance of the Clery Act. I honestly don’t know much about the relationship there, but I also know that if Mike McQueary had called 911 he would not be speaking to a law enforcement officer or the person designated to receive Clery Act information.

  2. Sure, I can offer you a citation for Dr. Dranov’s testimony. ABCNews:

McQueary has said he saw Sandusky sodomizing a boy who was standing with his hands against a shower wall in 2002, and that the pair turned and looked at him before he left the building.

But Dr. Jonathan Dranov, a State College, Pa., a friend and physician colleague of McQueary’s father, Dr. John McQueary remembers it differently. Dranov told the grand jury that he also sat and listened as Mike McQueary gave his father that day-after eyewitness account.

Dranov testified that McQueary said he heard “sex sounds” and the shower running, and a young boy stuck his head around the corner of the shower stall, peering at him as an adult arm reached around his waist and pulled him back out of view.

Seconds later, McQueary said, Sandusky left the shower in a towel, Dranov testified.

Dranov said he asked McQueary three times whether he saw anything sexual, and each time McQueary said no, according to the knowledgeable source.

Given that response, Dranov advised McQueary to inform head football coach Joe Paterno, rather than police, about what he witnessed.

Paterno, who was fired for not taking sufficiently decisive action about an alleged sodomy, has said the alleged assault was not graphically conveyed to him as a rape. Moreover, McQueary’s story has been a key element to all the criminal cases, and the only evidence of an assault in 2002 that grand jurors heard.

5660

Actually, the more people involved, the more understandable this becomes as bystander effect - everyone just quietly assuming that someone else will take care of it.

5661

I see where we are getting differing views about Dr. Dranov. His testimony at Sandusky’s trial doesn’t match “knowledgeable source’s” description of Dr. Dranov’s grand jury testimony:

transcript from day 7 of Sandusky trial

5662

Interesting. You might have found a discrepancy there, Robb. Let me look into that. FWIW, although not nearly as compelling, Dranov confirms that MM did not claim to witness sexual abuse, but rather anticipated it based on the 3 sounds he heard. That would still be cause for suspician of sexual abuse, which Dr. McQueary and Dr. Dranov both had mandatory reporting obligations.

In the meantime, I’ve linked a screenshot of the testimony Robb cited: http://oi48.tinypic.com/29fbl7o.jpg