Bizarre behavior, hrm…perhaps he’s going for a reversal upon appeal on the grounds that his defense was so incompetent that he couldn’t have gotten a fair trial?
The case against Sandusky has a lot behind it, but the case against PSU & the two employees is more interesting, being based very heavily on the testimony of McQueary regarding one incident. And I would think his credibility is open to challenge based on his actions in the wake of the incident (& thereafter, apparently) and his inconsistent descriptions of his own actions in recent emails. I would imagine the defense attorneys for Curley & Schultz will make much of these in court.
What could also be a game-changer would be if Amendola’s repeated claims that the 2002 victim will assert that there was no rape (or other abuse) are borne out. That could well turn out to be nothing more than defense attorney jive, (& Amendola seems to be something of a character himself, as others have noted) but if in fact someone comes forth with a convincing case that he is the (non-)victim then one would think the case against the other two will crumble, and much of the supposed “moral” case against JP likewise.
For McCreary, I suspect there is a whole shit load of shoulda-woulda-coulda’s tumbling around in his head, all mixed up with a generous helping of, “why couldn’t it have been someone else who walked in on that fuckhead?”
I’m not really excusing McCreary, for his actions were ill-conceived, but he is low man on the blame totem pole if you ask me.
Of course sleazy defense lawyers can try anything, but to anyone who’s possessed of normal intelligence, it should be fairly obvious what happened: McQueary told the truth, finally, when he was under oath. Then, after the firestorm of criticism, he made a couple of jerk-off self-justifying claims of how he had stopped the rape “but not physically” and reported it to the police (all of this in an e-mail that he probably never stopped to ponder might become public). At trial, he’ll no doubt stick closer to his GJ testimony and say his e-mail was “taken out of context” and that when he said “police” he meant “nominal head of campus police.” He’s seen the prosecutors willing to file perjury charges here, his e-mail was not sworn testimony, but what he told the GJ was. Of course he’s a self-serving creep, but we kind of already knew that from the facts . . . .
Good points. It will be interesting to see if McQueary puts himself in a position to be indicted for perjury or stands by his e-mail. I think we both are in agreement as to which way we think that this is going to go. Let’s hope he has a better lawyer than Sandusky’s.
This train wreck is very interesting for entertainment value. Unfortunately, there were victims. That’s the tragedy.
This is the movie “The Fugitive” with real human carnage.
What creeped me out was Sandusky’s latest, “No, I’m not just attracted to boys – I’m also attracted to girls – I’m attracted all children, but not sexually! I love kids!”
Dude, I think you might need to update your Amazon Wishlist.
ABC News is reporting that all eight boys who accused Sandusky before the grand jury will testify against him in preliminary proceedings next week. (They’re probably adult men by now. I don’t know.) This would seem to indicate that his lawyer was bullshitting real hard, and if this is accurate I don’t know how he can do anything other than plead guilty.
The “not sexually” comment came from his lawyer who was sitting beside him, after the Creep finished his comment.
Whoever is involved with allowing this degenerate to have complete access to PSU facilities to facilitate his abuse should be tortured first and then burned on a stake.
He might as well just try and make a deal. There’s no way this guy’s not going to be convicted.
I think you meant “and” instead of “or”. In any event, that’s a false dichotomy. What many (probably most) people in this situation do is try to reconcile their words in creative ways. This often lessens their credibility.
There were not eight accusers before the grand jury; two of the victims’ identities were unknown to the GJ.
I believe they all are with the exception of Victim 1, who triggered the investigation. (The other allegations are all older, and the one new victim to come forward after the GJ report also alleges abuse in the mid 90s.)
Another indication is that the Amendola himself seems to be backing away from his claims, and is now claiming that his witnesses are being intimidated by the media and are afraid to come forward.
I don’t see what Sandusky gains by pleading guilty (or making a plea deal with the prosecutors, as others have suggested). He is an old guy, and he will never see the light of day again under a guilty plea and under any likely plea deal. If he goes for a trial at least he has some outside shot of beating the rap (and even if he wants a plea deal he’s probably better off waiting to see if he can score some points in the trial and thus strengthen his hand, rather than folding now when things look completely black for him).
If he goes for the plea, he may get some low-security, protective custody sort of deal. Hell, he may hope to make it out with a few months and probation. Stranger things have happened in plea-bargains.
If he goes to trial and is convicted he’ll be shanked in prison before he his NAMBLA account expires.
Not in infamous high profile cases like this, and with an apparently enormous amount of evidence against the defendent.
If the prosecutors agreed to anything remotely like that they would themselves be attacked by people calling for their heads. There’s no way they would ever consider such a thing. (At least at this point. If the case began to crumble at trial they might have to cut a deal.)
I’m not sure how it works in Pennsylvania, but in Ohio those convicted of crimes against children can apply to serve their prison terms under protective custody. Prisoners in protective custody are separate from the general population, surrounded by others who have committed similar crimes plus a few snitches and ex-law-enforcement types.
How can he be convicted? How could an impartial jury be enpaneled?
Because the evidence looks overwhelming.
They’ll try the case in another county or something like that. They’ll pick jurors who aren’t following the case that closely. It’s not the first high-profile court case in history and there are procedures to deal with situations like that.
There will almost definitely be a change of venue. There’s no way they can have an unbiased trial in Centre County, and probably not in Clinton County either (Clinton County was where the allegation that set this all off came from). They’ll have to move it to Bumfuzz, PA, back in the backiest back woods of some Northern Tier county seat.
You honestly think he can be exonerated? There’s no way in hell this guy’s not going to be convicted. (And the way he’s acting now, I can’t see him not taking the stand.)
It looks like he doesn’t have a prayer. Bt he’s probably correct that Sandusky doesn’t have much incentive to plead guilty right now. He’s overwhelmingly likely to be found guilty anyway, so he has nothing to lose by going to trial. He at least has a hypothetical shot at getting a better deal.
That’s not a nice way to describe Smethport. 
I don’t think I’m following the whole plea-bargain/no-plea-bargain logic here.
From my extensive study of courts and the law (Law and Order; LA Law; Night Court; etc.) a plea-bargain is generally something agreed to in order to avoid the harsher punishment that would likely come from a conviction.
So if Sandusky had a normal lawyer who realized just how well and truly fucked this guy is, why wouldn’t he shoot for some sort of plea-bargain?