Well, one of the Penn State guys told the grand jury that one of the few things they did do in 2002 was to report what had happened to Second Mile. So there is the question of what Second Mile did with that information (assuming the Penn State folks weren't lying about that.)Originally Posted by Tim James
I wonder if any of the parents were paid off by the university at some point? I'm thinking especially of the 1998 investigation that likely resulted in Sandusky getting the sack. The mother knew what he had done. Maybe she settled with Sandusky and Second Mile and the university. Maybe she told the DA she wasn't going to press charges and didn't want her boy to testify and that's why the case got dropped.
Do mean bribed or settled? The bribe would be illegal, while an out of court settlement is a way for two parties to redress grievances without involving the courts and is part and parcel of the American legal system.
I think it may have more to do with the weakness of the case. They had Sandusky dead to rights on showering with the 1998 victim, but while highly inappropriate that is not necessarily sexual assault (sort of how changing a diaper is not a crime). While I am no in the business of weighing judges and juries responses to evidence, I suspect a pattern of abuse would have been needed to secure a conviction. However, most of the victims listed in the 2011 findings were from 1994-1998. A more thorough investigation might high revealed their existence then and there.
PS) The Prosecutor in '98 did not need the mother's permission to press charges, or even consent to call either to the testify.
I have looked just about everywhere to see if I could find how the Grand Jury prosecutors knew to call McQuery.
As far as we know he only told JoePa, who told Curley and Schultz, who are now fired and under arrest for telling nobody.
To me it seems possible that McQuery himself got in contact with the Prosecutors/police.
Does anyone know how McQuery came to the Grand Jury?
The victim could have seen and identified him. I don't know though. philly.com, the local online newspaper states that the police were not called, and I believe that statement is within the grand jury indictment. I haven't read the indictment and have no plans to, as it would upset me for days, and I'm already pretty unhappy about this.
Victim 2 had not been identified when the findings were released. As far as I know, he still hasn't been identified, but it would not surprise if me several people have come forward claiming to be this person. One of them might actually be Victim 2, though this would probably be a tough thing to corroborate.
Why do you think someone would claim to be a victim when they weren't? It's likely that people saw Sandusky with this victim, so pretending to be a victim when it's fairly easy to to prove your not would be pretty silly.
I just read an article today (can't find it now) that actually makes this sound like a pretty shaky case against the PSU bigwigs. They don't have Victim 2, it's unclear whether the officials were in a position that specifically required reporting to police, and apparently the statute of limitations already passed??
Hopefully the case against Sandusky is better, if the DA hasn't already thrown a bomb in that one.
There is no statue of limitations for the actual crime. That's been stated many times on ESPN.com, SI.com, and LAtimes.com. I doubt (don't know; could ask Rywill) if there's a statue of limitations on perjury which is what the higher ups are accused of.
The higher ups were arrested for covering up a crime and lying to the grand jury. One re-retired, and the other is on admin leave.
I don't know how the perjury case could be on shaky ground unless the entire thing is on shaky ground. Yes, they know the janitor has dementia and cannot testify, yet ESPN says the Grand Jury says they have other witnesses that have yet to be identified.
Regarding the coverup, this article at philly.com says this:
(my bolding)That the university had a duty to report the incident to police seems little in doubt. Most legal analysts say that under the state's duty-to-report law, under which teachers, school administrators and others have an obligation to report evidence of sexual abuse, information about the alleged attack should have gone "like a rocket" to Spanier's office and from there to the police.
So I don't see where the case is shaky, unless of course Sandusky is somehow found innocent of the charges.
I'm talking about credible claims to be a victim. Sure anyone can stand up and say he's a victim but that's not credible unless he can produce witnesses. Geez.
The sources I found when looking up statute of limitations info earlier said that Pennsylvania has a 12 year statute for most serious crimes with a handful of exceptions for murder, rape and similar offences.
Edit: Here is the relevant statute.
Tl;dr it's 5 years for perjury or obstruction of justice.
Last edited by IainC; 11-14-2011 at 04:05 PM.
Thanks you all for clearly making the case that JoePa knew about Sandusky long before 2002. That's why Zepo1a is so completely full of shit about "maybe JoePa thought McQueary was lying." JoePa knew Sandusky's history and a new complaint about him should have triggered huge fucking red flags and air raid sirens.
And yes, everyone involved is culpable and the whole football program will be a smoking hole in the ground before this is over, and rightly so. Zepo1a is going to have to watch the whole thing. Unfortunately he will probably harbor a seething resentment of the Obama libruls who Just Didn't Understand, and he'll wind up joining a militia group and bombing the White House.
I'll ask Rywill. He's a DA, he'll know.
Not true, at least under Canadian law, and I expect the same is true in most of the US. There is no formal need for independent corroboration in any crime, and that includes sexual assault.
I'm being cynical and believing that the only reason one would want to claim himself/herself as a victim would be to profit from the civil suit, where the victim indeed would have to prove that he or she was a victim. Wasn't referring to the criminal case, although again, I would like to hear Rywill's views on that.
A victim can prove they were a victimized simply by testifying to that effect. No other evidence would be needed in a formal sense. It would be basically he said/he said, and the court would decide on the basis of credibility. So again, there is no need for corroborating proof.
It might be silly, but people will still do it. Police routinely have to deal with false confessions for local crimes. The motivations are anything from mental illness, desire for attention, con men looking to get in on a settlement, or anything else. I am not saying the DA will put forth anyone whose identify couldn't otherwise be confirmed, but I would be genuinely surprised if the police aren't shifting through multiple claims to see which are verifiable.
I wonder if Sandusky had to sign the kids out, or in, anywhere from when he picked them up to when he returned them?
At the very least they could start with a list of all kids connected to the charity in 2002, filter for age and sex, then compare to the witness description. This assumes there is such a list, even a partial one, and the victim was from that charity.
On "Rock Center" tonight, NBC's new newsmagazine at 10 E/P, Sandusky (via phone interview) claims he is not a pedophile and is innocent of all charges.
Former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky admitted to showering and horsing around with young boys but said he is not a pedophile in an exclusive interview with Bob Costas for NBC News' Rock Center airing tonight at 10 pm/9 CT.
"I say that I am innocent of those charges," said Sandusky in a phone interview with Costas.
When asked by Costas, "Are you a pedophile," Sandusky responded "No."
Joe Paterno’s one time defensive coordinator was charged earlier this month with 40 counts of sexually abusing eight boys. He is currently free on a $100,000 bond and has denied any wrongdoing. The allegations date back to 1994, according to a grand jury report. A grand jury report detailed claims of alleged sexual encounters with young boys in Sandusky's home, hotels and Penn State locker rooms.
"I could say that I have done some of those things. I have horsed around with kids I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their legs without intent of sexual contact," said Sandusky.
When pressed by Costas about what Sandusky was willing to concede that he'd done was wrong, Sandusky said, "I shouldn't have showered with those kids."
The scandal has tarnished the reputation of the once heralded football program, leading to the departure of coaching legend Paterno and three other university officials. It’s also left students and residents of State College, Penn., shocked.
The sight of the 67-year-old Sandusky in handcuffs is hard to reconcile with his public image of a devoted father of six adopted kids who founded a charity to help at risk youth. That charity, The Second Mile, has also come under fire.
All of the alleged sex abuse victims met Sandusky through their participation in The Second Mile. Sandusky founded the charity in 1977 as a group foster home for troubled boys. It spawned into a non-profit organization that has raised millions of dollars to help young boys and girls. Today, Chief Executive Officer Jack Raykovitz’s resignation was announced by the non-profit organization’s board of directors. Grand jury testimony alleges that Raykovitz was aware of at least one of the allegations against Sandusky.
In an NBC News interview from 1987, Sandusky joked that he started The Second Mile because he was a “frustrated playground director.”
“I enjoy being around children. I enjoy their enthusiasm. I just have a good time with them,” Sandusky said.
Sandusky gave up his day to day duties at the organization in 2010. By that time, at least two people had allegedly witnessed Sandusky sexually abusing two different boys in showers on Penn State’s campus, according to a grand jury report.
While Sandusky retired as a coach at Pennsylvania State University in 1999, he continued to have access to Penn State’s facilities. In 2002, he was banned from bringing minors to campus athletic facilities after then graduate student Mike McQueary allegedly witnessed Sandusky molesting a boy, according to the grand jury report. The incident was never reported to police or investigated by university police. Sandusky allegedly violated the order not to bring minors to campus by bringing at least one victim to the campus after 2002, according to the grand jury report.
The alleged victims testified that they were abused in hotel rooms, Sandusky’s own home and on Penn State’s campus. Some victims testified that Sandusky would visit them frequently at their schools when they didn’t return his phone calls, according to the grand jury report.
The irony, of course, is that many pedophiles really do love children, in the healthy sense. It's just that they've also sexualized that love in an unhealthy sense, and compartmentalized the wrongness of doing so. In the process, they turn the healthy love into a tool for the unhealthy sex, which in turn corrupts the love in ways they will never admit, even to themselves.
It wouldn't surprise me if Second Mile really did help a lot of the kids who passed through it... at least, the ones whom Sandusky didn't personally target for grooming and sex. But the good done by the organization should not outweigh the fact that Sandusky used it as a recruitment department for his own lust, thereby making the organization too toxic to exist.
Seems to be a lot of victims for him to be telling the truth. The Los Angeles Times says that if he is convicted on all counts with maximum sentences he would go to jail for 460 years.
One of the real tragedies of this thing is that Second Mile is apparently one of the biggest charities in Pennsylvania. It's not some fly by night deal that helps 10 kids a year. They apparently have multiple chapters and have provided help to many, many kids and have raised millions of dollars for operating expenses and most of their employees/volunteers probably have nothing but the best of intentions and think they're contributing to a wonderful organization. And all that is going to come to an end, nearly overnight.
I actually have no idea. I've been only vaguely following the story but my understanding is that all the conduct (including any potential perjury) took place in Pennsylvania, and I don't know what their statute of limitations is on perjury. Seems that IainC has found it and it's 5 years, which seems reasonable. The California statute is three years IIRC. In CA, there are exceptions to the normal limitations period for certain crimes if they are reported late or covered up by the defendant's own actions, but perjury is not one of those crimes as far as I know (child molestation, however, is).
If the claim, though, is that someone committed perjury before the grand jury, I assume that testimony was more recent than five years, so it wouldn't matter.
Like Greatatlantic said, in a big media case people will do it, for the reasons he said, or just because they're crazy. The police (at least here in LA) spend a lot of time sifting through tips, claims, sometimes even confessions, on media cases.
AlexB is right that (at least in CA and I think everywhere in the US) sexual assault victims do not need to provide any corroboration as a matter of law; if they say they were assaulted and a jury believes them beyond a reasonable doubt, that's all you need.
In practical terms, a he-said she-said sexual assault without any corroboration is extremely difficult to prove. I would imagine that with a beloved celebrity defendant (which this guy is, as I understand it) it would be close to impossible, if you had just one victim. I don't work in the special-victims unit (we don't call it that, but the equivalent) so I don't do those sorts of cases myself, but I talk to those prosecutors pretty much every day and that's the strong impression I get from them. I think a lot of prosecuting agencies have official or unofficial policies that they won't even charge a he-said she-said case. Unless there's a witness, some physical evidence, or an admission, it's just too difficult to prove. (As always, I'm just speaking for myself here, not on behalf of my office or in any sort of official way.)
Apparently off-the-field trouble with Penn State players has been going on for a long time:
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:7229980
Paterno sounds like a freaking mafia don in that interview, insisting there's no such thing as a mafia.
The ESPN crawl is saying that McQueary did intervene in the shower incident he witnessed. "A source" told ESPN's Tom Rinaldi that McQueary stopped Sandusky.
Last edited by robsam; 11-14-2011 at 07:01 PM.
Thanks Rywill for clarifying what you could.
I'm surprised Sandusky agreed to be interviewed. Everything he said is admissible now. Now the jury can be told that he admitted to showering with children, that he admitted to touching them, and that he admitted he should not have showered with them.
I think the best case scenario for Sandusky at this point is to have his attorney delay the trial for as long as possible, because I think once the trial is over the guy is in prison for the rest of his life.
The best case LEGAL scenario. Pulling a Polanski probably looks pretty good to him right now. He could offer to coach the North Korean football team in exchange for asylum.
Wow. I'm pretty shocked about those numbers. Maybe I'm just naive, but I like to think that any university I've been associated with would do a major house cleaning if we had anywhere near those kinds of numbers.
Penn State Football 2007 Criminal Record
17 players charged with 72 crimes, 9 guilty pleasIs it normal for a university football team to have players charged with and found guilty of crimes? I'm just shocked that any university would put up with having a bunch of hoodlums on campus, just to have a winning record.2002-2008 Football Criminal Records
46 players charged with 163 crimes, 45 found guilty
The Penn State Football team in 2007 was responsible for more crimes than the total of all non-burglary crimes reported on our entire 15,000 person campus (I'm assuming they aren't getting charged with stealing iPods).
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