How I Came To Talk About My Abuse, NCAA Penn State Sandusky Sanctions, Paterno Statue Removed

also:
- NCAA could fine Penn State as much as $60M as part of Sandusky sanctions
- Nightly News   |  Aired on July 22, 2012 Coach Joe Paterno statue removed

How I Came To Talk About My Abuse
07/19/2012  Carissa Phelps – Attorney, Author

When Carissa Phelps was 14 years old she found herself in a last-chance rehab facility for young people, on the verge of becoming another casualty of the streets. What had started out as frequent sleepovers at friends’ houses to escape the wrath of her stepfather and her chaotic, impoverished home, grew into full-fledged running away, until her exasperated mother finally abandoned her at Fresno’s Juvenile Hall. She was 12 years old.

From this point, Carissa pinballed between the streets and various group homes or state run facilities. She experienced trauma that no child should have to endure at the hands of a brutal pimp, who made her walk the streets. But by some miracle she survived, and the child victim grew up to be a strong, successful woman, driven by her desire to pay it forward by helping kids in need.

RUNAWAY GIRL: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time (Viking, $26.95), by Carissa Phelps, co-authored with Larkin Warren, is her story. Here, she explains why she decided to tell her story, and how people misrepresent what she went through….

When we call sexual exploitation of youth something like “prostitution” we put all the blame where it does not belong. We focus on the youth, on the child, on their behavior. In the recent Sandusky hearing, the questions were not about the child’s “promiscuous” or “needy” behavior that led to their being easy targets for abuse. Today, the focus is not on what a child victim is wearing or that they may have admired or sought out the person that was abusing them. Thankfully for the Sandusky victims and for many other child sexual abuse victims we’ve gotten past that type of victim blaming when it comes to straight child sexual abuse. However, for the children and youth that are commercially sexually exploited we are still far off.

What I experienced was not prostitution. I was twelve. I was abused. There was nothing about it that made me feel like I was in control. It was the opposite. I belonged to someone. He controlled me. He played games with me to get me to obey him and to make sure that I knew he was the boss. Up until that point I had rebelled against all adults, so it was odd for me to follow his rules, but he made sure I knew that he was in control….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carissa-phelps/child-abuse-runaway-girl_b_1686791.html

NCAA could fine Penn State as much as $60M as part of Sandusky sanctions

By Jerry Hinnen | College Football and Olympics Blogger
July 22, 2012

The NCAA will fine Penn State at least $30 million and perhaps as much as $60 million for its involvement in the Jerry Sandusky scandal, industry sources told CBSSports.com’s Brett McMurphy.

The record fine will go toward an endowment for children’s causes, sources said.

“This is a fine like no fine before,” an industry source told CBSSports.com.

CBSSports.com’s Dennis Dodd has reported Penn State will face “significant penalties that could severely damage the football program’s ability to compete” when the NCAA announces sanctions against the football program at a 9 a.m. news conference Monday.

To put the fine in perspective, Penn State’s athletic department had $116 million in revenue for the 2010-11 school year, the most recent data available according to figures from the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics.

A source told CBS News correspondent Armen Keteyian that Penn State will suffer “unprecedented” punishment for its collective failure to report Sandusky, recently convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse, to the proper authorities.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the source told Keteyian, indicating that both the football program and the school itself would face sanctions….

Bob Williams, the NCAA’s vice president of communications, said after the Freeh report was released that Penn State needed to answer “four key questions, concerning compliance with institutional control and ethics policies.”

Likely of particular interest to the NCAA were the report’s conclusions that the school had “decentralized and uneven” oversight of compliance issues – laws, regulations, policies and procedures.

“Certain departments monitored their own compliance issues with very limited resources,” the report found. Ensuring compliance with the federal Clery Act, which requires the reporting of crimes, was handled by someone with “minimal time.”….

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/eye-on-college-football/19632027/ncaa-to-sanction-penn-state-source-says-school-may-prefer-death-penalty

Nightly News   |  Aired on July 22, 2012 Coach Joe Paterno statue removed
A statue of famed Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has been removed following the report that he knew Jerry Sandusky was being investigated for child sex abuse. NBC’s Michael Isikoff reports.

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/48278494

What the Sandusky Verdict Means to Child Sexual Abuse Victims

What the Sandusky Verdict Means to Child Sexual Abuse Victims
By Mai Fernandez Thursday, June 28, 2012

While testifying about the abuse he had experienced, one of Jerry Sandusky’s victims was asked why he had never reported the crime. “Who would believe kids?” he asked. Sandusky is an “important guy.” So like his fellow witnesses—and so many other child sexual abuse victims—he didn’t tell a soul.

Sandusky’s 45-count conviction represents a watershed for all victims of child sexual abuse.

Sandusky’s victims—whose pained, halting, and strikingly similar testimony led to the conviction—described how pedophiles prey on children who trust and look up to them. The jury believed those victims, and they can now begin healing and rebuilding their lives.

The conviction frees them from the troublesome media label “alleged victims,” which reflected the judge’s stated view that there were no victims until a conviction was achieved. As state and federal law confirm, there ARE victims prior to conviction in a particular case, and they have rights in the criminal justice system.

As victims exercised their rights in this case, their suffering was recognized and their accounts of Sandusky’s grievous crimes were validated….

The Sandusky case, as well as the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal, has suggested the true scope of child sexual abuse. Studies show that 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys are victims of sexual abuse, and an estimated 78,188 cases of reported child sexual abuse occurred in 2003.

Yet we know that the vast majority of these crimes are not reported; the numbers don’t begin to reflect the actual prevalence of child sexual abuse.

The Sandusky case also exposed the methods by which predators establish power over children’s lives. They systematically “groom” their victims, often showering them and their families with gifts and special favors, such as football tickets, access to star players, and camping trips. Sandusky preyed on children served by Second Mile, the charity he founded to help disadvantaged youth. Like so many predators, Sandusky built a reputation as a benefactor—rather than a destroyer—of youth.
http://www.thecrimereport.org/viewpoints/2012-06-what-the-sandusky-verdict-means-to-child-sexual-abus

Syracuse Child Abuse Cases Spur Calls To Reform New York Statutes Of Limitations

Subcommittee Hearing – Breaking the Silence on Child Abuse: Protection, Prevention, Intervention, and Deterrence
Committee: Subcommittee on Children and Families
Date:  Tuesday, December 13 2011, 10:15 AM

http://help.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=12f57f31-5056-9502-5d46-d6c877eaa515

Syracuse Child Abuse Cases Spur Calls To Reform New York Statutes Of Limitations  by John Rudolf 12/13/11
NEW YORK

On Dec. 7, William Fitzpatrick, district attorney for Onondaga County in upstate New York, said he found credible the allegations of two former Syracuse University basketball team ball boys that Bernie Fine, the team’s long-standing assistant coach, molested them in the 1980s.

“These two victims are believable,” Fitzpatrick said at a press conference.

But state prosecutors won’t be bringing any criminal charges against Fine for the alleged abuse, which the coach adamantly denies. The statute of limitations in both cases expired nearly two decades ago — just two years after his accusers, now in their late 30s, passed their 18th birthdays.

Fine can’t be sued either: under state law, the two men needed to file a civil suit against him before they turned 23.

“There is no remedy,” said Jeff Dion, director of the National Crime Victim Bar Association. “Because of New York law, a child molester is going to get off scot-free.”

Fine would not have fared nearly as well elsewhere in the country. In a growing number of states, legal reforms now allow victims of childhood sexual abuse to seek civil damages and criminal charges against their alleged abusers many years after reaching adulthood. The reforms are an acknowledgement of substantial research demonstrating that abuse victims often require an extensive period of time before they are ready to confront their abusers.

“People are so messed up that they don’t get the courage and the gumption to do anything until they’re in their 40s — if then,” said Thomas Neuberger, a Delaware attorney who has represented hundreds of victims of childhood abuse. “It takes a person decades before they get the courage to speak out.”….

In the last week, two lawmakers announced plans to introduce legislation extending the time period when victims of childhood abuse can seek criminal charges and civil restitution against their abusers. A previous bill to reform New York’s child abuse laws passed the Assembly three times, but was repeatedly stymied in the state Senate after heavy lobbying by Catholic bishops, who vigorously opposed a key provision to temporarily lift the civil statute of limitations for decades-old abuse.

Yet the intense publicity now surrounding the Syracuse and Penn State scandals may finally push the vote for a reform bill over the top in New York, according to Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York and a long-time advocate for child sexual abuse victims.

“I do think in the next year or two or three, it’s going to be impossible for legislators to maintain statutes of limitations that favor predators,” Hamilton said. “The public outrage is building.”

The proposed reforms would bring New York closer in line with many other states, which afford child abuse victims special rights not given to other crime victims or civil plaintiffs.

Delaware has no criminal statute of limitations at all for any sex crime against a child. In Pennsylvania, victims have until their 50th birthday to seek criminal prosecution against an abuser. Six other states, including Connecticut, Louisiana and Missouri, allow criminal prosecutions of child sex abuse for at least 20 years after victims turn 18.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/13/syracuse-and-penn-state-child-sex-abuse-statute_n_1146138.html