Paterno Won Sweeter Deal Even as Scandal Played Out, Penn State takes first steps to recover after Sandusky scandal

Paterno Won Sweeter Deal Even as Scandal Played Out
By JO BECKER
July 14, 2012

In January 2011, Joe Paterno learned prosecutors were investigating his longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for sexually assaulting young boys. Soon, Mr. Paterno had testified before a grand jury, and the rough outlines of what would become a giant scandal had been published in a local newspaper.

That same month, Mr. Paterno, the football coach at Penn State, began negotiating with his superiors to amend his contract, with the timing something of a surprise because the contract was not set to expire until the end of 2012, according to university documents and people with knowledge of the discussions. By August, Mr. Paterno and the university’s president, both of whom were by then embroiled in the Sandusky investigation, had reached an agreement.

Mr. Paterno was to be paid $3 million at the end of the 2011 season if he agreed it would be his last. Interest-free loans totaling $350,000 that the university had made to Mr. Paterno over the years would be forgiven as part of the retirement package. He would also have the use of the university’s private plane and a luxury box at Beaver Stadium for him and his family to use over the next 25 years.

The university’s full board of trustees was kept in the dark about the arrangement until November, when Mr. Sandusky was arrested and the contract arrangements, along with so much else at Penn State, were upended. Mr. Paterno was fired, two of the university’s top officials were indicted in connection with the scandal, and the trustees, who held Mr. Paterno’s financial fate in their hands, came under verbal assault from the coach’s angry supporters.

Board members who raised questions about whether the university ought to go forward with the payments were quickly shut down, according to two people with direct knowledge of the negotiations.

In the end, the board of trustees — bombarded with hate mail and threatened with a defamation lawsuit by Mr. Paterno’s family — gave the family virtually everything it wanted, with a package worth roughly $5.5 million….
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/sports/ncaafootball/joe-paterno-got-richer-contract-amid-jerry-sandusky-inquiry.html

Penn State takes first steps to recover after Sandusky scandal

Penn State trustees, taking ‘full responsibility’ for the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, announced initial steps to recover the university’s tarnished reputation. Some say much more will have to be done, especially changing a campus culture in which sports coaches are idolized.

By Brad Knickerbocker, Staff writer / July 14, 2012

It’s likely to take years for Penn State to fully recover from the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal that has blotted the reputation of the university and its most senior officials, including legendary head football coach Joe Paterno.

But in its first meeting since the blistering investigation by former FBI director Louis Freeh, the university’s board of trustees has taken initial steps in that direction.

The board – which itself was criticized in the Freeh report for failing to create an environment in which much of the abuse might have been prevented – has begun by accepting what board chair Karen Peetz calls “full responsibility” for its failures.

Notably, the federal Clery Act of 1990 requiring the compilation and reporting of crime statistics, including sexual offenses, had never become policy at Penn State. Under the Clery Act – named for a young woman sexually assaulted and murdered in a Lehigh University dorm room in 1986 – Penn State officials were obliged to report Sandusky’s known activities to law-enforcement officials.

“Our hearts are heavy and we are deeply ashamed,” said trustee Ken Frazier. “We failed to ask the tough questions. We failed to push the issue.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2012/0714/Penn-State-takes-first-steps-to-recover-after-Sandusky-scandal

U.S. to Expand Its Definition of Rape in Statistics

U.S. to Expand Its Definition of Rape in Statistics
By CHARLIE SAVAGE January 6, 2012

WASHINGTON — The federal government is changing its longstanding definition of “forcible rape” in compiling national crime statistics — expanding both the definition of victims, to include males, and the types of sexual assault that will be counted in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report.

The new definition, which has been in the works for several months and was formally announced by the Obama administration on Friday, will replace a narrower definition of “forcible rape” with one that includes, among other things, forcible oral or anal penetration. The narrower definition, which is limited to vaginal penetration, has been used since the 1920s in tracking how often such crimes are reported around the country.

Victim advocacy groups have long criticized the old definition as outdated, saying it left out many crimes that were prosecuted as rape under state laws but that were not reflected in national statistics. Last year, an F.B.I. advisory committee of law enforcement agencies agreed to a Justice Department request to update the definition….

The old definition — “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will” — covered only forcible penetration of a woman’s vagina by a penis, and excluded many other kinds of sexual assaults that count as rape under more modern definitions.

For example, the outdated definition did not count forcible anal or oral penetration, the penetration of the vagina or anus with an object or other body part, the rape of a man, or the rape of a woman by another woman.

It also did not cover nonconsensual sex that does not involve physical force — like the rape of people who are unable to grant consent because they are drugged, very drunk or younger than the age of statutory consent in their state, a number that varies across the country.

The new definition, which was drafted with input from local and state law enforcement agencies based on more modernized rape laws, encompasses a broader range of such circumstances. Specifically, it covers the “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/us/politics/federal-crime-statistics-to-expand-rape-definition.html

FBI changes definition of rape to add men as victims
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY  1/6/2012
WASHINGTON — The FBI is changing its long-standing definition of rape for the first time to include sexual assaults on males following persistent calls from victims advocates who claim that the offense, as currently defined in the agency’s annual crime report, has been undercounted for decades.
Under the current definition, established 85 years ago, many of the sex crimes alleged in the ongoing prosecution of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky would not be counted in the bureau’s Uniform Crime Report, one of the most reliable measures of crime in the United States.

Sandusky is accused in alleged assaults and sexual misconduct involving 10 male victims.

Rape is currently defined as the “carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.”

The new provision will define rape as any kind of penetration of another person, regardless of gender, without the victim’s consent.

“This long-awaited change to the definition of rape is a victory for women and men across the country whose suffering has gone unaccounted for over 80 years,” Vice President Biden, who has worked extensively on domestic-violence issues, said in a statement released Thursday.
http://www.usatoday.com/NEWS/usaedition/2012-01-06-Rape_ST_U.htm