Meet the Woman Who Exposed Jerry Sandusky

Meet the Woman Who Exposed Jerry Sandusky

She’s Sara Ganim and she’s just 24. In a Glamour exclusive, she tells how she broke the story of Penn State’s sex-abuse scandal and changed college sports forever.  by Liz Brody

“Anything else going on?” Sara Ganim asked her source late one night in 2009. As the crime reporter for a small newspaper in State College, Pennsylvania, it was a question she always ended with. And this evening, to Ganim’s surprise, the source replied, “Well, actually, a boy just came forward to the police and alleged sex crimes against Jerry Sandusky.”….

Ganim, a Penn State grad and a football fan herself, knew her way around the university’s online message boards. There she quickly found gossip about Sandusky getting too friendly with young boys. So she started asking around. “I’d say, ‘Hey, have you heard anything strange about Jerry Sandusky?’” And though people knew about the rumors, Ganim says, “almost no one believed they were true.”

For the next two years, Ganim tried to get real facts—”I just started knocking on doors,” she says—and pursued the story aggressively after joining the staff of Harrisburg’s The Patriot-News in January 2011…..

“Some people closed their doors in my face, and others definitely did not tell me the truth,” she says. “But many were relieved—they were done keeping the story bottled up inside.” What she uncovered was staggering: She identified two alleged victims and learned that Sandusky was under investigation by a grand jury for sexual abuse. (In Pennsylvania such proceedings are held in secret.) Ganim kept digging and, by this time last year, had enough evidence to write the first story exposing the grand jury hearing, as well as accusations that the former coach had molested at least one boy in the university’s locker room.

Some readers savaged the paper for printing “gossip.” But other media and sports reporters ignored the news, even as Ganim continued to report the story. “It felt like we were living in the Twilight Zone,” says The Patriot-News’ editor, David Newhouse. Adds Ganim, “Particularly with the local papers, I thought [that] was pretty irresponsible.” It took a full seven months—after Sandusky was arrested and publicly charged with the sexual abuse of eight boys he met through his charity, The Second Mile—for national news media to pounce. The horrifying charges included repeated oral sex and sodomy; one victim testified that he screamed in vain from the Sandusky family basement, knowing the coach’s wife was upstairs….

On November 8, based on Ganim’s reporting, The Patriot-News published a front-page editorial calling for the resignations of Penn State’s president, Graham Spanier, and its head coach of 45-plus years, Joe Paterno. The day after the editorial, the university forced out both men, and the campus erupted in student riots. It was only then that Ganim realized just how huge her story had become….

In one blistering article, she detailed how an incident witnessed by then grad student Mike McQueary had been watered down with every retelling—from “anal rape,” as McQueary described it to Paterno, to “something of a sexual nature,” as the coach retold it to the school vice president, to what Spanier eventually characterized as “conduct that made someone uncomfortable”—without ever being reported to police. (It later came out that Spanier and the board of trustees had known about the Sandusky investigation for months and done next to nothing.) Ganim’s discerning coverage made sure Penn State and other schools started taking abuse allegations seriously; soon after, similar cases drew attention at Syracuse University and The Citadel.
http://www.glamour.com/inspired/magazine/2012/02/meet-the-woman-who-exposed-jerry-sandusky

Penn State charges raise questions about Paterno’s culpability, Jimmy Savile case may lead to inquiry against seven forces

Penn State charges raise questions about Paterno’s culpability
Charges that three former university administrators covered up child sexual abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky suggest former Coach Joe Paterno could have been charged had he lived, some say.

By Peter Hall, Morning Call

November 4, 2012

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The charges filed last week accusing three former Penn State administrators of engaging in a “conspiracy of silence” to cover up child sexual abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky raise questions about whether legendary football Coach Joe Paterno could have been charged if he were still living.

Former university President Graham Spanier and the others face charges including perjury and endangering the welfare of children.

“To be fair and consistent, you have to read this as a posthumous indictment of Joe Paterno,” said law professor Wes Oliver of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh….

Those who have watched the case said the grand jury presentment released Thursday paints Paterno as an active participant in the conspiracy.

“The reality is that he knew. He knew early on, and he chose to protect the image of the football program and to protect Penn State,” said Jennifer Storm, a victims advocate who has worked with two of the young men Sandusky molested when they were boys.

But Bruce Antkowiak, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., said that without knowing everything that state prosecutors in the case know, it’s not fair to conclude that there was probable cause to charge Paterno.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-paterno-20121104,0,5553402.story

Jimmy Savile case may lead to inquiry against seven forces
Calls for inspectorate to assess how abuse allegations were handled by police
Jamie Doward, Mark Townsend and Gemma O’Neill
The Observer, Saturday 3 November 2012

Several police forces could be investigated over their handling of sexual abuse allegations against Jimmy Savile after the police watchdog confirmed that an inquiry was a possibility and a lawyer representing alleged victims said there were urgent questions to be answered.

Alan Collins, a solicitor at the law firm Pannone, who is representing five of Savile’s alleged victims and has been approached by at least 20 others, said the case for the police to be investigated had become paramount. Collins said it should be the job of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), the independent body set up to assess police forces, to investigate how and when officers had investigated Savile….

At least three forces – Surrey, Sussex and Jersey – are known to have been aware of allegations against Savile, but the true number is believed to be as high as seven.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/03/jimmy-savile-case-inquiry

Jerry Sandusky sentence: 30 to 60 years for child sex abuse charges

Jerry Sandusky sentence: 30 to 60 years for child sex abuse charges
10/9/12 Staff report Sporting News

Jerry Sandusky has been sentenced to 30-to-60 years in prison on 45 counts of child sexual abuse charges, a judge announced on Tuesday.

The former Penn State assistant, and at one time presumed successor to Joe Paterno, will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. Three of Sandusky’s victims spoke in court Tuesday. While one victim said that he has “cried out to Jesus” for help in dealing with the scars Sandusky left on his life, another told Sandusky, “I will not forgive you.”

In a rambling address to court, Sandusky, 68, said: “We are going to smile through the pain. We’re going to laugh. We’re going to cry. Because that’s who we are.”

In June, Sandusky was convicted of molesting 10 boys over a 15-year period—a total of 45 charges. Witnesses said Sandusky used The Second Mile, a charity he founded to help disadvantaged children, as a recruiting ground for his victims. He showered them with gifts, brought them around the Penn State football program and welcomed them in his home.

Eventually, the kindness turned dark. Witnesses said he fondled them, took showers with them and raped them. Sandusky denied the allegations as he has done repeatedly, including on Monday in a recording released by the campus radio station….

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2012-10-09/jerry-sandusky-sentence-30-60-years-sexual-abuse-trial-penn-state

Penn State football punished by NCAA over Jerry Sandusky scandal

Penn State football punished by NCAA over Jerry Sandusky scandal

By Steve Yanda, Monday, July 23, 2012

Under legendary coach Joe Paterno, Penn State football became one of the most recognizable and successful brand names in college athletics. But on Monday, the NCAA levied unprecedented sanctions against the program for its role in the sexual abuse scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, erasing part of the team’s illustrious history and making its prospects in the near future increasingly dim.

The NCAA fined the school $60 million, imposed a four-year postseason ban on Penn State football, significantly reduced the number of scholarship players the team can field over the next four years, placed the program on probation for five years and enabled any current or incoming player to transfer and play immediately without restriction.

But perhaps the most significant individual sanction in the context of college football history is that all of Penn State’s wins from 1998 to 2011 have been vacated, which means that Paterno, who oversaw the Nittany Lions’ football program for nearly 46 years, no longer is the all-time winningest coach at college football’s highest level….

Earlier this month, former FBI director Louis J. Freeh released a report that found Paterno, in concert with three other top Penn State officials, had covered up allegations of child sexual abuse made against Sandusky, a former assistant coach on the football team, for 14 years….

Penn State has signed a consent decree and will not appeal the sanctions. In an interview with the Centre Daily Times, Penn State President Rodney Erickson said it agreed to the sanctions in order to avoid an NCAA death penalty….

Erickson said in a written statement that the money to pay the fine would not come from tax money, tuition dollars or donations….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/penn-state-football-punished-by-ncaa-over-sandusky-scandal/2012/07/23/gJQAGNeM4W_story.html

UPDATE 4-Penn State hit with unprecedented penalties for Sandusky scandal
Tue Jul 24, 2012

* Penn State football avoids “death penalty”

* NCAA president cites “tragically unnecessary circumstances”

* No bowl games for four seasons, scholarships reduced…

By Edith Honan

July 23 (Reuters) – The governing body of U.S. college sports fined Penn State University $60 million and voided its football victories for the past 14 seasons in an unprecedented rebuke for the school’s failure to stop coach Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of children.

NCAA President Mark Emmert said the school had put “hero worship and winning at all costs” ahead of integrity, honesty and responsibility.

Penn State was not given the so-called “death penalty” that could have suspended its football program but it was banned from post-season bowl games for four years and had the number of scholarships available to players reduced from 25 to 15.

Penn State officials were accused of not taking action after being alerted that Sandusky, a former assistant football coach, was sexually abusing children. The scandal tainted one of college football’s leading coaches, the late Joe Paterno, and led to his firing last year along with other top school officials.

The punishment, announced by the National College Athletic Association at a news conference in Indianapolis, was unprecedented for its swiftness and breadth. It was the latest blow to an institution still reeling from Sandusky’s conviction last month on child molestation charges.

The case was another blotch on the diminishing legacy of Paterno, who until Monday’s action had held the record for victories among big-time U.S. college football coaches in a career that spanned more than 40 seasons. Paterno lost that status since the NCAA’s punishment includes voiding the Nittany Lions’ victories between 1998 and 2011 – the time period covering when allegations against Sandusky were first made and Sandusky’s arrest….

Emmert said the NCAA chose not to levy the so-called “death penalty” because it would have harmed individuals with no role in the Sandusky scandal….
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/23/usa-pennstate-idINL2E8INCC020120723

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

Jerry Sandusky Retirement Package Revoked By Penn State University, Pension Remains, Sandusky fallout: NCAA ‘death penalty’ possible for Penn State

Jerry Sandusky Retirement Package Revoked By Penn State University, Pension Remains The Huffington Post  By Tyler Kingkade  7/18/12

Jerry Sandusky has been downgraded.

Penn State University has officially revoked the retirement package of Sandusky, a convicted pedophile, according to the Daily Collegian. Sandusky, a one time assistant football coach at PSU, retired in 1999 and received a lump sum payment of $168,000. The Freeh report, released last week, noted this was a highly unusual amount.

Another bizarre condition of Sandusky’s retirement included giving him “emeritus” status, which allowed him generous privileges. At the time of his retirement, Sandusky was an assistant physical education professor and assistant football coach positions, which wouldn’t qualify him eligible for the emeritus rank. He was given wide access to use facilities on campus, including the locker rooms and showers where he was found to repeatedly molest and rape young boys.

University spokesman Dave La Torre gave further details to the Collegian:

He said the following portions of Sandusky’s retirement package have been revoked: four free football season tickets for the rest of his life and the opportunity to purchase four more within the 35-yard lines; two men’s and women’s basketball season tickets for the rest of his life; lifetime use of a locker, weight rooms, fitness facilities and training room in the East Area locker room; a five-year agreement, subject to renewal, between Sandusky and Penn State to work collaboratively in community outreach programs such as The Second Mile that “provide positive visibility to the University’s Intercollegiate Athletics Program,” as well as a 10-year agreement, subject to renewal, giving him an office and telephone in the East Area locker room.

Sandusky was found guilty on June 22 of 45 criminal counts relating to the assault of 10 boys over a 15-year period. La Torre said he’s unclear about when the university officially revoked the retirement package.

La Torre told The Huffington Post Sandusky’s emeritus was officially removed….

The $168,000, in addition to 71 separate payments made between 2000 and 2008 by Penn State to Sandusky for items including travel, meals and speaking engagements, will not be revoked, the Collegian reports.

However, Sandusky will still be collecting nearly $5,000 a month through his pension from taxpayers. Some lawmakers have said they want to review any possible options to cut Sandusky off from his pension, but they acknowledge that would be unlikely.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/jerry-sandusky-retirement-package-revoked-psu_n_1679879.html

Sandusky fallout: NCAA ‘death penalty’ possible for Penn State
By Michael Muskal July 18, 2012

With Penn State University expected within days to respond to NCAA concerns about how the school handled reports involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and allegations of child sexual abuse, the real question for sports fans is whether, and how, the celebrated football program will be punished.

The NCAA, the governing body of collegiate sports, is not likely to act quickly enough for there to be any action before the football season opener scheduled for Sept. 1 against Ohio University. The Nittany Lions have the dubious pleasure of opening at home, at Beaver Stadium. That stadium has been the focus of protests about a statue of Joe Paterno, the late head football coach, who was portrayed in less-than-flattering terms in the recent university-sponsored report on the Sandusky scandal….

The NCAA, for its part, has taken nothing off the table, including the so-called death penalty, shutting down the program for at least a year, said its president Mark Emmert in a PBS interview Monday. Emmert said he’s “never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct and behavior inside a university.”….

The Freeh report blamed top university officials for failing — not once, but twice — to act on reports that Sandusky had sexually abused boys in the showers of the school’s football training facility. The officials acted to keep the reports in-house, despite legal requirements that they tell outside authorities, because they feared the impact of bad publicity on the school. The report also discussed a culture of fear that prevented anyone from acting against someone affiliated with the school’s powerful football program.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ncaa-penn-state-death-penalty-20120718,0,4725237.story

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

Abuse Inquiry Faults Paterno and Others at Penn State

Abuse Inquiry Faults Paterno and Others at Penn State
By KEN BELSON July 12, 2012

In 1998, officials at Penn State, including its president and its legendary football coach, were aware Jerry Sandusky was being investigated by the university’s police department for possibly molesting two young boys in the football building’s showers. They followed the investigation closely, updating one another along the way.

One of those officials, Gary Schultz, articulated in dire terms what the incidents might suggest:

“Is this opening of Pandora’s box?” Mr. Schultz wrote in notes that he would keep secret for years. “Other children?”

The officials did nothing. No one so much as spoke to Mr. Sandusky.

Last month, Mr. Sandusky, for three decades one of Joe Paterno’s top coaching lieutenants, was convicted of sexually attacking 10 young boys, nine of them after the 1998 investigation, and several of them in the same football building showers.

Louis J. Freeh, the former federal judge and director of the F.B.I. who spent the last seven months examining the Sandusky scandal at Penn State, issued a damning conclusion Thursday:

The most senior officials at Penn State had shown a “total and consistent disregard” for the welfare of children, had worked together to actively conceal Mr. Sandusky’s assaults, and had done so for one central reason: fear of bad publicity. That publicity, Mr. Freeh said Thursday, would have hurt the nationally ranked football program, Mr. Paterno’s reputation as a coach of high principles, the Penn State “brand” and the university’s ability to raise money as one of the most respected public institutions in the country….

Mr. Freeh, in a formal report to the university’s board of trustees that ran more than 250 pages, offered graphic evidence of the implications of what he termed “a pervasive fear” of bad publicity:

In 2000, a janitor at the football building saw Mr. Sandusky assaulting a boy in the showers. Horrified, he consulted with his colleagues, but decided not to do anything. They were all, Mr. Freeh said, afraid to “take on the football program.”

“They said the university would circle around it,” Mr. Freeh said of the employees. “It was like going against the president of the United States. If that’s the culture on the bottom, then God help the culture at the top.”

Indeed, Mr. Freeh’s investigation makes clear it was Mr. Paterno, long regarded as the single most powerful official at the university, who persuaded the university president and others not to report Mr. Sandusky to the authorities in 2001 after he had violently assaulted another boy in the football showers….

“The facts are the facts,” Mr. Freeh said. “There’s a whole bunch of evidence here. And we’re saying that the reasonable conclusion from that evidence is he was an integral part of this active decision to conceal. I regret that based on the damage that it does, obviously, to his legacy.”….

One new and central finding of the Freeh investigation is that Mr. Paterno, who died in January, knew as far back as 1998 that there were concerns Mr. Sandusky might be behaving inappropriately with children. It was then that the campus police investigated a claim by a mother that her son had been molested by Mr. Sandusky in a shower at Penn State.

Mr. Paterno, through his family, had insisted after Mr. Sandusky’s arrest that he never knew anything about the 1998 case. In fact, he had testified under oath before the grand jury hearing evidence against Mr. Sandusky that he was not aware of the 1998 investigation.

But Mr. Freeh’s report asserts that Mr. Paterno not only knew of the investigation, but followed it closely. Local prosecutors ultimately decided not to charge Mr. Sandusky, and Mr. Paterno did nothing.

Mr. Paterno failed to take any action, the investigation found, “even though Sandusky had been a key member of his coaching staff for almost 30 years and had an office just steps away from Mr. Paterno’s.”

“In order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity,” the most powerful leaders of Penn State, Mr. Freeh’s group said, “repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse from the authorities, the board of trustees, the Penn State community and the public at large.”….

Mr. Freeh said that by allowing Mr. Sandusky to remain a visible presence at Penn State following his retirement from coaching in 1999, he was essentially granted “license to bring boys to campus for ‘grooming’ as targets for his assaults.”

The Freeh investigation also determined that Mr. Sandusky, upon his retirement shortly after the 1998 investigation, received both an unusual compensation package and a special designation of “emeritus” rank that carried special privileges, including access to the university’s recreational facilities. With respect to money, Mr. Spanier, the president, approved a lump-sum payment to Mr. Sandusky of $168,000.

Mr. Freeh’s investigators interviewed two senior and longtime university officials who said they had never heard of this type of payment being made to any retiring employee….
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/sports/ncaafootball/13pennstate.html

McQueary: I saw Sandusky in a ‘wrong and sexual’ act with boy , The Missing D.A.

McQueary: I saw Sandusky in a ‘wrong and sexual’ act with boy

- Former, current Penn State officials ordered to trial

msnbc.com news services
12/16/2011
Editor’s note: This story contains graphic testimony.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Penn State assistant football coach testified Friday that he had no doubt he saw former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky in a sexual act with a boy in a university locker room in 2002.

..”I believe he was sexually molesting the boy,” Mike McQueary, a graduate assistant in the university’s football program in 2002, said at a court hearing, adding at a later point that he “has no doubt” he saw Sandusky in a sexual act.

McQueary, speaking for the first time in public about the 2002 encounter, said he saw Sandusky with his hands around the boy’s waist. McQueary also said he fully conveyed what he had seen to two Penn State administrators about what he told them. He testified that he reported the incident to longtime head coach Joe Paterno.

McQueary took the stand Friday morning in a Pennsylvania courtroom during a preliminary hearing for university officials Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, who are accused of lying to a grand jury about what McQueary told them.

At the conclusion of the hearing, District Judge William C. Wenner ruled that prosecutors have enough evidence to send their cases to trial. Their lawyers say the men are innocent and contest McQueary’s statements. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45695764/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/mcqueary-i-saw-sandusky-wrong-sexual-act/

The Missing D. A.
Why did prosecutor in Sandusky Case disappear? http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/45695504

Sybil in Her Own Words by Patrick Suraci, Psychologist 12/15/11  http://sybilandmpd.blogspot.com/2011/12/sybil-in-her-own-words-by-patrick.html

Penn State and Syracuse sex abuse scandals

Jerry Sandusky talks about Joe Paterno, case, Times reports 12/3/11 Associated Press  NEW YORK

Former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky said Joe Paterno never spoke to him about any suspected misconduct with minors, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Sandusky has been charged with 40 counts of molesting eight boys over 15 years and is free on bail while awaiting a preliminary hearing on Dec. 13.
http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2011-12-03/jerry-sandusky-talks-about-joe-paterno-case-times-reports

Syracuse sex abuse scandal – As Boeheim’s mind wanders, Syracuse players focus on winning Sean Deveney Sporting News 12/3/11

….“I have talked to some people today and yesterday about what I am going to say,” Boeheim said Friday night. “These are my thoughts. No one said, ‘This is what you should say.’ No one indicated that I had to say something. This is what I feel.

“I have to make three comments. The first one is, I believe I misspoke, very badly, in my response to the allegations that have been made. I shouldn’t have questioned what the accusers expressed or their motives. I am really sorry that I did that, and I regret any harm that I caused. It was insensitive to the individuals involved and especially to the issue of child abuse.”

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