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Bernstein: You Must Read The Grand Jury Report

By Dan Bernstein-

CBSChicago.com Senior Columnist(CBS) The Devil is in the details.They hurt to read, I won’t lie to you. You cannot un-know them or un-see them. You will stop multiple times in the 23 pages of the grand jury report, needing to avert your eyes or shudder.But you have to do it. You have to read every word, every sickening description and every name involved in the institutionalized evil at Penn State. Your opinion about anything going on is invalid if you have not yet done so.Here it is. Read it.You are simply not allowed to say “I don’t want to,” or “I can’t handle it.” Jerry Sandusky’s victims and their families endured – and continue to endure — unspeakable horror.The least you can do is be as informed as possible about the hideousness in Happy Valley. It will sear your soul, and it’s your obligation to confront the truth at its most real and painful. Relying on watered-down characterization of the acts is a cop-out.Here it is. Read it.This is not a Sex Scandal, as TV graphics scream. This is not a college football scandal, to be compared and contrasted with point-shaving, cash to recruits or swag traded for tats. This is a deep, ongoing conspiracy to conceal and abet child abuse by a state-run university.

Read about the victim-farm Sandusky created in 1977 (!) under the veil of charity, cultivating vast fields of potential prey. See with your own eyes what he did and how he did it, then have a thought.Do not dare to call a radio show, send an email, post on social media, or comment at the conclusion of this column until you have taken the time to read every word. Until you do, nothing you think or say matters one iota.Here it is. Read it.Familiarize yourself with the unimaginable cowardice of Mike McQueary. Know what Joe Paterno knew, and had to know. Learn about standard operating procedure at the school’s highest levels, and the sway held by football. Inhumane crimes were occurring deep in the hills of Pennsylvania, and merciless men ensured that they would continue unchecked.Most importantly, we must stop with comfortable euphemisms that ease the pain of confronting these brutal crimes. This is not “horseplay,” or “inappropriate acts,” or even “sodomy.” It’s worse. We have a solemn responsibility to expose these infections to sunlight, trying as hard as we can to understand as much as we can.You will not think as you did before. You saw the idiot students chanting football cheers last night on Paterno’s lawn, and have heard from the cult of apologists. You will want to kill all of them.You will want Sandusky torn to shreds by animals behind bars.Here it is. Read it.You may feel as I do, wishing you actually believed in Hell.

15 ADULTS WHO KNEW ABOUT ALLEGATIONS OF SANDUSKY’S BEHAVIOR BEFORE THE ARREST:



Joe Paterno, the legendary Penn State University football coach who was in his 46th season, was fired by the school’s board of trustees Wednesday.

Graham B. Spanier, Penn State’s president since 1995, also was fired by the board of trustees Wednesday. He was told of the 2002 shower incident but did not report the matter to police.

Tim Curley, Penn State’s athletic director, is charged by the state attorney general with perjury and failing to report to authorities what he knew of the allegations.

Gary Schultz, Penn State’s senior vice president for finance and business, is charged by the attorney general with perjury and failing to report to authorities what he knew of the allegations.

Mike McQueary, Penn State assistant football coach, says he witnessed Sandusky having anal sex with a boy in the shower in 2002 and reported the incident to his higher-ups.

Jim Calhoun, a janitor who saw Sandusky performing oral sex on a boy in 2000, suffers from dementia and is not competent to testify.

Ronald Petrosky, another janitor, was approached by a shaking and crying Calhoun in 2000. He testified that the janitors were afraid they’d lose their jobs if they told on Sandusky.

Jay Witherite, the janitors’ immediate supervisor, was told of the 2000 incident and left it up to Calhoun to report it.

Ray Gricar, formerly Centre County district attorney, investigated a 1998 claim about Sandusky acting inappropriately with a boy in the shower. He disappeared in 2005.

Ronald Schreffler, a campus detective, was told in 1998 to close the case on Sandusky.

Jerry Lauro, an investigator with the state Department of Child Welfare, interviewed Sandusky on the 1998 incident.

Thomas Harmon was director of campus police in 1998, when Sandusky was investigated.

Ralph Ralston, another campus police officer, worked on the Sandusky case in 1998.

Dr. Jack Raykovitz, executive director of The Second Mile, allegedly was notified of the anal sex incident in 2002.

Wendell Courtney was university counsel during the 1998 investigation and remains counsel for The Second Mile.

TIMELINE OF EVENTS [condensed]

1977: Sandusky starts The Second Mile, a group foster home for troubled young boys that grew into a statewide charity serving hundreds of young boys.

1998: Victim 6 tells his mother that he was lathered and bear-hugged by Sandusky in the shower. His mother tells Penn State campus police.

May 13 and 19, 1998: Police eavesdrop on a phone conversation during which Victim 6’s mother confronts Sandusky and tries to make him promise never to shower with a boy again. Sandusky will not promise. She asks if Sandusky’s “private parts” touched Victim 6; Sandusky responds, “Maybe,” and tells her, “I wish I were dead.”

June 1, 1998: Sandusky is interviewed by investigator Lauro and campus detective Schreffler, and admits to hugging Victim 6 naked in the shower, saying that he knows it was wrong. He is told to stop showering with children.

Schreffler and Gricar, the district attorney, decide against criminal charges. A similar incident with a victim referred to as B.K. was also investigated. Schreffler testified that Harmon, then campus police director, told him to close the case.

May 1999: Paterno tells Sandusky he will not be the next head coach of Penn State. Sandusky retires but negotiates emeritus status, giving him an office and access to facilities.

Fall 2000: Calhoun, the janitor, observes Sandusky in the shower of the Lasch Building performing oral sex on a young boy pinned up against the wall, and tells other janitors and his supervisor. Fellow janitor Petrosky later testifies they were afraid they’d lose their jobs if they told anyone what they saw.

March 1, 2002: McQueary enters the locker room at Penn State’s football building at about 9:30 p.m. and hears the shower running and “rhythmic, slapping sounds.” He sees Sandusky having anal sex with Victim 2, who appears to be 10 years old. McQueary goes to his office and calls his father.

March 2, 2002: McQueary shows up at Paterno’s house and reports what he saw.

March 3, 2002: Paterno calls Curley to his house to report that McQueary saw Sandusky doing something sexual in the locker room showers. Schultz testifies that he was then called to a meeting with Paterno and Curley, during which Paterno reported “disturbing” and “inappropriate” conduct in the shower by Sandusky.

Approx. March 13, 2002: McQueary is called to meet with Curley and Schultz, and reports what he saw. Curley and Schultz say they will look into it. Curley later testifies that McQueary only reported “inappropriate contact,” not anal sex. However, Schultz testifies that he had the impression that Sandusky grabbed the boy’s genitals.

April 2002: McQueary hears from Curley, who says that Sandusky returned his keys to the locker room and was prohibited from bringing youths on campus, and that the incident was reported to The Second Mile executive director Raykovitz.

July 2009: Victim 1’s mother calls the high school to report inappropriate behavior. Sandusky is barred from the school and police are called.

September 2010: Sandusky retires from The Second Mile.

December 2010: McQueary testifies to the grand jury.

Nov. 5, 2011: Sandusky is arrested.

Nov. 9, 2011: Paterno and Spanier are fired.

... It should be acknowledged that the public reaction, and accompanying commentaries, are largely based on a grand jury’s findings of fact, also known as a grand jury presentment. What exactly is this document, and does it paint a complete, verified picture of what transpired?

The grand jury’s findings of fact represent how 23 men and women, who were convened by the Pennsylvania government to investigate potential criminal wrongdoing of Sandusky and those who purportedly enabled him, ultimately viewed the evidence and sworn testimony presented to them. In developing their findings of fact, the grand jurors were not tasked with deciding, beyond a reasonable doubt, that someone had committed a crime. Instead their duty was to investigate and simply determine if enough evidence existed for prosecutors to charge someone with a crime.

A grand jury proceeding is completely unlike a trial you see on television. You won’t, in fact, be able to see a grand jury proceeding on television, or even read media accounts of what takes place. The proceeding is conducted entirely in secret. There is no public mention of anything related to the proceeding, including the proceeding’s very existence. Grand jurors and prosecutors swear to secrecy; only persons subpoenaed to testify can reveal that they testified.

Grand jury proceedings are also different from trials in that they are unabashedly one-sided. They are run by prosecutors, who select which evidence to present and which witnesses to call to testify. Grand juries themselves can subpoena documents, but persons who may face criminal charges because of the proceedings have no right to challenge the implicating evidence, to offer exonerating evidence or to confront those who implicate them. Their attorneys are also barred from participating, though in Pennsylvania —unlike in federal grand juries— witnesses can bring attorneys to the proceeding and obtain advice from them.

Statements made by grand jury witnesses should be believed, because knowingly lying under oath to a grand jury constitutes perjury. But unlike in a trial, where lawyers for both sides can question witnesses, witnesses in grand jury proceedings are only able to answer questions asked by prosecutors. Choice of questions obviously impacts the kind of information, and depth of information, available for a factual record.

What does this mean? The findings of fact that we have all read and rightfully found repulsive offer a narrative that does not tell a complete story. That is especially true of the purported enablers of Sandusky, as they were not targets of the proceedings. Among the benefits of a trial is that from that forum we learn new facts and discover that certain assumptions are incorrect.

None of this is to say the popular view of Paterno will improve if Sandusky, or others implicated by the scandal, go to trial. In fact, a trial may raise new facts that cause us to view Paterno in a worse light, especially if he knew, or had reason to know, prior to the 2002 incident that Sandusky was a child predator. Along those lines, the circumstances of Sandusky’s retirement as a successful 55-year-old coach in 1999 are clearly suspicious. The same is true of the baffling decision to allow Sandusky to remain affiliated with the school as a professor emeritus (with access to the football's team facilities, among other resources) until as late as last week. Sandusky somehow remained a part of the Penn State family despite repeated allegations that he committed sexual abuse on campus.

A trial, however, could clarify a number of excerpts from the statement of facts that have attracted a great deal of attention over the past week. Foremost, we may learn what McQueary actually told Paterno, whose grotesquely opaque description of a boy being raped in a shower as “something of a sexual nature” suggests that Paterno either did not know all of the details or intentionally withheld them. There is a big difference —legally and morally— between not knowing and not sharing.

A trial could also allow Paterno to answer questions from his attorney under direct examination (unless he pleads the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination and thus refuses to testify). Under direct, Paterno could explain himself in ways that he was probably unable to in the grand jury proceeding, where his lawyer could not ask him questions. Paterno may volunteer additional details that were not relevant to the questions asked of him during the grand jury proceedings, but that are nonetheless meaningful for understanding his questionable choices. For example, he could describe in detail what he reported and what efforts, if any, he made to follow up.

[MORE.]

Michael McCann is a sports law professor and Sports Law Institute director at Vermont Law School and the distinguished visiting Hall of Fame Professor of Law at Mississippi College School of Law. He also serves as NBA TV's On-Air Legal Analyst. Follow him on Twitter.

Does Sandusky Have Links To Hellfire Groups?
http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2011/ ... links.html

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Why are so few people talking about the questions surrounding the victims?
How many have vanished? How many have died by suicide? Been murdered? Are in prison?

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Are all of Sandusky's alleged victims African Americans? Why is it only a few people (see here) in the African American community are the ones talking about Sandusky's alleged fetish for "black boys"? Was his choice of black young males because of Jerry Sandusky's sexual preferences or something more sinister? Was part of Sandusky's possible master plan to keep his alleged sexual assaults as quiet as possible, by taking advantage of the underlying racial, power, and macho issues?

Eight victims are noted in the Grand Jury report. How many more are there? Ten, twenty, or the estimated average of 260, noted by professionals as the number per molester?

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What will further investigations of the Sandusky scandal discover about any links to the alleged nationwide groups of pedophiles using code words like "the hook" and "Peter Pan" (see here)?

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