Penn State would rather football than justice for child rape

[Anguirus]

Hear hear. Andrew Sullivan said something very incisive on this week's Real Time about the issue:- Joe Paterno was the head of a cult. And the thing about cults is that someone is going to get buggered, and no one is going to tell. That's what happens in the Catholic Church, and thats what happened here.

Which just makes Sullivan an incisive hypocrite, really.

[Tsyroc]

The Big Ten removed Paterno's name from the Big Ten Championship trophy.

Joe Paterno's name off Big Ten trophy

[FSTargetDrone]

This is just getting silly now:

Judge Who Set No Bail for Penn State Sex Abuse Suspect Volunteered for Him

By COLLEEN CURRY and KEVIN DOLAK
Nov. 14 ,2011

The judge who let Jerry Sandusky return home without paying any bail and without an ankle monitor after being arrested on 40 counts of child sexual assault charges was a volunteer at Sandusky's charity, The Second Mile.

Sandusky turned himself in to District Judge Leslie Dutchcot's office on Nov. 5, after a 23-page grand jury presentment detailing the allegations against Sandusky was accidentally posted online on Nov. 4, according to the attorney general's office.

Despite prosecutors' request for $500,000 bail and an ankle monitor to be placed on Sandusky, Dutchcot ordered Sandusky freed on $100,000 unsecured bail, only to be paid if Sandusky failed to show up for court.

The Second Mile charity is listed as one of a handful of organizations Dutchcot volunteers for in a biography on her law firm's website.

The Patriot News reported today that Dutchchot only volunteered a few times in 2008 and 2009, after Sandusky had stopped participating in the Second Mile, according to a source.

Dutchcot told ABC News today that she could not comment on any pending case going through the court system.

Christopher Mallios, an attorney with AEquitas, part of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, said that having unsecured bail is extremely unusual for a defendent charged with a high number of serious crimes.

"The fact that it's unsecured at all, we are dealing with pretty serious crimes. If the allegations were just involving one victim, it would be unusual for a defendant to get unsecured bail. But with multiple possible victims and ongoing investigations and out of state investigations, I'm shocked," Mallios said.

Mallios said that in his work in the Philadelphia District Attorney's office there was always concern over whether a defendenant who had a position of authority within the community or financial means would receive preferential treatment.

"You know, we don't have two courthouses, one for the rich and one for the poor, or one for white people and one for black people. This just seems out of proportion for the crimes," he said.

Second Mile, Penn State Execs Out After Sandusky Scandal

Authorities are now investigating how many people had heard that Sandusky had assaulted boys or had behaved inappropriately with them and didn't tell police. The list is getting long, starting with former Penn State coach Joe Paterno, an assistant coach who witnessed an alleged rape, the former president of the university, two top officials now charged with perjury and failure to report sex abuse.

In addition, there were staff on the Penn State police force, the state Department of Public Welfare, the district attorney, and staff The Second Mile, Sandusky's charity for at risk youth.

Today, the executive director of the Second Mile, Jack Raykovitz, resigned from the organization amid a flurry of questions about whether the group ignored sex abuse allegations against Sandusky and allowed him to continue working with and preying on young boys.

According to an earlier statement by Raykovitz, the organization was notified by Penn State officials in 2002 about an incident in which assistant coach Mike McQueary saw Sandusky allegedly raping a boy in the showers on campus. Raykovitz said he was told only that an employee was "uncomfortable" seeing Sandusky in the shower with a boy.

Raykovitz did not notify police, and Sandusky continued to have contact with Second Mile children until 2008, when he notified the board that he was being investigated and stopped working with the organizations.

Raykovitz was also reportedly informed that Sandusky had been banned from a local high school because of inappropriate behavior with children, according to court documents.

Patricia Coble, a now former The Second Mile fundraising volunteer who worked for the organization for the past 10 years, said that when she heard the news of Sandusky's arrest she felt like she was punched in the stomach.

"I do absolutely think that Jerry Sandusky started this foundation with the intent of having children readily available for his needs," Coble said. "To work for a foundation that is nothing but a front for child abuse? No, they should be held accountable."

Besides Raykovitz, a lawyer who worked with the Second Mile and Penn State resigned last week. Many honorary board members, including Hall of Fame baseball player Cal Ripken Jr., have distanced themselves from the organization.

David Woodle, the current vice chairman of the board of directors for Second Mile, will now take over day-to-day operations, according to a statement released today.

At Penn State, the university president, two top officials, head coach Joe Paterno, and McQueary have all been fired or placed on leave for their roles in the scandal.

Law enforcement sources told ABC News the Sandusky case "has generated a strong public response," while sources have said the case "has generated multiple leads" and "information from the public" that has required state police to commit additional investigative resources.

As the investigation of sexual assault charges widens, at least one alleged victim has now hired an attorney to explore a civil lawsuit.

Pennsylvania attorney Ben Andreozzi told ABC News he has been retained by one of Sandusky's alleged victims to explore a civil lawsuit against not only against the former coach, but anyone who may have not reported the alleged attacks against his client. That could include a number of officials and staff at Penn State University and the Second Mile.

As the investigation unfolds into the charges that Sandusky assaulted eight boys over 15 years, it is still unclear how many victims will come forward. While he criticized police, school officials and even the whistleblower that witnessed one of Sandusky's alleged assaults, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said that he thinks that more victims will come forward.

"When the word gets out, when people understand that authorities are actually doing something about this, that they may be believed, then more people come forward," Corbett said on "Fox News Sunday." "If I had to speculate I wouldn't be surprised if we had more victims come forward."

"We would have expected law enforcement to be involved much sooner," he added. Mike McQueary, the coaching assistant who testified that he saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in a campus shower almost a decade ago, "did not in my opinion meet a moral obligation" in reporting the abuse, the governor added.

McQueary, who the university has put on leave, met the legal "minimum obligation" after he reported the incident to his superiors. For many, this represents part of the problem -- that state law doesn't require all people to report child abuse to police.

"Pennsylvania's law is in need of repair," Wes Oliver, associate professor at Widener University School of Law, told ABC News. "Pennsylvania's law requires someone who learns through the course of his or her employer that a child is being abused that person go to their supervisor -- all the way up to the head of the organization."

Speaking on "Good Morning America" Monday, newly appointed Penn State University President Rodney Erickson said that the university is committed to the victims of the crime and raising awareness of child sexual abuse.

"We understand there will be lawsuits filed. We're prepared to do the right thing for all the victims. We will do everything we can do … We're going to engage in a wide range of programming that will raise the issue of child sex abuse, to make this a national issue," Erickson said.

Since the scandal broke last Saturday, Sandusky's home in State College, Pa. has been vandalized, although the man whose alleged crimes led to the dismissal of beloved head coach Joe Paterno last week is free to roam the streets of his town on $100,000 bail -- granted by a judge who has connections to the The Second Mile organization. Sandusky is also still collecting a Penn State pension.

According to Oliver, Penn State has responsibility in the case against Sandusky, particularly if officials and police knew the extent of Sandusky's alleged crimes.

"[Penn State] has a lot of liability," Oliver told ABC News. "Because they knew they had a predator on their hands, and they did nothing to stop it."

There are now six separate investigations occurring -- including one by the state's Attorney General, who is soliciting new victims via telephone hotline that asks for any additional information to be reported.

According to Gov. Corbett, state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have proposed changes to strengthen the state's sex assault laws, and he said these laws could be changed as early as this year.

Even if this judge volunteered a few times after Sandusky left the organization, isn't her deciding the man's bail still a conflict of interest?

I wonder if this Second Mile organization will just be shut down. It's clearly been tainted (and one can't but help think that the only reason it exists at all was to allow Sandusky free access to at-risk kids) and I don't see how it can continue.

[FSTargetDrone]

Incidentally, Sandusky gave a telephone interview to Bob Costas:

NEW YORK -- A former Penn State football assistant coach charged with sexually abusing eight boys in a scandal that has rocked the university said Monday that there was no abuse and that any activities in a campus shower with a boy were just horseplay, not molestation.

In a telephone interview Monday night on NBC News' "Rock Center," Bob Costas asked Jerry Sandusky if he's a pedophile and Sandusky responded, "No."

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported on its website late Monday that close to 10 additional suspected victims have come forward to authorities since Sandusky's arrest, according to people close to the investigation. The paper said police were working to confirm the new allegations.

Sandusky, once considered veteran coach Joe Paterno's heir apparent, was arrested more than a week ago and is charged with sexually abusing eight boys, some on Penn State property, over a 15-year span.

"I am innocent of those charges," the 67-year-old Sandusky said. "... 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."

Asked whether he was sexually attracted to underaged boys, he said "Sexually attracted, no. I enjoy young people, I love to be around them, but, no, I'm not sexually attracted to young boys."

Asked if there was anything he had done wrong, Sandusky said, "I shouldn't have showered with those kids."

Athletic director Tim Curley and Penn State vice president Gary Schultz are charged with perjury but maintain their innocence. Paterno and president Graham Spanier were ousted from their jobs for not doing enough after Sandusky was accused of assaulting a young boy in the showers of the campus football complex in 2002. Paterno is not the target of any legal investigation, but he has conceded he should have done more. Spanier, who remains a tenured member of the faculty, has said he would have reported a crime if he'd suspected one had been committed.

The interview with Costas was Sandusky's first public comment on the charges. He had previously maintained his innocence through his attorney, Joe Amendola.

A spokesman for Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly declined to comment on the interview, citing the active investigation.

Sandusky's remarks came the same night that Amendola, told CNN that his client was just behaving like "a jock."

"Jerry Sandusky is a big overgrown kid," Amendola said. "He's a jock, and for anybody who's ever played sports, you get showers after you work out."

Wide receivers coach Mike McQueary told a grand jury that in March 2001 when he was a graduate assistant, he saw Sandusky sodomizing a boy about 10 years old in a shower at the Nittany Lions' practice center. McQueary did not go to police but instead told Paterno, Curley and Schultz, although it is unclear how detailed a description he gave. Schultz, in turn, notified Spanier.

However, a source familiar with the state investigation told ESPN's Tom Rinaldi that McQueary stopped the alleged 2002 sexual assault.

NBC quoted portions from an email McQueary sent to former teammates in which he said, "... the truth is not out there fully... I didn't just turn and run... I made sure it stopped..."

Sandusky told NBC that only "horseplay" was involved.

"We were showering and horsing around, and he actually turned all the showers on and was actually sliding across the floor, and we were, as I recall, possibly like snapping a towel -- horseplay," he said.

Amendola accused the attorney general's office of having "thrown everything they can throw up against the wall." He said some of the allegations, such as putting a hand on a boy's knee, do not constitute criminal conduct and other cases include no direct complaint by the boy.

"They have other people who are saying they saw something, but they don't have actual people saying, 'This is what Jerry did to me,' " Amendola said. "We're working to find those people, and when the time comes, and if we are able to do that, we think this whole case will change dramatically."

The Associated Press has made several efforts to reach Sandusky by phone and through Amendola, but messages haven't been returned. The AP also knocked on Sandusky's door and left messages at least three times over the past week.

When Sandusky retired in 1999, at just 55, he cited his desire to devote more time to The Second Mile, a charity he founded in 1977 to help at-risk kids. According to the grand jury report, however, Sandusky was a sexual predator who used the charity and his Penn State connections to prey on young boys.

Though he was not particularly close with Paterno, he remained a familiar sight around the Penn State football complex. He was given an office in the East Area Locker building, across the street from the football building, as part of his retirement package, and would take Second Mile kids around the football facilities.

Sandusky said Paterno never asked him about his behavior or what he might have done.

The Sandusky interview came on the day when it was announced the president of The Second Mile had resigned. Jack Raykovitz, a practicing psychologist who had led the group for 28 years, said he hoped his resignation, accepted Sunday, would help restore faith in the group's mission. The Second Mile also announced it had hired Philadelphia's longtime district attorney as its new general counsel.

Separately, the Big Ten has decided to take Paterno's name off its championship trophy. League commissioner Jim Delany said that it is "inappropriate" to keep Paterno's name on the trophy that will be awarded Dec. 3 to the winner of the conference's first title game.

The trophy had been named the Stagg-Paterno Championship Trophy. Paterno had more wins, 409, than any other major college coach while football pioneer Amos Alonzo Stagg won 319 games in 57 years at the University of Chicago.

The trophy will now be called the Stagg Championship Trophy.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

There are no good reasons any adult should ever be engaging in "horseplay" in a shower/locker room environment with a minor, especially an unrelated one. I can't believe this clown is even admitting to any of this.

There is a video with parts of the interview at the link.

[Alferd Packer]

There are no good reasons any adult should ever be engaging in "horseplay" in a shower/locker room environment with a minor, especially an unrelated one. I can't believe this clown is even admitting to any of this.

I'm guessing that his lawyers advised him to do so. They probably realize that there is no way for Sandusky to reasonably deny that he spent time naked with little boys, so they will have him say that he was only engaged in "horseplay," not violent sexual assault. It won't work, but it's probably the only move they have.

[LaCroix]

I agree. That's the 'I know now, in hindsight, was an unbelievable naive idiot, but I never did that!' defence. 'Horseplay' with a minor is something damning, but every conviction coming from it will be a slap on the wrist in comparison to rape.

[Patrick Degan]

Hmm... seems ol'Joe transferred sole ownership of the family home to his wife for a buck back in July:

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Joe Paterno transferred full ownership of his house to his wife, Sue, for $1 in July, less than four months before a sexual abuse scandal engulfed his Penn State football program and the university.

Documents filed in Centre County, Pa., show that on July 21, Paterno’s house near campus was turned over to “Suzanne P. Paterno, trustee” for a dollar plus “love and affection.” The couple had previously held joint ownership of the house, which they bought in 1969 for $58,000.

According to documents filed with the county, the house’s fair-market value was listed at $594,484.40. Wick Sollers, a lawyer for Paterno, said in an e-mail that the Paternos had been engaged in a “multiyear estate planning program,” and the transfer “was simply one element of that plan.” He said it had nothing to do with the scandal.

Paterno, who was fired as the football coach at the university last week, has been judged harshly by many for failing to take more aggressive action when he learned of a suspected sexual assault of a child by one of his former top assistants.

Some legal experts, in trying to gauge the legal exposure of the university and its top officials to lawsuits brought by suspected victims of the assistant, Jerry Sandusky, have theorized that Paterno could be a target of civil actions. On Nov. 5, Sandusky, Penn State’s former defensive coordinator, was charged with 40 counts related to the reported sexual abuse of eight boys over 15 years. Paterno, 84, was among those called to give testimony before a grand jury during the investigation, which began in 2009.

Experts in estate planning and tax law, in interviews, cautioned that it would be hard to determine the Paternos’ motivation simply from the available documents. It appears the family house had been the subject of years of complex and confusing transactions.

Lawrence A. Frolik, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes in elder law, said that he had “never heard” of a husband selling his share of a house for $1 to his spouse for tax or government assistance purposes.

“I can’t see any tax advantages,” Frolik said. “If someone told me that, my reaction would be, ‘Are they hoping to shield assets in case if there’s personal liability?’ ” He added, “It sounds like an attempt to avoid personal liability in having assets in his wife’s name.”

Two lawyers examined the available documents in recent days. Neither wanted to be identified because they were not directly involved in the case or the property transaction. One of the experts said it appeared to be an explicit effort to financially shield Joe Paterno. The other regarded the July transaction, at least on its face, as benign.

Last Wednesday, the university’s board of trustees fired Paterno and Graham B. Spanier, the university’s president.

In 2002, Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant in the football program, told Paterno that he had seen Sandusky with a boy in the football building’s showers. How explicit McQueary was in describing what he saw is in dispute. But according to state prosecutors, Paterno testified under oath that McQueary had told him that he had seen Sandusky doing something of a sexual nature to a roughly 10-year-old boy.

Paterno did not report the incident to the police or encourage McQueary to make such a report. Instead, he passed along the allegation the next day to the university’s athletic department and one other senior administrator.

On the day he was fired last week, Paterno said he and his wife were praying for the victims, described the events as a tragedy and admitted that he wished he had done more in 2002.

“Coach Paterno wants to tell his side of the story and answer questions, and I am hopeful he will be able to do so down the road,” said Sollers, Paterno’s lawyer.

The lawyer whose name is attached to the latest matter involving the couple’s house is David C. Pohland of Cassidy, Kotjarapoglus & Pohland of Greensburg, Pa. Pohland did not return a telephone message on Tuesday. The maiden name of Sue Paterno, who is 13 years younger than her husband, is Pohland. It was uncertain if there was any relation between her and the lawyer.

[Patrick Degan]

Wow, talk about saying nothing of substance. I wouldn't wipe my ass with The New York Times.

Wow, talk about putting forth a completely content-free "rebuttal".

[Simon_Jester]

D, it posts a fact (the sale of the house for one dollar), then goes on to post interpretations of the fact. The identity of the people listing the interpretations is not relevant, and you can get in actual trouble for defamation if you just randomly go around saying people have committed crimes in the New York Times, so there's a higher obligation to get your shit straight than on a random Internet forum. Lawyers who are not involved in a case nearly always want to avoid being identified and avoid making statements that could entangle them in the case. It's a professionalism thing, and a "not getting sued" thing.

So your argument is pointless.


Anyway, that aside, is there any evidence Paterno saw a shitstorm coming and actually did do this to avoid the risk of losing his house in a lawsuit? This is not a rhetorical question- what information could he have had at the time that would lead him to do this?

[Vympel]

Which just makes Sullivan an incisive hypocrite, really.

Why?

[Patrick Degan]

Shut the fuck up, idiot. Why the hell do you even post?

Try taking your own advice, asswipe. So far, your "contributions" to this thread have amounted to pathetic attempts to whitewash Paterno and handwave away the fact of the old fuck evading his moral responsibilities and hiding behind the letter of the rulebook to do so. As the article Thanas cited in page one of this thread stated:

Paterno and the others believed Sandusky was enough of a threat to children in 2002 to ban him from having youth sports camps on the Penn State campus or from bringing children to the school's football facilities. Apparently, they just didn't believe Sandusky was enough of a threat to call police about their concerns.

After informing Curley and Schultz of the allegations, Paterno apparently never even bothered to ask why nothing was done. Because of his status as an iconic coach on a football-crazed campus, Paterno commanded attention and could have demanded an investigation at any time.

Instead, Paterno and the others did nothing.

For nearly a decade after graduate assistant Mike McQueary allegedly witnessed Sandusky subjecting a 10-year-old boy to anal intercourse, Sandusky had free reign of Penn State's football facilities. According to published reports, Sandusky worked out in Penn State's weight room as late as last week.

McQueary, who is now the team's wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator, is still part of the Nittany Lions' staff. McQueary, who grew up in State College, Pa., and played football at Penn State, has yet to say why he didn't do more when he discovered Sandusky with the young boy in the shower.

But in the end, that's what Joe Paterno did. Nothing.

There is no excuse for Paterno tolerating the presence at Penn State of a man witnessed to have been buggering a ten-year old, for eight years after the incident. The fact that the state law didn't require every person who knows of child rape or abuse to report it to the police in no way excuses his failure to do so, especially being in a position to be acting in loco parentis, which makes him responsible for seeing to the safety of students and minors on campus. Instead, Sandusky was quietly retired after Paterno informed him he would not be succeeding him as head coach of the football team but nonetheless Paterno continued his friendship with Sandusky and never bothered to find out if Sandusky was involved in any other incidents with children or what ever became of the investigation Curley and Schultz said was going to proceed, but didn't. Paterno looked the other way.

You have no argument.

What was it you said earlier in this thread? That "the worst he did, and it's not even clear it happened this way yet, is failed to go above and beyond to personally follow through" and "He did take some minimal steps - he promptly reported what he knew up the chain of command. Now, maybe he should have went outside to the police too. But, failing to do that doesn't mean he's a morally bankrupt coward who covered something up. It just means he's not perfect. He did do something, he did go to a greater authority with what he knew"? Uh uh, Bright-Eyes, not good enough. Nowhere near good enough. As The Sporting News quotes police investigator Frank Noonan:

At one point during the attorney general press conference, police investigator Frank Noonan stood at the podium and spoke slowly and clearly, emotion hanging on his every word. He was speaking to potential victims who hadn’t come forward for fear of retribution, and explaining that investigators would “protect” them. He also spoke to anyone with information about these criminal acts. He took a deep breath and said words that must be haunting Joe Paterno to this very moment.

“If you’re an adult, and you have information,” Noonan said, “you have a moral obligation to come forward.”

Resorting to legalisms doesn't erase the moral dimension of Paterno's failures and it doesn't erase the evident elevation of the legacy of the university and his own reputation over his moral obligation to use his position to ensure that Mike McQueary's allegations were followed up with a full investigation. Again, you have no argument.

And as for your little handwaving exercise about Paterno's transfer of ownership of the family home, the timing argues against you as well. The grand jury began investigating the Sandusky allegations back in January. Now unless Joe Paterno is completely senile or has had no contact with attorneys in all that time, he had to know that the very real possibility of his being named in multiple lawsuits against Penn State, its board, and all responsible on-campus associates of Jerry Sandusky exists, which makes the ownership transfer shade far more towards an act of shielding assets from liability in future civil action.

No, Destructionator, it is YOU who should shut the fuck up and crawl back into whatever hole you slithered out of to shit on this thread. You've contributed nothing of value to the discussion and I expect your reply will just be more spammy bullshit instead of an actual rebuttal. So do rant away, but make it brief so that at least you don't bore us to death.

[Terralthra]

And as for your little handwaving exercise about Paterno's transfer of ownership of the family home, the timing argues against you as well. The grand jury began investigating the Sandusky allegations back in January. Now unless Joe Paterno is completely senile or has had no contact with attorneys in all that time, he had to know that the very real possibility of his being named in multiple lawsuits against Penn State, its board, and all responsible on-campus associates of Jerry Sandusky exists, which makes the ownership transfer shade far more towards an act of shielding assets from liability in future civil action.

Grand juries in Pennsylvania (and most other states where they are regularly used, along with Federal grand juries) deliberate in secret. If a juror, court official, or lawyer told Paterno about the deliberation or testimony, they'd be committing a felony.

Pennsylvania Code, US Code.

[Patrick Degan]

It wouldn't be necessary for the grand jury to tell Paterno about anything for him or his lawyer to start considering the possibility of civil action connected with the scandal that had been kept secret in Happy Valley all these years. More of a case of seeing a train wreck coming from a mile away.

[Terralthra]

It wouldn't be necessary for the grand jury to tell Paterno about anything for him or his lawyer to start considering the possibility of civil action connected with the scandal that had been kept secret in Happy Valley all these years. More of a case of seeing a train wreck coming from a mile away.

True, but it does put the lie to the idea of immediate causation. If he knew about the allegations when told about Sandusky by McQueary in 2002, why wait nearly 9 years to transfer ownership of valuable assets? He informed his superiors. By the logic that he could "see the train wreck coming a mile away", why wait so long to shield assets?A grand jury could have been impaneled at his superiors' request in 2002. He could have divested the house the next day. The proposed reason (that he did it to shield liability once the grand jury was impaneled and hearing testimony) requires evidence that the grand jury's required secrecy broke, which no one has provided.

[Anguirus]

Which just makes Sullivan an incisive hypocrite, really.

Why?

Because he's an apologist for the Catholic Church. Of late he has made several wholly inadequate attempts to reconcile his Catholicism with his lifestyle (condemned by the CC of course) and his acceptance of the ultimate authority of Catholicism with the fact that it's a corrupt institution that facilitates child rape.

Of course his criticism of the Penn State culture is spot-on, that's the funny thing. We all have our blind spots!

[Patrick Degan]

It wouldn't be necessary for the grand jury to tell Paterno about anything for him or his lawyer to start considering the possibility of civil action connected with the scandal that had been kept secret in Happy Valley all these years. More of a case of seeing a train wreck coming from a mile away.

True, but it does put the lie to the idea of immediate causation. If he knew about the allegations when told about Sandusky by McQueary in 2002, why wait nearly 9 years to transfer ownership of valuable assets? He informed his superiors. By the logic that he could "see the train wreck coming a mile away", why wait so long to shield assets? A grand jury could have been impaneled immediately if his superiors had gone to the authorities. He could have divested the house the next day. The proposed reason (that he did it to shield liability once the grand jury was impaneled and hearing testimony) requires evidence that the grand jury's required secrecy broke, which no one has provided.

In this case, the causation would not stem from the nine years that Paterno knew of Sandusky's buggering the child but the event of his being called to testify before the grand jury, which would point out to all but the dimmest that the whole scandal was about to erupt in public and that lawsuits by very angry parents were now a distinct possibility. Paterno would have thought nothing of the matter for as long as it seemed safely buried, but after having to talk about it to a grand jury, that wasn't going to be so for very much longer.

[Vympel]

Because he's an apologist for the Catholic Church.

Apologist or not, in that statement, he mentioned the Catholic Church. Its not something that I tacked on. So its not like he is blind to it.

[Stravo]

In this article it has come to light that Paterno transfered his home from joint ownership to sole ownership by his wife. This is a classic move to try and protect valuable assets in anticipation of litigation. It happened 4 months before the scandal broke. While not proving anything it does raise questions about how much Paterno knew and suspected if you believe the intent is that he is trying to shield assets. His lawyer says it is an estate planning move but many estate planning experts say it doesn't really make any sense for any tax purposes they can think of.

[Patrick Degan]

Are you just not bothering to read ANY of the news articles posted in this thread or anywhere, DXIII? Paterno did nothing other than inform Curley but then did not follow up with any questions of his own. The only thing that happened was a token inquiry by Curley and the university police, Sandusky had to hand in the keys to the football stadium locker room, and Second Mile was "informed". But Sandusky continued on in his position with Second Mile and was still allowed on the Penn State campus right up to 2010 when he retired from day-to-day operations with the charity.

And yes, "not good enough" equals "morally bankrupt coward", especially in this case. Joe Paterno had opportunity and the means —and the position of status in Penn State— to ensure that the locker room incident was properly investigated by the real police, not the glorified hall monitors who call themselves the campus police, and he never bothered with any follow-up for eight years. The first real time Sandusky faced any heat was when a teenager finally went to the Clinton County Police in 2009.

That was seven whole years that Jerry Sandusky was allowed to keep preying on young boys, because Joe Paterno did only what the university rulebook required of him and nothing more.

Jesus Fucking Cthulhu, I can't believe anybody as stupid as you are is presuming to debate this subject when you can't even be arsed to get yourself acquainted with the basic facts. What are you even doing here?!

[Kanastrous]

The vast gap in nature between returning a lost credit card (and not going to law enforcement/not following up) and witnessing the forcible rape of a child (and not going to law enforcement/not following up) renders the comparison kind of ridiculous.

[weemadando]

Also the fact that you're still in contact with the rapist and can tell that there's be no action on your report from authorities...

[Kanastrous]

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The State College police chief said Wednesday that former Penn State graduate assistant Mike McQueary never reported allegations of child sex abuse against Jerry Sandusky to the department.

"Absolutely not," State College Police Chief Tom King told NBC News when asked if McQueary had ever come to them with allegations concerning Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator for the Penn State football team.

"We don't have any records of him coming to us," King said.

McQueary, now an assistant football coach, wrote in a Nov. 8 email to a friend that he stopped an alleged sexual assault by Sandusky on a 10-year-old boy in 2002 and discussed it with police afterward.

"I did stop it, not physically ... but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room ... I did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police .... no one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds ... trust me," he wrote.

The contents of the email were reported Tuesday by The Patriot-News, The Associated Press and other media outlets.

Pennsylvania State Police would not comment on whether McQueary spoke with them after the 2002 incident, citing an ongoing investigation.

The university also has its own police force. Penn State administrators said they were looking into whether McQueary contacted campus police.

McQueary's statements in the email appear to be at odds with a grand jury report that states that he saw Sandusky sexually assault a young boy in a shower at Penn State but never told law enforcement.

The summary of the testimony to jurors says McQueary witnessed the act, then left the locker room to call his father. He talked to head football coach Joe Paterno the next morning, and 10 days later told former athletic director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz, who oversaw campus police, the indictment against Sandusky said.

Sandusky is charged with abusing eight boys, some on campus, over the span of 15 years. He told NBC's Rock Center on Monday that he is not a pedophile but should not have showered with boys.

Paterno, who has been fired, has not been charged with any crime, and state prosecutors have said he is not a target. Curley and Schultz are accused of breaking the law by not going to police but maintain their innocence.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that close to 10 additional suspected victims have come forward to the authorities since the arrest of Sandusky on Nov. 5.

Maria Finn, spokeswoman for Pennsylvania State Police, told NBC on Wednesday that the numbers reported by the Times and others "are wrong." She did not elaborate.

Finn said phone calls continue to come in to a police tip line.

A new out-of-county judge has been assigned to preside over Sandusky's preliminary hearing on Dec. 7. The move came after media reports said the Centre County District Court judge who freed Sandusky on $100,000 unrestricted bond pending trial, Leslie Dutchcot, volunteered with Sandusky's Second Mile charity and may have benefited from a fundraiser organized by a Second Mile official.

Judge Robert E. Scott, a senior judge of Westmoreland County, has been assigned to hear the the case. He has no known connections with Pennsylvania State University or the Second Mile charity, state court officials said Wednesday.

Sandusky met many of his alleged victims through Second Charity, court documents say.

Meanwhile, an Associated Press analysis of state public pension records shows Paterno's long service at the university theoretically puts him in line for a pension of more than $500,000 a year.

Paterno's pension records obtained Tuesday from the State Employees' Retirement System credit him with more than 60 years in the system. The formula used to determine benefits makes him eligible for a pension equal to 100 percent of the average of his three highest-salary years.

His pay rose from $541,000 to $568,000 over the past three full calendar years.

When Paterno retires, he will have to make a set of choices to determine his pension, including whether to designate a survivor to receive benefits after he dies and whether to obtain a one-time, lump-sum payment of his own contributions.

State Employees' Retirement System spokeswoman Pamela Hile said Internal Revenue Code and Retirement Code benefit limits may also apply, so the agency does not issue estimated pension benefits ahead of time. There also is a long-service supplement that could boost Paterno to 110 percent of his final average salary.

A 2006 report on Pennsylvania state pensions said the largest pension at that time within SERS was $254,000, being collected by a Penn State surgery professor who had withdrawn a $554,000 lump sum.

Separately, The New York Times reported Tuesday night that Paterno transferred full ownership of his house to his wife, Sue, for $1 in July. The couple had previously held joint ownership of the house. Paterno's attorney Wick Sollers told the paper in an e-mail that the transfer had nothing to do with the scandal but was part of an ongoing "multiyear estate planning program."

Paterno, 84, lost his job as head football coach last week.

The retirement system also confirmed Tuesday that Sandusky collects a $59,000 annual pension and withdrew $148,000 upon retirement.

NBC News, The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this story.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45321304/ns ... sQ6AnLvh8E

Getting tough to keep the various lies straight, without a program.

[Kanastrous]

Seeing a broken pipe on your drive and not calling it in is no kind of simile at all; it's not as though more pipes are suddenly placed at increased risk of breakage because you decided not to report the one you saw (not to mention that, barring vandalism, no crime was committed that -calls- for a report). Whereas if you have eyewitness knowledge that a given individual rapes children, by failing to make -every- legitimate effort to remove him from circulation you place additional children at risk. Come to think of it, even if a broken pipe over -here- does increase the risk of a broken pipe over -there-, so what? The idea that conduit maintenance is relevant to protecting children from rape is ridiculous.

The 'how far' question is entirely dependent upon the act at issue. Suggesting that the same principle is at work in choosing whether or not to report a busted pipe, and whether or not to report criminal sexual assault against a child suggests an insensitivity to the magnitude of damage possibly resulting from child rape. Or a distinctly odd assignment of huge importance to municipal water pressure. Either way, it doesn't fly.

I'm constantly struck by what is to me the weird, abhorrent, and basically incomprehensible idea that there is any single course of action, at all, beside forceful intervention and immediate police involvement, that's appropriate to the situation. It's very simple: there are no excuses. An eyewitness to rape who declines to file a police report is a wrongdoer. If they make that choice out of fear for their position, then they are a wrongdoer and a coward.

[Kanastrous]

When you report a serious crime, you're not making a one minute phone call. You're committing yourself to extensive questioning, by the police for their report and later on, by the lawyers. You might have to go to court about it months later and say it to the accused's face.

None of which impresses me as particularly onerous, considering that we're talking about taking someone out of circulation after one has witnessed them committing rape with one's own eyes.

When you report a serious crime and you're wrong about what happened, you're not wasting fifteen minutes of a city plumber's time. You're quite possibly ruining a guy's life with the accusation alone.

If the accusation is based upon my having seen him commit the act, that's a risk I would be prepared to take.

And, finally, a pipe is an inanimate object. They sometimes break; shit happens. It's nobody's fault. An accused rapist is a real person, in this case, somebody he had known for years, and he's alleging that he is a monster.

I don't think this is a proper employment of the word alleged. Witnessing an event one's self is not an allegation.

That is a very serious accusation, that brings with it commitment and consequences. But, similar to the broken pipe, if you don't do it, maybe someone else will.

If I were to observe you choking on something (or substitute your being in distress and need of immediate help, in whatever way you find works better), and walked away figuring hey, no obligation to employ the Heimlich on -my- part, someone else will likely handle it would I be acting in a responsible or even moral manner?

Let them lead the way dealing with the follow up. Similar to the lost credit card, passing it off to the nearest authority figure, even if suboptimal, feels like you made a difference, even if all you reallly did is make it someone else's problem so you can walk away.

'Suboptimal' doesn't seem like an adequate word to cover I just saw the guy raping a kid, but I'm not going to bother interfering or involving the -one- organization constituted to deal with things like dealing with child-rapists.

Now, I'm not saying this was necessarily the moral decision. Obviously, the only moral decision here would have been to murder the alleged perpetrator immediately, to ensure that he doesn't anally rape any more innocent little boys.

I doubt that the law would allow for killing him at the time, unless one could persuasively argue that the life of the child involved was in immediate danger and killing the rapist was the only available method for saving that child's life. I'm not sure it would be morally justifiable outside the law, either, without the whole 'immediate danger' angle.

But, if you try to relate to the people involved, maybe you can understand why they'd make a particular decision.

Not really. At least, not in any way that doesn't naturally lead to absolute contempt for the people involved.

I've never been in a position just like Paterno, and I hope I never am. But, I can understand why he might not have all the information, and why he'd be content to pass the buck and consider it done.

Beyond I saw the guy raping a little boy with my own eyes exactly what additional information do you think you would require?

You can call them morally bankrupt assholes.

Can, and have.

[Havok]

Glad to see this thread got better.

Just saw the report that McQuarry told his friend and others that he stopped what was happening and made reports to both State College and campus police. Both of whom adamantly deny any such reports were made.

How come McQuarry's version of events seems to be the only one that isn't being backed up by anyone else? Have we come to the point now that Sandusky, Paterno, Schultz, Curely, Penn State The Second Mile and State College are all in cahoots?

I'm starting to think that my theory that McQuarry sanitized what he saw to Paterno at the behest of his father, and then after a week, to Schultz and Curley may hold more water.

Still too many questions.