ReutersWith Week 1 of the Jerry Sandusky trial officially in the books, the defense will begin calling witnesses Monday as it attempts to persuade the jury to acquit a man accused of over 50 counts of child-sex abuse.
Anyone following the trial, though, realizes how difficult that will be. Sandusky’s attorney, Joe Amendola, was borderline befuddled at times this week by the testimonies from alleged victims; his best defense was attempting to discredit the witnesses during cross-examination. The first four days of the trial swung emphatically in favor of the prosecution.
Sandusky is entitled to the due process of the law and innocent until proven guilty, but most would ponder why it took this long for him to be tried given the timeline of the allegations against him. When the scandal broke open last November, fingers instantly pointed to a line of individuals within Penn State who failed to do more in a situation that calls for more action.
But as recent reports have suggested, Sandusky’s long-time immunity may be attributed to a cover-up rather than a failure to “do the right thing.” NBC News reported Monday that former PSU president Graham Spanier exchanged emails with then-VP Gary Schultz in 2001 regarding what would be “humane” for Sandusky. A day later, a Pittsburgh-based news outlet reported Schultz had a “secret file” of allegations against Sandusky.:
Speaking to the Associated Press, a PSU trustee opined that, perhaps, the Sandusky scandal was indeed a cover-up:
Keith Masser, a Penn State trustee, said in an interview that he initially thought the scandal was about a failure of administrative oversight of the football program. Now he suspects it goes deeper.
When the board of trustees ousted Spanier on Nov. 9, four days after Sandusky’s arrest, it was “because we didn’t have confidence in his ability to lead us through this crisis,” Masser said. “We had no idea (at the time) he would be involved in a cover-up.”
Masser stressed he was speaking for himself and not the board at large, and said he wants to be careful not to draw premature conclusions. But he said it now appears like “top administration officials and top athletic officials were involved in making the decision to not inform the proper authorities.”
There is a discernible difference between failing to do the right thing and blatantly doing the wrong thing, but what’s done is unfortunately done. The fact — and the tragedy — remains that there are many people, both inside and outside of Penn State, who had numerous opportunities to listen to their gut… to take accusations seriously… to follow through…
And didn’t.
Hello. The truth about this Penn State University cover up and this assistant coach’s conduct over decades is not good. Not good at all. Now, if you will, think of the Catholic church and the Pope. Now think of Catholic Cardinals and Bishops. Now think of Catholic priests. Think of decades of conduct and cover up. Not good. Not good at all.
JOHN LONGENECKER
The fact — and the tragedy — remains that there are many people, both inside and outside of Penn State, who had numerous opportunities to listen to their gut… to take accusations seriously… to follow through…
And didn’t.
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Actually, that’s only a “fact” if you take everything McQuery says as “fact”. You remember McQuery right? The guy that has told at least five different versions of what he saw and did that night?
Look, the fact that a grown man is in a shower naked with a kid not his own might not be illegal but it should be, but let’s not kid ourselves. You only care about this case as it results to victim 2, do you know him, he’s the one that never testified yet he’s the reason you and Taylor actually care about this case: because he’s the “victim” that brought down Joe.
You don’t say?
It’s brutally obvious to anybody not wearing blue shaded glasses that it was a cover up.
The whole school is a joke.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks that this whole sordid mess with Sandusky is just the tip of the iceberg.
As I posted elsewhere, I suspect that the “Second Mile” charity was either used as or was from the beginning a cover for some serious political corruption, such as kickbacks, bribes, embezzlement, and so forth. There was an awful lot of money contributed to the charity by top politicos and officials, more than enough to raise suspicions as to what the true nature of those funds–and hence the charity they went to–was. I have a feeling that Sandusky took full advantage of this to gain access to disadvantaged boys, and that he was immune from prosecution (or even much scrutiny) because he could easily rat out the contributors and have them as his cellmates at the penitentiary.
The trial of Jerry Sandusky will be over soon; the investigation the other principals in the case, though, will continue for years.
Oh, so here comes Halo, the guy with all the “contacts” that used to come on this site to tell everyone what a scumbag McQuery is. Now, apparently that scumbags word is law.
Why must every child rape article anywhere draw comparisons to the Catholic Church? Of the Millions of priests in the world, how many actually prey on children? What about youth ministers across all faiths? I am not denying that it doesn’t go on but it is a small number and it is not isolated in the Catholic Church alone. There also are educational professionals who do this. Why are they never mentioned? Oh yeah, people don’t hate them because of Van Halen (hot for teacher).
In simple terms: This is a whole mess in which if everyone involved one way or another does not participate to wash each other’s back without dropping the soap, no pun intended, then the whole thruth will come out which could be equivalent to Armaggedon. Mr. Patterno left right in time to avoid having to go thru worse grief. RIP.
Gee, no fing sh!t. Duh!
Yep, no shite. Deep and dark secrets always find the light…appropriately many will be destroyed by this.
Just another attempt to get Joe off the hook. He is the one to blame. He should’ve went straight to the state police and not the “cover up squad”.
No wonder they kept that old “lap dog” around for ever. Wasn’t because he could coach or be a leader of men.
And to think there are hundreds of thousands PSU sheep who worship this spineless wonder. Sad.
@ndnut…the reason the Catholic church is always mentioned is because the parallels between the cases are very similar. Don’t take it personally. Yes, there are sorry people who occupy all sorts of jobs and religious beliefs, but to compare this fiasco to the one the church is enduring is completely appropriate.
What many people are not considering is that Joe Pa was never taken to trial. He died. That ends what we are able to do. We will never know what he did or did not do. I for one do not care. God knows, and God will take care of it. No one can try a dead man so let it go.
to showers…..It is sad when people worship other people, rather that person be Joe Pa or Joe Blow. There are a few people I think are really good people, however, noone should be worshiped.
People should be trying to get Sandusky off the streets, instead of worrying about a dead man.
to ndnut: When a person of another faith rapes a child, they go on trial and get put in jail. When a catholic of the church rapes a child they get transfered to another perish. Get the difference?
And the cover up more than likely included the participation of Joe Paterno. Mike Kryzewski’s self righteousness not withstanding.
Well, it looks like Penn State will continue to be placed under a microscope and all things bad will be brought out into the public for review – not a bad thing in my mind.
This could easily have been ANY university.
I have found over the years, that every time I took a short cut to a problem to resolve it I ended up being brought back to the things I by-passed and had to deal with them.
There will be good things going forward resulting from this intense scrutiny of Penn State.
All university institutions need to check themselves.
@tuckfexas- is that you making noises after dropping the soap? Duh!
showerswithsandusky says:
Just another attempt to get Joe off the hook. He is the one to blame.
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Your view of this thing is far too narrow. Sandusky is the monster, and yes, Paterno is culpable. But many more than “one” are to blame for Sandusky’s reign of terror. Like dcroz, I think this scandal goes much deeper than anyone has yet realized.
Deb: You are right. I would not be surprised to find out that many people knew and covered it up long before Paterno was told. Like I said before this is not a one night deal. It has gone on for years. It would not be a hugh surprise to find out even Paterno knew for years before we heard he was told. After all Sandusky is in his 60es. He didn’t become a menace over night.
Adults just decided that Penn St. was much more important than any of these youngsters.
I just pray that if anything like this is going on somewhere else, adults will act like adults.
A countrys most precious commodity is its children. They are the future, not Penn St. or any other university, in and of itself.
I do feel real sorrow for the fans of Penn St. I also hope I never hear a cover up like this with WV or Alabama. There are many people like Sandusky, but there need not be a cover up. How on earth was it humane to keep it hidden?
@ndnut — if an apple is “only” 2% poison, are you going to eat it?
There may be a lot of decent Catholic priests out there, but there were many that were not. And some of those who did not participate in the horrific abuse of children conspired to cover it up. The abuse was bad enough in itself … the cover-ups allowed it to continue for years and years, making it that much worse. They have forever damaged the reputation of the Catholic church, regardless of how many good people are involved with the church.
And as gorilladunk said, the cases are similar. There was sexual child abuse, and there was (apparently) a cover-up that allowed it to continue.
Sandusky and anyone involved in a cover-up have badly tarnished the reputation of Penn State.
Catholic Church is like the Mafia check the Vatican Bank and how and where its money comes from then get back to me.They have nothing but blind followers.Talk about cover-up and Mafia type crime.
“Like dcroz, I think this scandal goes much deeper than anyone has yet realized.”
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@Deb
Sorry Deb, but if you’re just now realizing that Sandusky’s child abuse was just the tip of the iceberg, then you are very late to the party. Many people including myself have suspected that Sandusky was possibly running a child prostitution ring out of Second Mile. Many people have thought that the upper levels of PSU’s administration actively covered up this crime to protect PSU’s reputation. Many people have suspected that at least a few of the BoT knew about all this, and purposely did nothing. And many people suspect that Ray Gricar’s disappearance is most likely linked to his own Sandusky investigation.
Sandusky’s crimes can no longer be hidden. But the cover up concerning how far all this went, and who knew about it, continues to this day.
So many act like catching dusky was catching the last guy. Hang him and move on to the next one.
It would be good to remember that all and only people sin, not entities or organizations.
Strong in right principle organizations survive through it’s people’s sin. Right in principle also always wins over attack.
Now they are thinking about proving Sandusky is not all there. Just a couple bricks short.
What else is new? Just doesn’t make any difference. He knew what he was doing was wrong and that is all that matters.No matter what, they can not let him go. He will just keep on doing it if they do.
I figure Penn St. will survive, but not until people stop taking up for the ones who caused this mess. It wasn’t just Sandusky. He should have been stopped long ago.
a cover-up??? Oh, do you think so, Doctor?
Hello. The guy did all those awful things to the kids, the University covered it all up, the Defense atty is someone I do not want to clutter my mind thing about. Here is the simple truth in this unfortunate universe. He did it to those kids.
Question: did he do it?
Answered: yes he did
That’s what exists in the land of truth.
In this Universe of ours.
In this world.
Others can talk about evidence, and courts, and prosecutors, and judges, and fair trials, and jurors, and criminal justice, and mistaken dates, and missing memories, on and on and on, and the words the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and guilty, and innocent, and mistrial, and deliberations…
In the world: he did it
In the universe: he did it
JOHN LONGENECKER
@deadeye
I also agree with dcroz and Deb. This does run much deeper.
By the way, I didn’t read where Deb said she was just now realizing this.