Say it ain't so, Joe

Or roll the dice and hope the judge declares a mistrial due to attorney misrepresentation.

 

So it looks like Paterno sold his $600k house to his wife in July for $1. This does not appear to have been for estate planning purposes. Looks for all the world like he knew what was coming and wanted to shield his assets from civil liability suits. What a piece of shit.

 

Okay, I've tried to refrain from commenting in this thread, because my view is in the minority, but I want to give my perspective, for what it's worth. Sorry in advance for the length.

I was a successful four-year athlete (not football) at Penn State. Since I graduated, more than a decade ago, I have given a lot of my time and money to the athletic department, as I was a beneficiary of the the kind acts of those athletes that went before me and also gave back. I stay in touch with a lot of my old teammates and friends, going to reunions every so many years. My wife and I have season tickets and spend a large portion of our autumn visiting friends in State College and going to games. We occasionally even go to away games.

I don't really know any of the people involved in this mess. My team used to allow Sue Paterno to use our athletic facilities, gladly making room for her to work out along-side us. I met her numerous times. She left bowls of candy for us on Halloween and Easter. She was always supportive and seemed to genuinely be a wonderful person. I only met Joe Paterno once, when he came to congratulate our head coach on a milestone win. He seemed nice. He stayed to shake hands with everyone, gave autographs, etc. I've heard numerous other stories of friend's interactions with him, and they are all positive (I've heard rumors that he can be a dick, at times, but I think anyone has to have a little of that to reach the heights that he has reached). We all know what he and Sue have done for the university (fundraising and donating millions for the library, the religious center, etc.). I don't know Mike McQueary, but I know a lot of people from State College that grew up with him and his family. By all accounts, he is one of the good guys, from a good family. There were people on my team from State College that grew up in State College and used to play with the Sandusky kids, often at the Sandusky house, which was always full of kids. They have been torn up over this. I've listened to them go from denial, to anger to depressed, etc. They and their families never had any hint that Sandusky was capable of doing these things. There are A LOT of people up there that have given time and money to the Second Mile. There are a LOT of people who knew Sandusky well, and are having a hard time coming to grips with this.

Anyway, for better or worse, I love and support my alma mater, its students, its athletes, its teachers and its coaches. Watching this situation unfold has been sad, on a number of levels. I have been genuinely depressed about it. I went to the game on Saturday, and shed tears along with 110,000 Penn State and Nebraska fans, and millions more watching it on TV.

Maybe it is this perspective (which I'm not saying is any better or worse than anyone else's perspective) that has led me to repeatedly support Penn State, it's students, it's student-athletes, it's coaches, and even Joe Paterno and Mike McQueary. I truly feel that, due to the subject matter (child abuse/child rape), there has been a rush to judgment. I also think people have lost sight of the fact that there are real people involved here, and their lives are being ruined. I think they deserve some due process, regardless of the alleged crime, before they are lynched.

A couple of things I'd like to inject into the debate:

1. I'm a lawyer, in Pennsylvania. The grand jury presentment is a very one-sided summary, by it's very nature worded in such a way to justify the filing of criminal charges. Grand juries are relatively (I'd even say very) rare in Pennsylvania. This particular presentment is a biased (and I'm not using that term in a bad way) summary of DAYS of testimony over a three year period. People should be very careful about making assumptions about the actions and inactions of various individuals involved based on this document. And this is the only thing we really have, which is why the whole rush to judgment is so alarming to me. For example:

2. Joe Paterno. Everyone agrees that Joe Paterno did what was LEGALLY required of him. He has not been charged with failure to report and the AG has no plans to charge him. There is no question that he was supposed to alert his boss, Curley, of an allegation of child abuse and there is no question that he did that (this puts aside the whole question of whether PA's relatively weak mandatory reporting requirements actually apply to any of the people in this instance, but I'll leave that to Curley's and Shultz's attorneys to hash out). The real issue that Paterno has been lambasted for is a supposed moral failure in not "doing more." But there is NOTHING in the grand jury presentment that says he didn't "do more." People assume that he didn't, because, in fact, nothing ever really did happend to Sandusky (other than Curley and Shultz told him not to bring kids into the facilities). Maybe Paterno did follow up and was assured by Curley that there was an investigation. Maybe he was later assured that the police had investigated it and determined that they couldn't bring charges (interviewed the victim and he denied it, parents didn't want police to pursue it, etc.). Who knows? I don't assume any of this happened, but you shouldn't just assume Paterno did nothing, and you don't know what he was told yet. All of that will come out over time, but a rush to judgment didn't benefit anyone, and if the BoT got in wrong, that's a terrible thing given all of the good that Paterno has done in his life.

3. Mike McQueary. I'm tired of all of the internet tough guys saying "I would have stepped in an helped that kid and kicked Sandusky's ass." Whatever dude. There are a lot of professionals who have come out over the last few days and said you are almost certainly wrong. We are wired to avoid confrontation. "Flight" from such a situation is absolutely a normal, human reaction. See, for instance, this article, in which an FBI psychological profiler and expert in child crimes says that 9 times out of 10, people would run from that horrific scene (<a class="postlink" href="http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/7237700/in-penn-state-child-sexual-abuse-scandal-there-no-easy-answers-assistant-mike-mcqueary" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/ ... e-mcqueary</a>). Also, keep in mind that McQueary grew up with the Sandusky's and knew Jerry Sandusky since he was a little kid. You can't put yourself in his shoes, and you can't judge him for what he did that day. McQueary is getting a lot of flack, again, for his "moral" failing in not doing more. Again, he lived up to his legal obligations. Nobody who knows what they are talking about disputes that. Again, we don't know the full story of what did or did not happen after the incident. We don't know what he was or was not told. We don't know whether he followed up or not.

4. Shultz (I don't feel like looking up his first name, which I've forgotten). People seem to forget that he was the long-time administrator at Penn State who oversaw the Police Department which, at Penn State, is an actual, real life, gun-toting, just-like-any-other-police-department, police department (trust me, I know). Now, I'm not one of the people trying to claim he was the equivalent of a "police commissioner," but the chief of the department did report directly to him. It would be reasonable for Paterno and Curley to assume that, if you have a meeting with him to report a serious crime on campus, he will talk to the police chief about it. I'm sure they spoke frequently.

5. Paterno and Sandusky. A lot of people have assumed that Paterno's long-time "head" assistant and he are and were best buddies. That's false. They hated each other. People also assume that Joe must have had daily interactions with Sandusky because Sandusky had office privileges after he retired in 1999 and still used the weight facilites. That's also false. Sandusky's office privileges were not in the same building as the football offices, and I guarantee Paterno rarely sets foot in the weight facilities (in fact, given NCAA rules, I would guess that Paterno avoids supervising weight training). So, it's not like this guy was there as a daily reminder to Paterno that something was amiss.

6. The media. ESPN and some of the other major outlets have been pretty shameful in their coverage, from exaggerating the extent of the "riots" to really fanning the flames of a number of other issues (whether the game should have been cancelled, whether the season should be forfeited, whether the NCAA should get involved). I'm not saying that they shouldn't focus on this story. It's a huge story and it should be the focus of good journalists for weeks, months and maybe even years, but there is a line between reporting on the issues and driving the narrative, and I think that line has been crossed here.

7. Governor Corbett. He and the head of the State Police were the first to say Patero et. al. had a moral obligation to do more, and people assumed he he knew all the details, since the investigation started when he was AG. The guy is a political hack and a complete dick and should be disregarded. He assigned one Trooper to the investigation while he was AG (the current AG has publicly criticized him). As governor, he approved a $3 million to build a new facility for the Second Mile charity (after knowing about Sandusky allegations). He has no moral authority to comment on this situation, as I see it.

8. Paterno (part II). There is NO EVIDENCE to support the notion that Paterno knew anything about the 1998 investigation. In fact, everyone involved with any knowledge of the facts has said that there is no reason that Paterno would have any knowledge. It is weird to watch a lot of journalists who have accused Paterno of being merely a figurehead for the last decade who now say he must have known, because he is the all-knowing head-of-everthing at Penn State.

Anyway, I'm not here to minimize what happened. We are all, of course, outraged that these terrible crimes occurred. And Penn State must, of course, along with the relevant authorities, do a full investigation and get to the bottom of how this could happen at Penn State. If anybody took active steps to cover this up, they should be held fully accountable, criminally and civilly. It becomes more nuanced, at least from where I'm coming from, after that. Could Paterno and McQueary have done more? In hindsight, I'm sure everyone wishes they would have done more, but that doesn't mean that, at the time, it was unreasonable of them to assume that they did everything they could, depending on what they each knew and what they had been told was being done by others. If, in fact, all McQueary and Paterno did was pass it up the chain of demand and assumed others would handle it, then their reputations will rightly be severely tarnished. I'm just not convinced that it served anyone to rush to judgment.

My two cents (they are over-sized pennies). Back into my shell.

 

I agree he's an asshole, but what'd you expect him to do?

Can't knock him for taking the smart, legal route.

 

OK, I might be an idiot.

Why would Joe Pa have to sell his house to his wife? Isn't it her house too? Or are laws different in PA?

 

Move over Penn State, shit just got real:

http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/...ing-porn-site-code-to-p?urn=highschool-wp8728

 

Look, I get where you're coming from. You went to Penn State. I know others who went to Penn State. I've been to Big Ten games against Penn State, and my experience has been that there is one simple reality of Penn State:

Joe Paterno is just below God on the hierarchy of life in College Station.

It is easy to say the guy was just a football coach, but there are a few undeniable facts:

1) Paterno was told that something was very, VERY wrong with Sandusky, and that it was happening in HIS locker room. He was given this information first hand from one of his assistants who witnessed it and, one would assume (since he brought McQueary on as a grad assistant and kept him on as a coach) someone that JoePa trusted.

2) Paterno was the single most respected man on the Penn State Campus, in College Station, in that county, and one of the most respected men in the STATE of Pennsylvania.

3) Paterno had undeniable power on that campus. If Paterno had told the chief of police "This guy is diddling little boys in my locker room, I want him investigated and I want to know what is happening in my house," the Chief of Police for the Penn State police department would have absolutely investigated it fully.

4) Paterno and others knew Sandusky was doing some incredibly inappropriate shit. They KNEW (and even Sandusky has admitted) Sandusky was showering with ten year olds. That, alone, should have been enough to warrant a police investigation. By the way, from what I've read, Sandusky showering with young kids made him at least guilty of exposing himself to underage children, which is illegal. If a drunk guy can be arrested for indecent exposure for pissing near a public park, how is it NOT illegal to be a grown man and shower with young children?

The question becomes "What is enough? How much should JoePa have done?" I haven't seen a single account or record of Paterno reporting it to the police (or McQueary reporting it to the police, for that matter). If either man had reported it to the police, we'd know by now. Why? Because usually when someone reports child abuse to the police, the police keep records of that. One would assume Paterno and McQueary wouldn't want to be eviscerated in the media like they are, so they would come forward and say "Yes, I reported it to the police, they took down a report, here it is." They'd offer up that tangible proof that they went to the police, and the police weren't able to do anything. Instead, both men have been shockingly silent, except for a leaked McQueary email.

I think Paterno and McQueary would be fighting back if they had a leg to stand on. Paterno has a legacy to defend, and McQueary wants to keep his job. Both men have a lot at stake to be just sitting back and taking the punishment they're getting in the media. If either if them had a shred of proof that they'd done what they should have done (filed a formal police report), it would've come to light by now, and people could focus on the real issue here, that children got raped.

Finally, if you're right about Paterno hating Sandusky, why in the hell wouldn't Paterno do everything in his power to take down a guy he hated and he knew to be doing incredibly inappropriate stuff with little kids? I'll tell you why, plain and simple: protect his legacy, protect Penn State.

At the end of the day, the university administrators put everything, from Paterno's legacy to the university itself, above those kids. They had bigger priorities than finding out the truth, and that is just beyond fucked up.

 

And Syracuse enters the competition.

 

Ok, I know this is probably coincidence . . . but I just read the Sports Illustrated article about all this. I probably missed it before, but that was the first I had heard about the former DA. When the allegations were made against Sandusky in 1998, the DA that decided to not prosecute the case mysteriously disappeared in 2005. A body has never been found, but a few months after he went missing, they found his laptop and a hard drive in the river. He was declared dead earlier this year. Odd, but not related?

 

Also, on his home (I think it was home, but was one of his computers) they found searches for how to destroy a computer hard drive.

 

Do not be surprised whatsoever if this "opens the floodgates" so to speak. Just about ANY position respected by the public is the perfect place for a creep to hide in plain site. Look at our friends at the Catholic church. What is it now, nearly SIX THOUSAND reported cases of sexual abuse just in North America alone?

If this is the tip of the molestation, don't be shocked. You can be horrified, but not shocked. Teaches, coaches, priests, Scout Masters, camp councillors, any place an adult can be an authority/role model to children is subject to this.

 

They found one of his hard drives in a river, and one of the best data recovery companies in the country was unable to get anything off of it. Whether he was murdered, or ran off to another country, something on that computer was very dangerous.

 

It gets more sticky by the minute. It requires some real Erin Brokovich-style shit. I might just have to throw on a tube top and do some snooping around.

 

If the DA had such sensitive information about Sandusky and didn't file charges, he probably got what he deserved.

DA's have a lot of enemies though, and we don't know what was on the PC. It couldve been organized crime for all we know.

 

Something that had crossed my mind about the whole not coming forward to the police thing...

What if Sandusky or one of the other guys had some major dirt on Paterno or something? I can't imagine what would be worse than fucking some kids in a locker room shower, but so far, the overwhelming impression I get is that personal reputation supersedes victimization.

Not saying it's right, but isn't it possible that Paterno didn't come forward more because a skeleton in his closet that Sandusky might have known about could have ruined him as well?