Saturday, January 7

Dr Dranov and the Perjury Trap

This Sunday morning I am very happy for my new friends here at BSD and PSU. The probability that the entire Victim 2 March 1, 2002 incident is much like what I've speculated in two earlier fan posts seems very close to a reality. If this is true Joe Paterno and PSU will be totally vindicated and a lot of stone throwers will be wearing their morning eggs as a facial mask.
It's a vindication to see this article because it appears to match my speculation about the March 1, 2002 incident with Victim 2 and Mike McQueary. Some details are different but these revelations are close to my speculation.
IF THIS IS TRUE - it may totally vindicate JOE PATERNO, TIM CURLEY and Gary Schultz along with PSU and the former President Spanier while making the Board of Trustees and the prosecutors look like total fools. I find that to be quite a dose of poetic justice
UPDATES at the bottom of this post
We all know Mike McQueary saw something on March 1, 2002 and then called his father and went to his house to consult with him. We did not know this:
There, Dr. Jonathan Dranov, a family friend and colleague of McQueary’s father, sat with the then 28-year-old graduate assistant and listened to his very first account of what he had seen.
According to a source with knowledge of Dranov’s testimony before the grand jury, it went like this:
McQueary heard "sex sounds" and the shower running, and a young boy stuck his head around the corner of the shower stall, peering at McQueary as an adult arm reached around his waist and pulled him back out of view. Seconds later, Sandusky left the shower in a towel.
If this is accurate McQueary did not actually see any sex act. He assumed from the slapping sounds and Sandusky's arm grabbing the boy that a sex act was happening. The point I've been trying to make is that my guess would be that McQueary could not have been certain of what he was seeing.
That account is different than the summary of his grand jury testimony in the grand jury presentment and another hand written account obtained by the Patriot News In both of those accounts, McQueary says he witnessed Sandusky sodomizing a boy as he stood with his hands against a shower wall. McQueary says the pair turned and looked at him before he left.
However, Dranov told grand jurors that he asked McQueary three times if he saw anything sexual, and three times McQueary said no, according to the source. Because of that response, the source says, Dranov told McQueary that he should talk to his boss, head football coach Joe Paterno, rather than police.
Paterno said graphic detail, such as rape, was never mentioned to him, just horsing around and something of a sexual nature.
Mike McQueary’s account is the reason that perjury charges were filed against two ousted Penn State officials. Both said they were told only about horseplay that made McQueary uncomfortable, while the Grand Jury Report infers that McQueary testified he told them explicit details about a rape. Friday Tim Curley and VP Gary Schultz face a preliminary hearing on charges of perjury and failure to report a crime. The case against them is dependent on the premise that McQueary’s testimony is more credible than theirs. It is possible that McQueary was simply trying to be helpful to prosecutors and did exactly as he was asked by the states attorney - maybe as a way to atone for some perceived failure in 2002 or guilt he did not help convict Sandusky at that time.
Attorneys for Curley and Schultz issued this statement in response to Dranov’s testimony:
"We have not seen the grand jury transcript, so it would be imprudent to comment on its content. But, if this information is true, and we believe it is, it would be powerful, exculpatory evidence, and the charges against our clients should be dismissed."
Since charges were filed Nov. 4, several variations of McQueary’s story have come out publicly.His grand jury testimony says he heard slapping noises and saw a boy being sodomized by Sandusky. His hand-written statement to police says,
"I did not see insertion. I am certain that sexual acts like the young boy being sodomized was occurring." He says the whole incident lasted about a minute.
Since he did not see insertion he can easily be impeached in cross-examination because his 'certainty' is based on what he was hearing and the arm of Sandusky grabbing the boy.
In an email he sent to friends following the firing of Joe Paterno, he says "I made sure it stopped," something not mentioned in the grand jury testimony or police statement. And now Dranov’s testimony describes a new scenario.
About two months after the incident McQueary describes in March 2002, Dranov and McQueary’s father, John, both physicians, had an unrelated meeting scheduled at Penn State with Gary Schultz, Dranov told the grand jury, according to the source. Curious about how the story ended, Dranov inquired about what ever happened to Sandusky. Schultz told him then-university President Graham Spanier had met with Sandusky.
Spanier testified that he had signed off on a decision to ban Sandusky from bringing children to the locker rooms in the future; however, Spanier, Curley and Schultz all deny they were ever informed a sexual assault occurred that night.
Sandusky's attorney says the child was surfing in the shower — horsing around — and never saw McQueary come into the locker room. He also says Sandusky was contacted by Curley, told that someone felt uncomfortable about what they’d seen, and Sandusky gave the name and phone number of the boy to Curley to help clear up the situation. The grand jury report points out that no effort was made to contact the boy.
These conflicting versions of McQueary's testimony and the uncertainty about what he said to Paterno, Curley or Schultz may make it impossible for the prosecution to convict Curley or Schultz for Perjury.
If there is no Victim 2 identified or if he says he was not sexually molested the entire moral outrage against PSU and Paterno and the administrators becomes what I've always expected it to be. A total travesty of justice and cause for a backlash of major proportions against the prosecution, the Governor, the Board of Trustees, ESPN and many outer media muckrakers, and all of those who have publicly railed against JoePa and PSU.
In no way does this get Sandusky off the hook for the remainder of the allegations and charges but it does pull the pin on the Victim 2 charges that are the ones that got Penn State and Paterno involved in this mess. Given the existence of these alternate public views of the events it would seem very unlikely that the Victim 2 charges and the perjury counts will ever go to trial.
This is good news for my new good friends at Penn State and Coach Paterno and as an outsider I couldn't be more pleased for you that the grim reaper may soon be gone from your door and ESPN + the media will be feasting on black feathered friends baked in humble pie.
I hope you don't mind my offering this as an outsider so no one can say it's just Penn Staters standing up for their school and coach since I've been on this Perjury Trap idea for the past 10 days in other posts.
UPDATE

Sara Ganim ON CNN

You can see Sara Ganim on CNN at the link above talking about the subject of this weblog
Walter Uhler New, Previously Suppressed Grand Jury Testimony and Joe Paterno This article is the best most complete coverage of the Jackals and Jackasses in the Media and the best timeline of the McQueary statements.
and if you want to be disgusted read


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