By Ray Blehar
Louis Freeh, who failed to perform due diligence in tracing the banknotes in the FIFA investigation, has likely bungled the Sandusky Sex Scandal Investigation.
Disgraced former FBI director, Louis Freeh has done it again. Screwed up another investigation.
Freeh decided it was a better option to concoct a story about a "secret file" that S-VP Gary Schultz had "concealed" in his office than it was to ditch the information so that no one would ever know the details of the first day of the 1998 investigation.
Freeh thought that if he shoved those files far into the Appendices of his report, behind the boring discussions about Sandusky's retirement and those "incriminating" e-mails that showed Joe knew everything (?), no one would care enough to interpret and transcribe the handwriting of Schultz.
Well, Louis Freeh was wrong about that. I looked at those notes and what I found was nothing less than disgusting. No, it wasn't the actions of Sandusky that disgusted me -- it was that our child welfare investigators knew about abuse and then refused to take action.
Another thing you should know about Gary Schultz's hand written notes. They are the closest thing you will get about the truth of the 1998 child abuse investigation of two pre-teen boys. Those notes were "sent up the flagpole" by Detective Ronald Schreffler to his boss Thomas Harmon who sent them to his boss, Gary Schultz.
Detective Schreffler, who I consider to be one of the most forthright persons involved in this scandal, told his boss what the mom and the two kids told him. As you are probably aware, things get filtered when the boss relays them "up the flagpole" so you won't get the whole story, but you'll get what "big boss" needs to know.
The most important thing Tom Harmon sent up to Gary Shultz was:
"Mother concerned something more. Kid took another shower last night & this am."
That fact was a possible sign child sexual abuse indicating inappropriate touching. That information was relayed to John Miller, the caseworker from Centre County CYS, who was originally investigating the case before it was taken over by Jerry Lauro, of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. Upon taking over the case, Lauro reviewed the case file of Miller.
I think that fact takes Joe Paterno and Penn State off the hook for the Sandusky Scandal.
The people paid with our tax dollars didn't get only that piece of information, but at least 13 other indicators of child sexual abuse. Upon learning of these facts, as well as knowing of a psychology report that indicated Sandusky to be exhibiting pedophile behaviors, the DPW and CYS requested a second evaluation over the objections of the local assistant district attorney and the police. This evaluation indicated Sandusky was only exhibiting behaviors typical of a football coach. At that point, DPW and CYS essentially stopped the investigation of Sandusky.
The chronology of the first day of the investigation, May 4th, 1998, are laid out below. The red flags indicating possible child abuse are in bold. By my count, it's seven.
5/4/98 5:00PM
· Woman
· 11 ½ year old son
· Nittany Gardens
· Involved in Second Mile
· Jerry picked up son & [undetermined] to FB locker rooms
· Behavior – at best inappropriate @ worst sexually inappropriate
· Police interview
o Taped
o May be [undetermined]
o By themselves, wrestled
o Gave him other clothes
o Even though wearing shorts
-2-
· Worked out on treadmill, etc
· Jerry – to take shower
· Undressed no? other shower
· 4 in here
· Shampoo
· Jerry came up behind & gave him bear hug
· Said he would squeeze his guts out – all
· Keep clothes – socks JVP’s hat
· Took home
· Mother concerned something more
· Kid took another shower last night and this am
-3-
· Mother asked how did he give hug
· Had to be genital contact because of size difference but when asked the boy quickly said no
· Friend Brendan, age 10, also at Nittany Gardens – claims same thing went on with him
· Mother also asked Brendan
· Children and Youth has been notified & [unknown] to talk to Brendan tonight
-4-
· Mother overeacting – no
· Genuinely concerned
· At min – poor judgment
· Critical issues – contact with genitals
· Assuming same experience with Brendan? – not criminal
The next set of notes are reflect the events of the night of May 4th, 1998. The red flags indicating child abuse are in bold. By my count, it's seven again. I've also noted the comments that would logically be attributed to the CYS caseworker in underlined italics.
· Tom Harmon 5/5
· re: interview with 11 ½ year old last night
· only change – added what happened in shower last night demonstrated on chair how Jerry hugged him
· hands around abdomen & down to thighs
· picked him up and held him at shower head – rinse soap out of ears
· Obsessed with Penn State football
· Concerned about getting Jerry in trouble – getting football tickets
-2-
· Kid has been seeing psychologist
· Probably emotional problems but articulate and believable
· Mother to psychologist and said she would call child abuse hotline & will generate an incident number – with Department of Welfare
· Other boy – interviewed last night
· Similar behavior
· Wrestling
· Kissed on head
-3-
· Hugging from behind in shower
· No allegation beyond that
· Kids drew diagram of shower rooms
· He initially went down to shower 3 yds [unknown] away & Jerry told him to come down
· Local child abuse people Mtg at 0900 today to decide what to do.
-4-
· Either way, caseworker felt they would interview Jerry.
· Is this the opening of Pandora’s Box? Other children?
They also knew Sandusky was interacting with a number of children at the time.
Five of those children are now known as Victims 3,4,5,6, and 7.
When discussing the CYS and DPW investigations, Freeh supressed almost all the red flags and otherwise critical information in the text of his report .
There is little doubt that Schultz's "secret file" contains the critical information that shows the state (DPW) and Centre County (CYS) investigators were aware of possible molestations and instead of investigating the case, took steps to stop the investigation.
I'm not following the logic that
ReplyDelete"I think that fact takes Joe Paterno off the hook for 1998. "
Please elaborate.
What I think Ray is pointing out here is that Detective Schreffler, Harmon, the State College cops who worked the "sting" at Victim 6's house, CYS's John Miller, DA Karen Arnold, and Dr. Chambers and her colleagues all knew of these facts in 1998. Since Jerry Lauro was updated by Det Schreffler and he interviewed victim 6's mother it seems inconceivable he did not know of her report or what Schultz knew from Harmon.
DeleteIt wasn't Schult's place to interfere with the DPW or police investigations in any way. He simply took notes when he spoke with Harmon. WE can tell by his email he passed on a very minor amount of any of this infor to even Curley and Curley is the only one mentioning any coach.
What Curley ended up knowing was that there were no criminal charges and likely that Seasock said there were no pedophile tendencies. So all Joe could possibly know is what Curley knew IF HE EVEN KNEW THAT. - So if Joe knew JS was cleared he would simply say "I knew that Jerry was investigated by police and CYS/DPW and the Attorney General's office and he was cleared so I thought what he was doing was OK by police and the agencies who are supposed to protect kids from pedophiles"
Why wouldn't he simply say that IF he knew anything.
Lauro is on record saying that he was not aware of the multiple psychological reports re : Sandusky`s behavior 1998 incident.
DeleteHis testimony, under oath, at the Dauphine Couty Courthouse on Dec. 16, 2011 states :
Interviewer : " Are you aware that a number of Psychologists were consulted during the investigation ? "
Harmon : " No, I`m not. "
Someone is lying here...Notes and e-mails between the various players indicate that he most definitely was aware of the Chambers report AND the Seasock report...Why is he saying that he is not familiar with the Chambers report ???
Lauro said he would have reversed his decision if he saw Chambers report. That's a load of crap.
DeleteLauro had everything he needed to press forward with the case when reviewed the file of John Miller. Miller's file contains at least as much detail as the information above. The info above is what Tom Harmon relayed to Schultz...so it's a watered down version.
This thing all falls on Lauro's slip shod investigation and the fact that Freeh covered for him.
Ray - It is starting to look like someone in Harrisburg was pulling the strings in the Lauro situation.
DeleteThe Freeh investigation was told NOT to interview Harmon...this would suggest that he is under investigation by the AG`s office and / or the Federal investigation.
He should also be charged with perjury, as he is straight-up lying about not knowing about the Chambers report.
Ding,ding,ding! We have a winner!
DeleteThis might be slightly off-topic Ray, but do you think Harmon knew about 2001 too. The Freeh report itself mentions that Harmon emailed Schultz about that location of the Jerry's records, obviously as per Schulz's request. I think Harmon and Schultz made a mutual decision to not pursue the manner further. Schultz did not mention notifying Harmon in his GJ testimony for two reasons 1) He was trying to protect Harmon 2) Reporting the incident to the police then influencing the police chiefs decision to not investigate would not make Schultz any less guilty that not reporting at all. My point is that all those Joe haters who insist that "the real police were not notified" could finally be shut up. Unlike Schultz, no one can make the argument that Harmon is not "The Police".
DeleteThe chronology of the 1st day of the investigation, May 4th, 1998, down to #4, is that all from Schultz's notes?
ReplyDeleteThose are Schultz's notes from the appendix of the FReeh report
DeleteThe notes appear sideways in the file in the appendix and Ray took the time to write out each note after interpreting his handwriting. SEE the notes in handwritten form HERE http://notpsu.blogspot.com/2011/12/schultzs-notes.html
Ok..If you don`t think Schultz was hiding anything, please explain why he DID NOT turn over the entire bulk of information on this incident to the Grand Jury when he ordered to do so ?
DeleteWhy did it take an Independent investigation to ferret out these notes ?
Schultz was hiding them....hoping no one would stumble across them.
Conspiracy.
Freeh is making all that up.
DeleteSchultz was unceremoniously hustled off the PSU campus and just took his personal belongings with him. He left all his files behind.
He told his secretary to load up his old files in a box and stick them in a closet.
Finally, if you're in a cover-up, you destroy evidence, not hide it where someone will find it.
Conspiracy, yes. By Freeh, the PSU BOT, and others.
Reply to Ray -- Schultz had plenty of time to turn over the notes and files during the MANY years that the Grand Jury was meeting and requesting info from Penn State.
DeleteThe AG`s office even complained that Penn State was not turning over the requested info prior to Sandusky`s arrest...that they were stonewalling.
It looks like Schultz deliberately withheld the info.
You're assuming that Schultz could even remember taking that note 13 years ago.
DeleteThis is the same Gary Schultz who said that the 2001 meeting with Paterno took place in his office.
Did you look at the time and date stamps on the e-mails from Schultz and Curley that were in Freeh Report appendix? A number of them are sent between the hours of 11PM and 2AM.
This tells me that Gary Schultz was an extremely busy executive who took a note in 1998 and stuck it in a folder and forgot about it.
Also, I would not take Corbett or Kelly's word on anything related to this case.
Corbett opened it in 2008 and his investigator couldn't develop any leads, yet he's got Sandusky interacting with 100s of kids at the Second Mile. This investigator had to be Mr. Magoo not to be able to find another victim.
The investigator also Sandusky's book "Touched" at his disposal. It was published in 2000. As it turned out, seven of Sandusky's victims are in one picture in that book.
Now, how credible is Corbett? And guess who is covering for him?
It's amazing that people like anonymous think a guy like Schultz who's job put him over 2500 employees, the entire PSU physical plant on multiple campuses, a 4.7 billion dollar budget, and 1.8 billion dollars of investments.
DeleteSo in 1998 the very first day of the 1998 inquiry Harmon calls Schultz and reads him the police report and he takes notes. 5 weeks later that inquiry concludes with no criminal or sexually inappropriate behavior.
13 years later anonymous expects this man to recall some ancient notes on an investigation that DPW and the police and DA said was nothing. I guess anonymous has a mind like a hard drive able to recall every non-event in his life. This seems to be the default position of the General Public and the media. These files were not in Schultz's possession and he had no recall of their existence because they were of no importance to him. Following the 2001 report from McQueary that he observed horsing around in the shower that Feb night and they decided that it was similar to the 1998 bearhug -- NOTHING HAPPENED FOR A DECADE!!! You do understand that don't you. A decade passed before Gary Tim or anybody outside of Corbett's AG office heard another thing about anything to do with Sandusky and the 1998 and 2001 shower incidents.
The one thing I'm obsessing over is, in a email from 2001 Spanier tells Schultz (I think it was) to get the keys from Sandusky. PSU policy only gives two entities Spanier, or The BOT the ability to grant access to PSU facilities. Spanier could do it for a short period i.e. weekend, the BOT's permission was needed for anything longer. Where did Sandusky get the keys that he used after 2001? We know it could not have been Spanier, because he was the one who ordered Schultz to take them in the first place. That only leaves the BOT.
DeleteHe had been granted emeritus status by Erickson AND his access to the facilities was granted as part of his retirement negotiations. Remember the exhibit in the Freeh report where Joe makes a hand written note which objects to them giving him access and using it to bring 2M kids into the facilities? Old Main gave him the keys!
Delete@Barry...Det Harmon was a member of the University Police at the time of the incident, not the State College Police. I do not know Schrefler's affiliation.
ReplyDeleteI know that and don't see anything here that says otherwise
DeleteI assume you must be referring to this comment above.
Delete"What I think Ray is pointing out here is that Detective Schreffler, Harmon, the State College cops who worked the "sting" at Victim 6's house, CYS's John Miller, DA Karen Arnold, and Dr. Chambers and her colleagues all knew of these facts in 1998"
Schreffler, Harmon, *see the comma? the State College cops who ran the sting (this does not suggest that Harmon was a State College cop.
"Jerry picked up son & [undetermined] to FB locker rooms."
ReplyDelete[undetermined] is "invited"
"Police interview
o May be [undetermined]"
Part of [undetermined] is "leaving out K[something] games"
"Children and Youth has been notified & [unknown] to talk to Brandon tonight"
[unknown] is "welcome"
What about the missing and dead DA Gricar. Any evidence of a tie in to all this or,did he have emotional/financial/marital problems?
ReplyDeleteIf I had to critique this document for information directly supporting suspicion of abuse - it would "bleed to death" as they say (red ink). These notes by the case worker aren't definitive by any measure. You can query and apply this as a template to ANY 11 year old in a similar situation and the result will generally be the same - doubtful. Slightly beyond circumstantial, and if true according to the case worker then you have to consider from his own notes: (1)"Behavior – at best inappropriate @ worst sexually inappropriate" Sexually inappropriate is typically not criminal. Underwear photos in catalogs have been accused of being sexually inappropriate. (2) "Kid has been seeing psychologist" Already? Or for other concerns not related to this activity? A little early for trial prep I would say. (3) "Had to be genital contact because of size difference but when asked the boy quickly said no" Sorry, but where was this confusion here? Because he 'quickly' said no? Believe every answer he's given except this one? Note to self that any answer given to anyone should be delayed otherwise they will doubt the answer. (4) "Kissed on head" Every parent/relative/acquaintance who has ever done that is now suspect? This is not even suspicious - would you prefer he struck him on the head with his fist? (5) "Local child abuse people Mtg at 0900 today to decide what to do" Like I said above - a little early for trial prep and requested meetings with organizations that tell everyone children don't lie and 1 in 2 have been or will be sexually assaulted. Is this the same affiliate organization that recommended referring young boys from broke families to Second Mile after it was observed that Mr. Sandusky was caring and affectionate towards children? Gold digging false-awareness front planting false victims would explain why no one has come forward from the first 15-20 years Second Mile was in operation. (6) "Hugging from behind in shower. No allegation beyond that" And the NCAA still got $60 Million out of your school, and now the accusers are negotiating for pay out too? This blatant public lie gets it's power from these unproven accusations - you'll never overcome this farce until the accusations against the accused are addressed and further proof is demanded, proof which doesn't exist by the way.
ReplyDeleteDuane,
ReplyDeleteYou have the first fact wrong. These are not the notes of a caseworker. They are the notes of Gary Schultz as transcribed from a conversation from the chief of police, who got them from the investigating officer. The caseworker was present for the interviews so assume that both he and the detective have much MORE information than in these notes. In fact, the transcribed interviews for each child were about 40 pages in length. Also, Dr. Alycia Chambers' psychology report provides add'l insights about Victim 6 that are quite compelling. So, please check those out as well.
Second, there is a hyperlink that will take you to stopchildabuse.org that defines possible signs of child abuse. I'm not offering an opinion in this piece. I am looking at validated research about child abuse and pointing out the evidence as backed by the research. I am not using one 11 year old as a "template" as you are suggesting.
Next, your arguments are a stretch at best, especially about relatives kissing a child on the head, when we know Sandusky was not related to the child. Rapid denials are also backed by the research as indicators. So, please check out the research.
At the end of the discussion you do make an interesting point in your assumption that Sandusky's history seems to validate the gold-digger theory. I almost bought that, put the 1998 evidence, particularly repeated showers by Victim 6, pretty much lock it up for anyone who understands the signs of possible child sexual abuse.
“Oct. 13, 1998. Schreffler, Ralston, Sloane, Gricar. Investigation going to Penn State meeting. Ray. Fran Ganter. Ron Schreffler is taking us to the football building and I will finish this memo, Sue, and either Ray will type something, handwrite something or he’ll tell me to dictate this and I’ll give you the tape when we get back. Thanks.”
ReplyDeleteSchreffler was the lead investigator in the May 1998 Sandusky complaint. Ralston was a police officer who assisted in the case.
When contacted, Sloane said he could not remember or explain why Gricar would have a meeting at the football building in October — months after the case was closed.
He also wasn’t sure if it was related to Sandusky or another case.