Framing Paterno: Why the preliminary hearing exposed case against PSU as a fraud

By John Ziegler

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 15:31

In just the last couple of weeks here is just some of what we have learned:It is rather amazing and illuminating that so much new has happened in the last couple of weeks of the so-called “Penn State Scandal.” After all, since most of the possible punishments have already been decided and enforced (possibly permanently), you would think that we would already know the vast majority of knowledge available regarding what actually did, and did not, happen. Obviously, the fact that this is clearly not the case, proves, if nothing else, that there has been a massive and irrational rush to judgment in this story. 

• That Joe Paterno gave an interview to the attorney general’s office just two weeks before he was fired in which he directly contradicts the key “cover up” email in the Freeh Report and raises the likelihood that Freeh purposely withheld exculpatory evidence from the report.
• That the date of the so-called “janitor” episode, which Freeh used to condemn the “Penn State Football Culture,” which was supposedly late November of 2000, could apparently not have been witnessed by the now-demented janitor at that time because he did not seemingly start working there until late December of that year.
• That Mike McQueary now has yet another, at times very contradictory, version of his story and has now augmented it to include seemingly important comments from a now-deceased Joe Paterno (which he never mentioned in previous testimonies after the conversations, but before Paterno passed away).
• That the prosecution is so concerned about the real story of Victim 2 that they vigorously prevented their witness Agent Anthony Sassano from even answering whether he knew the identity of that person on two different occasions.

And yet, in the media’s closed mind, this case is already closed and, except for a couple of cherry-picked/out-of-context/alleged statements from Paterno, nothing particularly new or interesting has recently occurred.

As for the preliminary hearing in particular, contrary to highly-predictable media reaction, I actually think that it went about as well as could have been expected for the defense.

Read more