"Hack" investigator Freeh, the OAG, and Sara Ganim Covered Up DPW's & TSM's Disregard for Child Protection

DPW and The Second Mile put children in harm's way after Sandusky lost his clearance to work with children.  The OAG, Freeh, and Sara Ganim all worked to hide that fact from the public.

By
Ray Blehar

According to the trial transcripts in the Commonwealth v. Sandusky case, Jerry Sandusky was indicated for child abuse on or about 15 January 2009.  As a result, Sandusky had an "indicated" report of  child abuse on his record and did not have a clearance to work with children.  Sandusky appealed the report on February 27, 2009 and eventually withdrew the appeal.  Under the Public Welfare Code, appeals are adjudicated in 30 days, thus Sandusky should not have been interacting with children after March 27, 2009.

The trial testimony also revealed that Gerald Rosmilia, the director of Clinton County Children and Youth Services contacted TSM on 20 November 2008 to inform them of Sandusky's investigation and that Clinton County CYS was severing ties with the charity.   Also, on November 20th, Clinton County CYS psychologist, Mike Gillum contacted Central Mountain High School (CMHS) and informed them to ban Sandusky from school property while he was under investigation.  Gillum's notification conforms with Pa. 055§ 3490.53 (b) which requires protection of children while Sandusky was under investigation.  While there is evidence that protective steps were taken with regard to CMHS, no evidence exists that those steps were taken by The Second Mile (TSM).

According to two board members of TSM, Sandusky abruptly resigned from the charity in November of 2009 without providing a reason for doing so.  According to press reports, the majority of the TSM Board was in the dark about Sandusky's investigation and the charity continued to use Sandusky for fundraising past his "official" public retirement in the Fall of 2010.

However, the primary issue at hand was that TSM and DPW did not limit Sandusky's access to children after he was indicated for abuse after January 2009.  Although the charity has made various statements about Sandusky's role with the charity after the Spring of 2009, there is evidence he continued to interact with children and that the OAG, hack investigator Louis Freeh, and Sara Ganim (and other reporters) did their best to obscure that fact from the public.

Sandusky's Access to Children After Being Indicated 

It bears repeating that access to children, not facilities, is the critical access that enables child sexual abuse.  The organizations who provided Sandusky with access to children during his 14 plus years of committing abuse were TSM, CMHS, and Pennsylvania DPW.  Those three organizations had knowledge that Sandusky was indicated as a child abuser but let him continue to access children.  There is no evidence that PSU was ever told about the abuse finding in January 2009.

Spring/Summer 2009.  Victim 9, whose date of birth is 7/29/93, testified during the trial that he stayed at Sandusky's home starting in 2005 and ending in 2009, when he was 16 years of age (ref. Commonwealth v. Sandusky, 6-13-2012, pps 230-231).   He joined TSM at age 12 or 13 and remained in the organization until age 16, thus the charity did not prevent Sandusky from interacting with him after they were notified about the investigation in November 2008 or after Sandusky was indicated in January 2009.  Victim 9 also testified (page 236) that he continued to be sexually abused by Sandusky up until the age of 16, which means Sandusky was in contact with him after he was indicated for abuse.

June 26, 2009.  Sandusky quit his coaching position at Central Mountain High School, joking "I didn't want to play against State College."  While Gillum recommended Sandusky be banned immediately from CMHS on 20 November 2008, it appears that he stayed involved with the football program until the summer.

January - July 2009:  Sandusky continued contacting Aaron Fisher by telephone during this period, according to OAG Agent Anthony Sassano (page 5, November 2011 Grand Jury Presentment).

July 12-15, 2009*.  Sandusky Associates, his private company, held a football camp for children in grades 4 through 9 at PSU Behrend Campus.  See enclosed brochure here.
*requires additional information to confirm.

September 2011:  Sandusky was observed by a member of the State College media attending a Bellefonte High School football game with two children as his guests.

September 2011. Victim 9 (then 18 years old)  and a friend attended a PSU football game with Sandusky in September 2011 (Commonwealth v. Sandusky, pps. 241, 242).

These are the handful of incidents where Sandusky's interaction has been documented.  Given that Sandusky did not officially announce his retirement from TSM until September 2010, it is likely that he accessed children at various TSM fund raising events and other activities while remaining the "face" of TSM.

The OAG's Cover-Up

Aside from the notoriously false grand jury presentment that inflamed the public against PSU for allegedly enabling Sandusky's abuse and then omitted DPW and Centre County CYS's roles in the 1998 Sandusky investigation, the OAG also modified the May 18, 2012 Bill of Particulars to change the ending of time frame of abuse of Victim 9 from 2009 to December 2008.  See exhibit below.

Victim 9 testified that his abuse occurred up until age 16, which confirmed that it happened past December 2008, past when Sandusky was indicated for abuse (January 2009), and past when Sandusky lost his clearance to work with children (circa March 27, 2009).  It appears the December 2008 date was contrived by the OAG to cover-up Sandusky's access to children provided by TSM and DPW after he was indicated.

However, what is indisputable in this case is the inordinate amount of time it took for a grand jury subpoena to be issued for the TSM's records.  While every victim in this case met Sandusky through his work with TSM, the subpoena for TSM's records was not issued until January 2011 -- 25 months into the case.  After the subpoena was issued, it was reported that the records from 2000 to 2003 were missing.  The grand jury issued a contempt motion over the missing records but dropped it in October 2011.

To date, no charges have been filed against TSM.

Sara Ganim's Cover-Up

There were a number of instances in which Sara Ganim slanted her reporting away from placing any responsibility on TSM or DPW.  I analyzed one of her most biased articles here, which accused Penn State of hiding the psychology reports of John Seasock and Alycia Chambers from DPW program representative, Jerry Lauro.  The 1998 police report proved that Lauro set up the second evaluation, therefore he obviously had knowledge of the evaluation.  Also, Dr. Alycia Chambers reported she released her report (orally) to the DPW on May 7, 1998, thus PSU did not "hide" that report from Lauro.

However, where Ganim reveals her complicity in the cover-up is when comparing her earlier writings, that referenced Sandusky's retirement occurring in Fall of 2010 and her August 2012 series on TSM, where she states Sandusky was not permitted by TSM to access children after the finding of abuse in November 2008.

From the article:

On Nov. 25, 2008, Jerry Sandusky told Second Mile leader Jack Raykovitz that he had been accused of something inappropriate by a Clinton County boy.

Sandusky said the accusation involved touching, over clothing, and he insisted he was innocent.

Raykovitz, a well-known and respected child psychologist in central Pennsylvania, immediately removed Sandusky from all events involving children, and strongly urged him to stay away from children outside of charity functions, too.

For months, Sandusky told Raykovitz he was going to fight that Childline ruling. But when Sandusky dropped the appeal later in 2009, Raykovitz knew Sandusky needed to cut off all ties with The Second Mile.

If he did not resign, Raykovitz told Sandusky, he would go to the executive board members and have them do it on his behalf.

The evidence I provided earlier in this article proves it really didn't happen this way at all.  Sandusky continued to have access to Victim 9 (at a minimum) and continued to interact with children outside the charity.  By August of 2012, numerous press articles detailing Sandusky's activities had been published, some of which highlighted Sandusky's access to children after he was indicated.  And Ganim herself reported that Raykovitz and a small circle of TSM board members decided to not communicate the allegations of abuse to other members of the board.

However in Part 4 of the 5 Part Series, Ganim does some sleight of hand by using an irrelevant link that recounted the 1998 investigation (rather than the 2008 investigation) when discussing TSM's requirement for putting "safety plans" in place -- ignoring TSM's repeat offense of not putting a safety plan in place.

More from Ganim:

But in 1998, when a six-week police investigation took place on Penn State’s campus after a boy — now known as Victim 6 — and his mother told police that Jerry Sandusky hugged him during a shower.

The state Department of Welfare got involved and conducted an investigation simultaneous to the criminal one. Both ended with no finding of wrongdoing after then-District Attorney Ray Gricar decided there wasn’t enough evidence.

Regardless of how it ended, there is a state law that says that if anyone associated with a child care agency is under investigation for child abuse, the agency and the welfare department are supposed to work together to develop a written safety plan until the investigation is complete.

That never happened.

Nowhere in this series does Ganim make mention of TSM working with Clinton County CYS to put a protection plan in place as required by the PWC in 2008.   At best, she made a single, unsupported, and provably false statement that Raykovitz immediately removed him from all events involving children.

Freeh's Cover-Up

Chapter 7 of the Freeh Report contains several references to Sandusky holding camps, but truncates the years to end Sandusky's participation in them by 2008, which would support that TSM and DPW did their jobs and kept Sandusky away from children.   However, Freeh may not have been accurate in his first attempt (page 105) to truncate the end year to 2008 for the camp held at PSU Behrend.

The year 2008 is referenced with endnote 594 that stated:  "Sandusky was scheduled to conduct a camp in 2009, but his wife called the campus and cancelled the camp."

That is a rather unusual footnote because it does not reveal the source of the information, such as an interview or e-mail and the title of the person who provided this information.  However, that is a consistent practice throughout Freeh's bogus report.  The person or persons at PSU Behrend who would have known this information are the Athletic Director, Brian Streeter, or Assistant Athletic Director, Stacy Pondo (who is referenced as the contact in the ad at right).

Athletic Director Brian Streeter told GoErie.com that "After 2009 is the first we heard of it."  Later articles that followed and that didn't quote Streeter said the camps ran until 2008.  At the time this article went to print, I was awaiting confirmation via a check of billing records.

Freeh also stated (on page 108) that TSM held summer camps on the PSU campus from 1998 to 2008.  However, the IRS 990 forms for TSM ending August 31, 2009 and 2010 show that TSM paid $119,592 and $124,587, respectively,  for food and lodging to PSU for its camps. 

Clearly, those camps took place on PSU's campus in 2009 and 2010.  For the year ending August 31, 2011, TSM paid $149,690 for camp food and lodging, however it did not state where the camp took place or if Sandusky was involved.  Thus, it appears the 2008 cut-off may also have been to protect TSM from  liability for allowing Sandusky to interact with children in the event lawsuits are filed from victims for those years.

Finally, the paragraph (page 108) regarding Sandusky's participation in the Friend Program, stated that a TSM  program director last saw Sandusky participating in any TSM activities in 2008.   While this statement may be true for this unnamed program director, many other people saw Sandusky participating in TSM golf tournaments in 2010 and 2011.  Thus, the program director's knowledge appears to be trumped by the people who witnessed Sandusky at the golf tournaments.  

Conclusion

Sandusky's continued access to children after he was indicated for child abuse demonstrates how Pennsylvania's child protection system lacks an effective method to keep perpetrators like Sandusky away from children.   However, what is equally disturbing is that the former occupants of the PA OAG, Louis Freeh, and Sara Ganim (and the media) were complicit in attempting to keep this information from finding its way into the public.

Incentives?
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania avoided embarrassment and having to establish a victim's fund.
Sara Ganim got a Pulitzer Prize...and a new job at CNN.
Freeh got $8.8 million (and counting) plus free advertising for his phony investigation racket.

https://www.pennstatesunshinefund.org/donate/

Read more here: http://www.centredaily.com/2013/10/17/3842964/sandusky-victims-lawyers-request.html#storylink=cpy