Monday, October 16

McQueary's Friday Night Doesn't Add Up & More

Evidence and common sense says that neither of the two versions of events that Mike McQueary gave for his activities on Friday, February 9, 2001 add up.

By
Ray Blehar

October 16, 2017: 11:40 PM EDT

On February 9, 2001, Mike McQueary was a 27 year-old graduate assistant for the Penn State University (PSU) football team who stumbled upon Jerry Sandusky and a child showering together on a Friday evening, called his father, and then reported the incident to Joe Paterno the next morning.

Those are just about the only details that have been consistent about that incident.

McQueary gave two versions regarding what he was doing at the Lasch Building that night and neither of them make sense -- even when the incorrect date is changed to the correct date. 

The Date

As memories are faulty, Mike did not recall the exact date or even the year of the incident.  In his handwritten statement to police, he wrote it was either 2001 or 2002, but was pretty sure it was 2002.


Under cross-examination on July 29, 2013 (when the correct date was well known), Mike was asked (page 38) if he was thought the incident was the Friday before Spring break because of it being a quiet time on campus.
McQueary:  Reasons to be
 be on campus don't add up.

He responded: "Yes.  That's how I remembered it. Yes."

That answer is somewhat correct.  More specifically, it was a very quiet time in the football facilities where Mike worked because Wednesday, February 7th was National Letter of Intent Day and the PSU staff routinely took time off after the hectic recruiting period ended.

This is a critical fact when evaluating Mike's versions of events -- and so are the football activities, or lack thereof, prior to Spring Break.  The football staff takes a break just like the rest of the University does.  Spring practice commenced upon the players returning from break and the 2001 Blue-White game was held on April 21st.

There was nothing in his job as a football graduate assistant that required him to be present on the campus.




Version #1:  No Rudy, No Dranov

On November 10, 2010, Pennsylvania State Trooper Scott Rossman and Office of Attorney General (OAG) Agent Anthony Sassano contacted Mike to arrange for an interview about the incident he witnessed in the PSU showers.  Mike called his father to get advice and was told not to speak with investigators until got advice from an attorney.   As such, he met with the investigators near State College High School on  that evening and advised them he would talk with them later after being advised by his attorney.

On November 22, 2010, McQueary met with the investigators in the office of his attorney, Timothy Fleming.   To be clear, Mike had nearly two weeks to consult with his father and anyone else about the incident to reconstruct the chain of events that occurred that evening.  He discussed the incident with the investigators.  At the conclusion of the interview left a report form for McQueary to fill out.  McQueary filled out the form the following morning as follows:


On the Friday before spring break in either the year 2001 or 2002, 2002 I think, at approx 10 pm in the Lasch Football Building on the Penn State campus I witnessed improper behavior by Jerry Sandusky in regards to a male juvenile. As I walked in to the staff locker room I heard rythmic [sic] slapping sounds. The locker room lights were on & I did hear the showers running [a second "running" is crossed out]. Upon my entry I turned immediately to my right to open my locker. While placing items in my locker I looked into the mirror at a 45 [degree] angle; in the reflection I could see a young boy approx. 10/11 yrs old facing a wall with Jerry Sandusky directly behind him. I did not see actual insertion. I am certain that sexual acts/the young boy being sodomized was occuring [sic]. I looked away. In a hurried/hastened state, I finished at my locker. I proceeded out of the locker room. While walking I looked directly into the shower and both the boy and Jerry Sandusky looked directly in my direction. After leaving the locker room I proceeded to my office, made a phone call to my father and then immediately left the building.

I drove to my parents house. Spoke with my father about the incident and received advise [sic]. On the next Saturday morning at roughly 8 am -- less than 12 hrs after the incident -- I alerted Coach Paterno -- my superior at PSU -- at his house in person as to what I saw!

To be clear: From the time I walked into the locker room to the time I left was maybe 1 minute -- I was hastened & a bit flustered.

I would not be able to recognize the boy. Both individuals were wet and the looks were quick -- I had not seen the boy before nor have I seen him after to my knowledge.

Again, this was statement written after being interviewed by police and consulting with an attorney.

McQueary's original version of events does not mention Dr. Jonathon Dranov being summoned by his father to provide advice about handling the incident.  This is rather hard to fathom, given that Mike seemingly consulted his father routinely during this saga.

Mike also  recalled just two looks into the shower; one (through a mirror) while putting his shoes away and the other as he was leaving.  He did not state that Sandusky and the boy were separated when he left the locker room.

These details would change one year later in the face of public backlash against him.

It has been established that there were no urgent football activities requiring attention at the time, so what was Mike doing on campus? 

He wasn't there working on academics because there would be no urgency to get academic work completed when everyone at the University is on vacation.  Moreover, he was a graduate assistant for three years and did not complete his graduate degree.

At this point, without any physical evidence such as a receipt, I am hesitant to believe he went to the locker room to put shoes away.

It is also highly unlikely that he went to the locker room because he got motivated by watching the movie, Rudy.



 Version #2:  Rudy and Dranov

A very different scenario took place in Version #2.  Mike wasn't working late -- he was slacking (?) off.

At the jury trial (page 191), he testified, "I had gone to bed early, actually laying in bed, watching the movie Rudy...you know, I went to bed around 8:30 or nine o'clock...let's get up and let's do something and get motivated."

At the December 2011 preliminary hearing (page 7), Mike testified that he was not working late on campus, but rather was home in bed watching a football movie, and "upon watching the movie, I became motivated and just wanted to get some football things done."

Rudy began at 8:05 PM and ran for 160 minutes.  The movie is rather slow from a football perspective with nothing exciting happening in the first 3/4 of the movie or for two hours.   As such, this motivational moment wouldn't have come until nearly 10:00 PM.

Interestingly enough, that  comports with his original version of when he went to the locker room and thus the following timeline would reflect the night's events.

10:00:00 PM -  Motivated by Rudy movie and scurried out of his house.
10:09:00 PM -  Entered Lasch Staff Locker Room
10:09:15 PM  - Observed Sandusky and boy showering.
10:10:00 PM - Left locker room and walked to upstairs office.
10:12:00 PM - Called father and discussed incident.
10:17:00 PM - Left PSU facilities to drove to father's home.
10:25:00 PM - Mike arrived at father's home.
10:27:00 PM - Mike went to father's bedroom, cried, and tried to explain what happened.
10:35:00 PM - John Sr. called Dr. Dranov (at Dranov's office)
11:05:00 PM - Dr. Dranov arrived at McQueary residence.
11:25:00 PM - Dr. Dranov departed after twenty minutes -- according to Mike
11:35:00 PM - Mike and John Sr. made decision to call coach Paterno.

Problems With Version #2 

First, Dr. Dranov testified at the Sandusky trial that he was called by John Sr. around 9:00 or 9:30 PM, which would be impossible under this scenario.  Even backing the timeline up by a half an hour to 45 minutes to accommodate Mike arriving at the locker room at 9:15 or 9:30 makes this impossible.

Next, at the civil trial, Dr. Dranov testified he was at McQueary's home between 9:00 and 9:15 PM which would have been impossible under either scenario.

At the Sandusky trial, Mike testified that his father called Dr. Dranov after they discussed the incident:

"He said he wanted to digest it for a minute.  He decided to call a friend and a confidante...and that's what he did."

Mike testified in December 2011, that Dranov arrived approximately one half hour after he arrived at the residence or at 10:55 PM (on the timeline).

The timeline doesn't add up and neither does Mike's new rationale for going to the campus.

Mike testified (page 8 of December 2011 preliminary) that he went to the locker room "to look at recruiting tapes, pick up some recruit tapes."  

As noted earlier, recruiting had just ended.  

At his civil trial (page 43), Mike went into considerable detail in described his duties as a graduate assistant and that he had only tangential involvement with recruiting at the direction of the recruiting coordinator and/or specific coaches.  He made no mention of watching recruiting tapes or evaluating recruits.

Specifically, Mike testified that if there was a "big recruiting weekend coming up and we had more recruits that we could handle,  you would be assigned a recruit and his family to host."

As such, what was the real purpose of Mike's trip to the Lasch building that night?   

Someone knows that answer to that question -- but this story has even bigger problems.

Bigger Problems

It took investigators approximately two months after interviewing Mike to get around to interviewing his father.

According to the Moulton Report, John Sr. was first interviewed by Sassano and Rossman on January 24, 2011 -- and that simply does not comport with any competent investigation.

In the two months after interviewing Mike, Sassano and Rossman became engaged in obtaining subpoenas for Internet Service Providers and attempting to track down individuals who were posting on blogs.  None of those leads panned out.

This alleged failure to interview John Sr. in November or December 2010 also means that the OAG and the grand jury judge relied on an uncorroborated report to subpoena PSU for documents and emails related to the 2002 (sic) shower incident and for Paterno, Schultz, and Curley to appear before a grand jury.

That's very difficult to believe.

The Moulton Report shows that Dr. Dranov wasn't interviewed until January 27, 2011.

According to that timeline, one can surmise that it was not until John McQueary Sr. talked to the police and the OAG that he "remembered" Dr. Dranov's presence that Friday night.

I'm not buying that either.

Something about that night was/is being covered up.

Maybe Mike was in no condition to talk to the authorities on Friday night because he was doing what most college students do on Friday nights (before he went to the locker room). And if it that was the case, then such a situation would have thrown everything he allegedly witnessed into question.

As was theorized here, the Friday, February 9th meeting with Dranov, John Sr. and Mike may not have occurred on February 9th.  Perhaps it occurred after Mike sobered up -- very early on Saturday morning and directly before Mike met with Joe Paterno.

So what's a few hours difference to the PA OAG if they can preserve the credibility of their key witness?

Considering that evidence shows it concocted the Rudy story as a means to correct the date it falsified (by over a year) in order to charge Curley and Schultz with Failure to Report Child Abuse -- pushing the aftermath of an incident a few hours would be small potatoes to them.

The evidence also shows that prosecutor Jonelle Eshbach was more interested in "saving her case" than in telling the truth.

Eshbach: More interested in "saving her case" that in telling the truth.

In closing, we cannot be sure what transpired on the night Mike witnessed the incident in the locker room, but we can be sure that what we have been told about that night isn't the truth.

26 comments:

  1. See https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-mishaps/201001/spilled-punch-hot-air-baloon-rides-and-enhansed-interrogation?collection=60036 and the associated articles on false memories.

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  2. It's strange that multiple sets of defense lawyers couldn't convince jurors that McQueary's testimony was unreliable, as this article easily does. Maybe the jurors' minds were already made up prior to trial.

    There doesn't even seem to be solid evidence the shower incident happened on Friday, Feb. 9th. It might have been a day or more before that.

    I wonder if the investigators even pursued other avenues to try and set the date, such as asking when and where McQueary bought his new sneakers? Maybe there was a credit card charge or canceled check for that purchase that could have been tracked down.

    Even the Rudy movie is suspect as a way to set the date because it depends on McQueary's poor memory. Even if the Rudy movie was shown on TV that night, it may have also aired on previous nights if it was a cable movie. Given McQueary's poor memory, maybe it was not a TV movie at all. Maybe he just forgot that he rented the video.

    McQueary testified that he thought he was testifying to the police when he talked with Schultz because he has seen Schultz with the police when there was a protest at the student union building. That protest occurred after Feb. 9 so McQueary's memory was wrong there too.

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    1. Defense attorneys didn't even attempt to discredit McQueary's testimony at trial. Mike's award in the whistleblower suit bolstered public perception that he was a victim in all this and attorneys risked alienating the jury by attempting to discredit him. To date, Mike has never been aggressively cross examined by anyone.

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    2. Tim,
      Ironically, the protest at the Student Union Building (HUB) took place on Blue-White weekend in 2001 -- just a few weeks after Mike's erroneous original date for the incident.

      I checked the TV Guide and Rudy was aired on Friday night, but not on any other nights that week.

      Credit cards records and phone records would go a long way in clearing this up. I'm guessing a credit card record would likely show more money was spent on booze than on sneakers that day.

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  3. Ray - When was spring break in 2001? I couldn't find a listing for that year but from 1997-2000 it was about the second week in March.

    You say "There was nothing in his [Mike McQueary's] job as a football graduate assistant that required him to be present on the campus."

    That wouldn't be true if Mike had graduate classes to attend. I wonder if the investigators ever bothered to look at his transcript to see if he had classes that semester. A transcript would be easy to obtain.

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    1. Tim,
      I found the spring break times from 2001-2003 on PSU Sports web-site and wrote about them in the blogpost re: Tony "TV Guide" Sassano.

      "To determine the dates for Spring Break, all Sassano needed to do was pull up the PSU baseball or softball press releases to identify the possible dates, which were: March 2, 2001; March 1, 2002; and March 7, 2003. He could have bought three TV Guides instead of twenty."

      The class schedules would be great to see because in some curricula there are NOT classes on Fridays.

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    2. FERPA would prevent the release of that class information.

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    3. I doubt FERPA would be an impediment in a criminal case. The defense could question McQueary about his courses in Feb. 2001 without a need for the actual transcript. They could ask his permission to see a copy of his transcript. If he refused, they could seek a subpoena.

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  4. Funny how fast both MM and John Sr. jump to...........insertion. Why hasn't Mrs. McQuerry's description and time line of that evening ever been discussed as she was there that evening to pick up the phone and knew "something was wrong". Did she go straight to bed after passing the phone to JM and leave her hysterical son that could barely verbalize alone to discuss this delicate matter with JM? If the phone records are accurate and Dr. Dranov's visit is later and shorter than previously thought, I find it hard to believe he would have left MM without at least offering a Valium or recommending a Psych eval. Oh, and agreeing to tell Joe in the morning would seem to be low on the list with MM's mental health being at risk. I am sure his mother tucked him and he wasn't sobbing as he drifted of to sleep. Surely, he said something to his mother that night and I doubt she would of said .....You can tell Joe in the morning and that would make things..........all better.

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    1. David,
      Thanks for your insightful comments.

      It is indeed interesting that Anne McQueary wasn't questioned by police or used as a corroborating witness at any of the proceedings -- especially Mike's civil proceeding.

      According to the official story line of Friday night, Mike's mother was not included in the discussion about the incident but she was told about it later.

      What I find very hard to believe is that John Sr. and Mike apparently believed that a child was being sodomized by Sandusky, knew that Sandusky had unfettered access to kids through The Second Mile, and did nothing about it. If Anne McQueary was told this version of events, then she must be either one of the most cold and callous women on the planet (to not take action).

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    2. Ray your last paragraph sums up the problem with this case from the beginning. Either three successful responsible adults were so fearful of Penn State power that they let this occur or the situation was never articulated by Mike to the point that the media and the AG wanted it to be. So they manipulated the facts into the version they wanted. That is what we are now dealing with for over five years.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. Another witness who should be able to shed light on what Mike McQueary's state of mind was at the time of the shower incident is the girl he was dating at the time. Unlike Anne McQueary, she would have no incentive to protect Mike or John so her testimony should be much more reliable. Has she ever been questioned regarding this case?

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    5. McQueary's mother, 2001 girlfriend and other relatives may have been questioned by investigators but we wouldn't know about that because the prosecution and defense decided not to call them to testify in open court. Some may have even testified at the grand jury.

      Maybe Mike's book on the case will reveal more details.

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  5. I think the "actual insertion" language came from the police. That just doesn't seem like something a regular citizen would say in a statement.

    If Mike was smelled of alcohol that would explain why his hysteria did not set off alarms for his father and Dr. Dranov. Another possibility is that Mike acted hysterically before so his father and Dranov were used to it.

    ESPN reported Mike told his players that he had been a victim of child sexual abuse so maybe that played a role. The shower incident could have triggered a flashback to his own abuse. I don't know why defense lawyers would not have asked him about that unless the judge forbade such questions. It would seem to be material if McQueary was a victim of child sexual abuse as it could indicate bias against child abusers. It could also indicate emotional upset that could have meant he was not an objective witness for his 1 or 2 second glance.

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  6. This is good work on your part again Ray. But you know it's pretty sad when an online blogger has to do the proper investigative work for Pennsylvania's corrupt law enforcement, corrupt prosecutors, corrupt judges, and their corrupt agents in the media that pose as journalists.

    Thank God for people like you that give a damn about the truth and work so hard to bring it into the light. I still just can't believe this is the same America I grew up in.

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  7. Sandusky's lawyer just filed a motion about the two new McQueary-Eshbach emails. He included the BigTrial article as Exhibit B so an online blog may be having an effect.

    http://co.centre.pa.us/centreco/media/upload/SANDUSKY%20MOTION%20TO%20REOPEN%20THE%20RECORD.pdf


    It may be too late for Sandusky's appeal because the judge announced he will release his ruling Wed. the 18th about noon. One online source says the chance of success at this stage of an appeal is about 2% so very long odds, and probably even longer for Sandusky.

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  8. The fact that Dranov's testimony seems to line up with the testimonies of Curley and Schultz leads me to consider the possibility that McQueary talked with Dranov in order to rehearse what he was going to say at the meeting with Curley and Schultz, not the meeting with Paterno.

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  9. Didn't Jerry Sandusky himself confirm the date of the shower incident? As to what McQueary was actually doing in the Lasch building, I would surmise it had nothing to do with football. I'd sooner believe he was out with a woman and possibly both were a little drunk and the two of them ended up there intending to 'shower'. Of course he would be surprised to see Jerry and a kid slapping towels and slip sliding away in there and would need to get out quickly so THEY wouldn't see her.

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    1. Sandusky said it was 2001 when the prosecution was still claiming 2002. I believe Sandusky remembered it was shortly after he was offered the UVA coaching job in Dec. 2000. I don't believe even Sandusky remembered the exact day.

      I always thought McQueary's tale of why he was on campus never rang true. If you buy new sneakers, you don't need to make a special trip to put the new sneakers in your locker when you drive there nearly every day anyway.

      It also didn't ring true that McQueary would immediately assume a man and woman were having sex when he heard 2 or 3 slapping sounds through the door. I always wondered if that locker room was a hookup spot for football groupies but I don't remember McQueary ever being asked about it.

      It also didn't ring true that McQueary would just barge in thinking a man and woman were having sex. Most people would just come back later. McQueary's prime reason for going to campus was not even the sneakers but to get "football things done."

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    2. It wouldn't surprise me if the real reason McQueary was that after hearing that Kenny Jackson had left, planned to snoop around the coaches offices to see if there were any clues to who they were looking to replace Jackson with.

      Another, less nefarious, reason for McQueary being there is that he was simply daydreaming about being the new receivers coach and simply wanted to further indulge in his daydream by actually checking out his potential "new digs".

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    3. I have heard it as well that it was Sandusky who first proposed that the shower incident was really in 2001 rather than 2002. Do you know if there is proof documenting this? That is very significant because if Jerry claimed Allan Myers as the boy, but McQueary actually witnessed Sandusky assaulting another boy who by some odd reason has never came forward and who the OAG has not been able to locate in SIX years, he would have been jumping for joy at the revelation that the OAG got the date, month, and year wrong. Instead he corrects the OAG, which only makes sense if Allan Myers really was the boy in the shower and that he was not molested by Jerry Sandusky.

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    4. It has always been a mystery why the boys from the 2000 and 2001 shower incidents never came forward. They both stood to get a minimum of $3 million, and could have gotten more if they played a little hardball.

      If it wasn't Myers in 2001, another possibility is V5, who testified at the Spanier trial. V5 originally claimed he was abused in 1998 but then settled on 2001, seemingly because it meant a bigger settlement.

      Clearly, the prosecutors wouldn't have wanted V5 to be the boy in the 2001 shower incident because all he claimed was fondling. That would have contradicted McQueary. It would have also meant V5 could not have been used as a witness against Spanier, and he was apparently the best crier.

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    5. I think if a boy claimed fondling in 2001 and his story had any possibility of being true the OAG would have jumped on it. Since McQueary had multiple versions of what he saw, any story would have contradicted him. But because V5 testified to heroically escaping Sandusky's assault attempt and McQueary stated he did see any distress on the boy, McQueary may have stopped trying to "help out" the OAG if they had tried to push that narrative.

      The only thing that does make sense is that the OAG knows damn well Allan Myers was the boy McQueary saw in the shower and the OAG also knows damn well Myers was never molested.

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    6. TREMy take on it is the McQueary never saw a boy INSIDE the shower area with Jerry. What Mike actually saw was just the head of a boy sticking out from around the corner of a wall.

      Had A.M. said that he looked around a wall when he heard a noise, that would be confirming evidence he was there that night. Unfortunately, A.M. has never provided any details that put him there. In fact, the opposite is true. When pressed for details, A.M. took himself out of the running for Victim 2.

      He did not remotely close to sketching the layout of the locker room in question. To make an anaology, this would be akin to someone coming forward to claim a "lost" Rolex wristwatch, then not being able to describe.

      Had the PSU BOT actually had a vetting process for settlements, they too would have decided that A.M. was not Victim 2.

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  10. I am still wondering why, if Randy Feathers was on the phone with Dr. Dranov in January, 2011 - and Feathers is thusly able to determine the "shower incident" date because Dranov had a medical conference syllabus from that time, why did Tony "Circle Search" Sassano feel the need to concoct the bullshit "Rudy" story?

    Don't these guys compare notes?

    And this still begs the question of why - if the OAG knew the date of Mike's "incident" as that weekend in February, and then had the PSU admins emails later on in July confirming that at least, the Admins reacted from then on to whatever story flowed from Mike - did Freeh go to the theatrics that he did about his team finding the "most critical" evidence.

    Why didn't Linda Kelly just wave these emails around at a press conference and condemn the Admins?

    Rhetorical question - I know. Freeh simply did the OAG's dirty work, because who would question a former FBI director?

    And I still can't help but wonder if Mike perhaps heard Joe complain some time back about Jerry bringing kids to campus & how that was a liability and Mike filed that away. Did Mike think that witnessing Jerry and a kid (and we still aren't positive it was actually that Friday evening) - and then scamper to Joe with that observation - ingratiate him to Joe for the Kenny Jackson opening?

    Of all the oxygen over the years given to Mike's ever evolving stories - it's never completely made sense - and the AG never really needed Mike to properly prosecute the case, assuming that's what they wanted to do in the first place.

    Which they didn't.

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