Sunday, February 17

Freeh's Desperate Arguments About the A7 Report

Louis Freeh's arguments in rebutting the A7 report appear to be the act of a desperate man who will stop at nothing to defend his reputation and the indefensible findings of the Freeh Report.   

By
Ray Blehar
February 17, 2019, 10:07 AM EST

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh's statement regarding the leaked report by the Penn State University's (PSU) alumni-elected trustees (A7) contains arguments that fabricate information, dishonestly characterize or otherwise ignore the evidence on the record, and suspend the law and logic in order to desperately defend his unearned reputation and the dubious findings of the Freeh Report.

Freeh desperation is also demonstrated by the frequency of ad hominem attacks on those who dare to criticize his report or its findings. 

There is no better example of this than in paragraph 10, where Freeh calls alumni "deniers" for their well-reasoned argument that PSU officials had no reason to suspect that Jerry Sandusky was a serial child molester after he was found not to be a danger to children by child protective services (CPS) and found (by police and the district attorney) not to have committed crimes when he showered with a boy in 1998. 

Shockingly, Freeh's argument in paragraph 11 eliminates
 a citizen's rights to due process rights and contends a person is guilty despite insufficient evidence to support a charge.  And further contends that Sandusky was a known pedophile in 1998 despite all evidence to the contrary.   



The entire statement is a shining example of how Freeh's findings were infected with hindsight bias and completely disregarded the legal processes and requirements involved in an investigation of suspected child sexual abuse.


Centre County Children and Youth Services had the legal responsibility -- and its employees had the requisite training -- to detect child abuse and to protect children in the community from harm, not PSU.  Moreover, the local police have the legal responsibility to protect the general public from crimes.   Again, neither found sufficient grounds in 1998 to believe that Sandusky was a danger to children or the public and took no action in that regard.
Freeh's argument about 1998 relies on the removal of the right to due process

Freeh's attempt to shift blame away from the public servants who were paid with tax dollars to provide protection and put the blame on PSU officials was a dishonest act for the sole purpose of creating an output that the media was expecting.  The Freeh Source materials obtained by the A7 prove that.  

Despite those well-known facts from 1998, Freeh continued to defend his report's suggestion that PSU officials should have banned Sandusky from the football facilities at the close of that investigation.    He illogically wrote:









The suggestion to ban Sandusky from the facilities in 1998 was completely unreasonable  given that he was employed as the defensive coordinator of the football team and needed access to the football facilities to do his job.  Note that the Freeh Report, even with abundant hindsight bias, did not recommend Sandusky be fired over the 1998 investigation and stated that his 1999 retirement was not related to the prior year's child abuse investigation.


Freeh then resorts to fabricating evidence to justify that PSU should have enforced a ban on Sandusky bringing children to bowl games.   Testimony from the Sandusky trial confirms that Victim 4 never even alleged he was sexually assaulted while at the 1999 Alamo Bowl.  In addition, Sandusky was never charged with a crime in the state of Texas -- the location of the Alamo Bowl.  Nor was he charged with violating the Mann Act (transporting a person for the purpose of sexual exploitation).  

Not a single fact confirms Freeh's version of events. 

Trial testimony and verdicts confirmed that Sandusky committed his crimes in a variety of locations and that the majority (60 percent) of the victims were not subjected to assaults in the PSU football facilities. 

The fact of the matter is that 90% of offenders, like Sandusky, are acquaintance offenders who do not use "lures" to attract victims. Lures are used by offenders who have no prior relationship to the child (i.e., the "stanger danger" offender).   

Freeh's arguments here are completely misguided.

False Claims About Freeh Report's Use in Court Cases

Given the former FBI director's dishonesty about the facts of the Sandusky case, it comes as no surprise that he falsely claimed that the Freeh Report findings were used repeatedly in criminal and civil trials.  The evidence reveals that his report's findings, at best, supported the Clery Act investigation, but was not used in other cases.







The truth is that no findings the Freeh Report or even investigative information from his inquiry were used as material evidence in the Sandusky case, the Curley, Schultz and Spanier cases, and the McQueary Whistle blower and defamation cases, and Sandusky's appeal.  Read the full analysis here.
    Freeh's attempts to credit the courts with upholding the Freeh Report in the Paterno lawsuit and Spanier defamation case are hollow at best, given both lawsuits were dismissed before a decision was rendered.  Freeh claiming the Paterno dismissal as a validation of his report is quite farcical considering that the Corman v. NCAA lawsuit eviscerated nearly all of the sanctions that were based on the Freeh Report.  In addition, prior to the dismissal of the Spanier lawsuit, Freeh's attorneys submitted legal motions that 23 statements in the Freeh Report concerning Spanier merely reflected the former FBI director's opinions.

    Freeh is correct however, that his report identified many of the deficiencies in implementing the Clery Act at PSU.  However his report's specific finding of an atmosphere of non-compliance by the football program was specious given that noncompliance was campus wide at the time and was a problem in all departments. 


    Confusion about Culture

    Freeh's arguments about the PSU culture appear to be almost maniacal, as the first argument in Paragraph 6 is contradicted by the second argument in Paragraph 7.  

    In the first instance, Freeh inexplicably argues that the "culture" finding in his report was not unique to PSU and then uses the janitor incident and fear of Paterno as evidence of the culture issue.   Not only was the second argument contradictory to the first, but was also completely inaccurate based on the evidence from the Sandusky trial.

    Paragraph 6
    Paragraph 7

    The Commonwealth presented just one janitor as a witness at the Sandusky trial -- not two as the Freeh Report (and this statement) contend.  Ronald Petrosky was the lone janitor to testify and none of the quotes above reflect his testimony.   As a result, Freeh's best example of the culture of PSU is unsupported by the evidence.

    If none of the testimony in the the latest statement (and on page 65 of the Freeh Report) were part of the Sandusky trial, then it logically follows that a Pennsylvania appellate court did NOT find that this testimony was properly introduced

    Is this a case of Freeh being ignorant to the facts or is it a case that he believes he can say anything and get away with it because of his reputation?

    It's the latter. 

    Freeh uses his previous employment as a judge and former FBI director, positions of public trust, to fool the public into believing his word can be trusted in the very same manner Sandusky used his reputation as a do-gooder to trick boys into believing he could be trusted as a father figure. 

    The results were the same.  

    Both groups have literally gotten screwed.  


    Next: Penn State's Pathetic Response to the A7 Report

    2 comments:

    1. Ray,
      Is it not amazing that since July 2012 this site - you and I - have been part of dissecting the FactFREEH Fiction. Every section has been probed and picked apart with REAL EVIDENCE in great detail.
      Despite your efforts in the main, and mine in the past, we are still beset by this serial liar and fraud named Freeh.

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. Barry,
        I believe the third to last sentence sums it up. Freeh's (undeserved) reputation as a man of impeccable character makes him like Teflon to the media.

        Even after he had a subpar tenure at FBI (ignored the reports on suspected terrorists taking flight lessons) was sued for defamation twice (Spanier, BP) over his investigations, had one investigation result over turned (FIFA) and had high profile individuals, like Dick Thornberg and Michael Chertoff, rebut his findings, the media remains completely uninterested.

        You have to wonder if there is something lurking underneath that makes them stay away.


        Delete