By
Ray Blehar
Penn State has reached a settlement with the only Sandusky victim the jury found to be not credible.
Victim 5 accused Sandusky of forcing him to touch his genitals and attempting to grope him in a shower. The jury acquitted Sandusky of the indecent assault charge.
When I wrote Report 3, I was curious why Victim 5 was not believed by a jury who convicted on every other victim's allegations, therefore I attempted to reach juror Joshua Harper to find out about the jury's reasoning. My calls went unreturned.
As a result, I was left to hypothesize about the lone acquittal of a charge brought forth by a victim and it is likely that Victim 5's story made perfect sense when he was ten years-old, but absolutely no sense as a thirteen year old.
Timeframes and Locations of Crimes Changed, Story Not Credible
Victim 5 testified before the grand jury on June 17, 2011. In his grand jury testimony (page 17), he stated that the incident occurred in 1998 when he was between the ages of 8 and 10 years old. He stated he went to shower with Sandusky in the East Area Locker Room. Once in the shower, he looked back over his shoulder and saw Sandusky had an erection. He went on to state he did not understand the significance of it at the time but averted his gaze because he was uncomfortable. Victim 5 then stated Sandusky pinned him against a wall and took his hand and placed it on his erect penis. The boy then removed his hand and slid out of the shower.In the Commonwealth’s opening statement, Prosecutor Joseph McGettigan referred to Victim 5 as a “ten year old boy” and detailed how he escaped from the shower room (Victim 5 was born on 8/8/1988).
However, during the trial, Victim 5 testified that he was 13 years old at the time of the incident and it occurred in 2001 in the Lasch Building. In that version of events, Victim 5 stated he had gone into the sauna with Sandusky, where Sandusky exposed himself. Then they proceeded to the showers, where again he stated he saw Sandusky with an erection but didn't understand the significance of it, and then the same series of events of being forced to touch Sandusky before sliding away.
While I can't be certain why the jury acquitted on the indecent assault charge, I suspect it was because it is not credible for a 13 year-old boy not to understand the significance of an erection.
Victim 5 Testifies At Sandusky Sentencing
Despite the fact that the jury acquitted on the indecent assault charge, Victim 5 appeared at the Sandusky sentencing hearing on October 9, 2012. During his testimony, he repeated that he was forced to touch Sandusky's erect penis and called the incident a sexual assault. While normally I would think that allowing testimony about a crime for which a defendant was acquitted would normally be forbidden, the Sandusky case appears to provide the exception to any logical thought on jurisprudence. In short, Judge Cleland's rulings in this case - from the admission of the hearsay by the janitors to not striking testimony from two police officers that was clearly perjurious - appeared to be quite unusual.Non Specific Dates and Course Of Conduct
According to Judge Cleland, child victim's are not held to recall the specific dates because of the time lapse between the abuse and when the victim's eventually disclose. In the Sandusky trial, all of the counts against known victims, except for Victims 5 and 6, were tried on non-specific or "course-of-conduct" bases. The Bill of Particulars in this case stated "the child, at the time of the offenses, is unable to provide exact dates and times."Changes to Bill of Particulars
Victim 6's date was known because there were police records from 1998 stating when the abuse took place. While no such records existed for Victim 5, the Commonwealth's original Bill of Particulars, furnished on February 21, 2012 stated the crime occurred between 1996 and 2001. On May 18, 2012, the Commonwealth provided an Amended Bill of Particulars setting the date as August 2001. See below.
PSU's Hired Guns Ignore Uncertainty of Date
Michael Rozen, a lawyer brought in by Penn State to work the settlements, said that Victim 5's case was considered to be more serious than others because his abuse occurred in August 2001, months after top school officials were informed by a graduate assistant that he saw Sandusky assaulting a boy in a team shower.
"The pivotal issue from the university's perspective in dealing with the victims is where the incident occurred and when it occurred proximate to the 2001 shower incident," Rozen said.
Victim 5 was awarded millions of dollars despite the fact that the jury didn't believe his story regarding the indecent assault.
Moreover, it is clear that the Commonwealth started at a very broad time frame of years for the Victim 5 crimes, but then somehow narrowed the crime down to a single month. Given that the Commonwealth was attempting to make a case for child endangerment against Curley, Schultz, and Spanier, it appears that the date switch also could have been made to bolster that charge.
However, none of the facts matter to a PSU administration, who have paid their lawyers hansomely to ensure that the false narrative of the Sandusky scandal continues.
