Sara Ganim: "I just followed the facts, piece by piece, as they came to us."
By
Ray Blehar
When the Patriot News broke the story of the
Sandusky grand jury investigation in March 2011, many people believed it was a result of grand jury leaks.
Those
people were right.
The 1998
University Park Police Report was leaked to the P-N sometime in January 2011 – right after the police investigating
the 2008 Sandusky allegations had obtained it from PSU two years into the
probe. January 2011 coincidentally, is
the same month that Sara Ganim took her Patriot News reporting job in
Harrisburg.
However,
the most famous leak in the Sandusky case was the November 2011 grand jury
presentment.
The
presentment was ready on November 4th, approved, and put under seal
by the supervising grand jury judge, Rolando Jackson.
However, it is not clear if the P-N possessed it on November 4th as Ganim's reporting did not provide evidence or special knowledge of its contents.
The
Sandusky criminal charges (or court docket) was the “other” leak that wasn’t described a leak. Allegedly it was accidentally posted online.
Early in
the afternoon of November 4, the Centre County magisterial judge, Leslie
Dutchcot, approved the affidavit of probable cause in the Sandusky case and completed
the docket sheet for the Sandusky charges.
At approximately 12:21PM the docket was (allegedly) mistakenly posted to the magisterial court system by her
office.
Sometime
later that afternoon, Sara Ganim received a phone call (likely from one of
the AG prosecutors) informing her of the pending charges in the Sandusky
case. Ganim assumed she was being leaked
the information and promptly wrote her “scoop” at 2:26PM.
Her statement that the charging paperwork
hadn’t made it to Centre County is the
“giveaway” that she thought she had received another “leak.”
The charging paperwork has not yet made it
to the District Magistrate Judge's office in Centre County. However, felony
charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse of someone under 16,
aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault of someone under 16, indecent
assault of someone under 13, and corruption of minors charges have been filed
in the state court docket system.
Dockets are approved by the magisterial judge before being posted to Pennsylvania's Unified Judicial system, therefore what Ganim wrote was an impossibility.
That
afternoon, Ganim received a phone call from another reporter that the docket
had been posted. The reporter noted that Ganim "shrieked" when she found out the charges were in the public domain. Ganim updated her column at 3:54PM to report that Centre County posted the
charges.
Ganim later linked a copy of
the docket in a later column, but the time stamp on the docket in the bottom
right corner of the page read 2:21PM – five minutes prior to her original
report. The magisterial district number,
49-201, was on the docket, identifying that it was from Centre County and Judge
Dutchcot’s magisterial district. The date/time stamp therefore disproved her “scoop” that
the charges were on a “state website” but
that they didn’t make it to Centre County.
How did she
make that mistake?
Most likely, she
never visited a “state court” web site to find the docket. Instead, she wrote the
column on the charges based on information she got from someone else (likely an
AG official). Even after being told that the docket was
posted, her articles over the next three days reveal that she didn't check the unified judicial system to verify any information.
The next
day, Ganim reported that the charges had been accidentally posted and the OAG’s
Nils Frederiksen only confirmed that the state police and OAG officials were not at fault.
Continuing with her bungling of crime information, on Saturday Ganim -- the "crime and courts reporter" -- incorrectly reported that charges had been filed against Tim
Curley and Gary Schultz. While this was
in agreement with the OAG’s November 5th press release, a check of
the magisterial docket system would have revealed no charges were filed against
the two men until November 7th (see Schultz docket search result
below).
The evidence presented reveals
that Ganim may not have been the “gumshoe” she was made out to be and simply
relied on others to provide her with information. It was also rather obvious that she had a limited knowledge of the court reporting system.
First, as I noted earlier, it would
have been impossible for the Sandusky court docket to be found on a “state
court web-site” without first being processed by the District Magistrate’s
office.
Next, the
state court website is organized to perform searches for dockets in four
categories: magisterial, common pleas, appellate, and the city of
Philadelphia. To find the Sandusky
charges, Ganim would have had to type his name and one other characteristic
(e.g., DOB, status of case, county of case, etc) into the query to find the
docket.
A typical
query screen is shown below.
Upon
entering the Sandusky information, she would have gotten the docket with a
Centre County identifier at the top. The number 49 is the identifier for Centre
County and 49201 is Judge Dutchcot’s district.
Thus, her story that the docket and details had
not made their way to Centre County at 2:26 PM was impossible.
The docket posted
to the P-N had a time/date stamp of
11/4/2011 at 2:21PM, which revealed that Ganim could not have seen it on-line before
she wrote about it (otherwise, she would have known the charges had "made it to Centre County").
On
Saturday, November 5th, Ganim’s 12:25PM and 5:59PM columns (captured
from a blog) repeated information from the OAG’s 8:00AM press release of the
Curley and Schultz charges. Ganim didn’t
verify the information herself.
If she
had, she would have seen that the charges were pending on the 5th
and not filed until the 7th (in Dauphin County). Ganim updated that column one last time on
November 7th at 1:22PM, but did not change any of the content
(verified by blog entry below). I
presume the update was made because Ganim learned the charges were filed on
that day. As a result, the phrase “and
this morning” would now be accurate with regard to when Curley and Schultz were
charged.
Expecting Leaks
Ganim
believed the Sandusky court docket was released accidentally because she, like others in the media, was told
to expect it to be released on November 7th. As a result, she likely believed that the information she received on the 4th
was “leaked” in advance of the charges being filed. As noted earlier, she "shrieked" when she was told the charges were actually filed in the judicial system. Her reaction suggested she was working with the expectation that she would be (exclusively) provided with information and tips about the case before the rest of the public was
informed.
After being taken by surprise by the public release of the Sandusky charges, she contacted Nils
Frederiksen, the OAG press official to find out what had happened. According to another local news reporter, the
P-N then called Dutchcot’s office to
complain about the posting, which resulted in it being temporarily removed from
the internet.
At that point, Ganim had the “scoop” that she expected to
get about the charges and wrote the following column.
As with the
news of the grand jury investigation back in March, many assumed the P-N’s possession of the court docket was
them benefiting from another leak. The
truth was that it only became a “scoop” for the P-N after they complained to Judge Dutchcot, who ordered its
temporary removal from the magisterial docket system.
The Leak That Broke the Case:
The 1998 University Park Police Report
According
to the investigative report of Geoffrey Moulton of the Sandusky investigation,
the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) obtained the 1998 UP police report on
January 3, 2011. However, there is some
evidence that the OAG knew about the 1998 report much sooner than it was
obtained. Mike Gillum, the psychologist
of Aaron Fisher, revealed the OAG may have had knowledge of the 1998 incident as
early as June 2009. Meanwhile, Ganim and
the P-N reported in two columns in November and December 2011
that the PSP obtained the report
in late 2010.
The actual date the OAG learned of the 1998 Sandusky incident remains a matter in some dispute.
In a November 23, 2011 column, the PN reported it had obtained the police report in early 2011 and
used it to break the story of the Sandusky grand jury investigation in March. Another source revealed that Ganim had repeated the report verbatim over the phone in a conversation that took place in January 2011.
In an
article accompanying the grand jury column on March 31st, 2011, that
explained how the P-N investigated
the Sandusky grand jury, it made no
mention of the 1998 police report.
Instead, then-editor David Newhouse, a Benjamin Bradlee Editor of the
Year winner in 2011, wrote that Ganim had knocked on the doors of 26 people and
had found five persons who had knowledge of the grand jury.
He noted
that they used “other information” to corroborate the information gathered by
Ganim. “Other information” could be a
veiled reference to the 1998 police report or it could be other information
obtained from government officials.
In
retrospect, Newhouse’s article seems a bit on the defensive regarding how the P-N came by its information.
No names were provided for the five persons
who had knowledge of the investigation. According to the book, Silent No More, Ganim contacted
Aaron Fisher, Dawn Daniels, and Mike Gillum in February 2011 – three of the
five people with knowledge of the investigation.
My email
exchange with the mother of Victim 6 revealed that Ganim used the 1998 police
report to track her (and her son) down in January 2011. That brings the total of persons with some
knowledge of the investigation to five.
The P-N disclosed its possession of the 1998
police report in late November 2011. However, either they forgot to tell Ganim or
she forgot about the disclosure. On December 3, 2011 and March 22, 2012 she wrote columns implying that she
did not have knowledge of the report.
December 3,
2011 screen capture:
March 22, 2012 screen capture:
The significance of
the latter story is that Ganim, who possessed the police report at the time,
had to have known Lauro was lying to her
about his knowledge of the evaluations of the boy (victim). Rather than challenge his assertions, Ganim
published a known falsehood by accepting Lauro’s version of events. The rest of the media then followed Ganim’s
lead story when the police report was released to the public on March 23, 2012
– stating that Lauro never saw the reports.
And what were Newhouse
and the P-N legal team doing when
Ganim was perpetrating the ruse that she didn’t know what was in the 1998
police report?
The deceptive practices
continued on – and once again, Newhouse would expose the P-N when he made a second attempt to defend the paper’s reporting
on the Sandusky scandal.
Newhouse’s Timeline Ruse
Much like
his column on March 31, 2011, Newhouse wrote a column on November 10 (revised
November 12) about how the P-N broke
the story.
He
defended the paper’s reporting on the “Penn State child sex abuse scandal,”
stating had they known anything prior to 2009 they would have “investigated
with vigor.” The evidence does not
support that a rigorous investigation ever occurred. Coincidentally, like the police, the P-N staff didn’t think to check the
source of Sandusky’s child victims – TSM – for leads.
I have yet
to find evidence that either Sara Ganim or Jan Murphy developed a solid lead
prior to 2011, however, that didn’t stop Newhouse from fabricating a story that
Ganim had tracked down one of the mothers while she was working for the Centre Daily Times (CDT).
Apparently, Newhouse wanted to make it appear
that Ganim had uncovered information prior to her hire and that she simply
didn’t benefit from leaks. But the truth
was that Ganim contacted both mothers after she was hired away from the CDT.
It is unclear who the “other sources”
were who could talk about both the 1998 and 2008 investigation, however, the
most likely candidates with knowledge of both incidents were Supervisory Grand Jury Judge Barry Feudale, Agent Sassano,
Trooper Rossman, Corporal Leiter, Supervisory Agent Randy Feathers, and OAG prosecutors Fina and Eshbach. One other person of interest is OAG press officer Nils Frederiksen.
Evidence suggests that Sassano or Rossman can be ruled out, as they appeared to be kept in the dark on many aspects of the investigation. Also, it is doubtful that Fina was leaking information, given that he was one of the primary foot-draggers on the case.
Feathers is suspected of leaking email information to CNN's Susan Candiotti, as the two were former high school classmates. However, it is unlikely that Feathers was Ganim's source.
Other evidence found in my investigation revealed that grand jury transcripts had been leaked to at least one other newspaper in Central Pennsylvania, which happened to be in close proximity to Sunbury, PA, where Feudale presides as a judge.
Given that Jonelle Eshbach was frustrated with the pace of the investigation and the failure to file charges, she would be among the candidates for leaking information to Ganim. As would Nils Frederiksen, given his role as a press official.
There may be more than one leaker in this case and the top three candidates are Eshbach, Frederiksen, and Feudale.
The P-N’s Possession of Leaked
Information About Seasock
On March 21st, one day before
Ganim misled the public about Lauro’s lack of knowledge of the psychology
reports, she penned an “exclusive” report that former DA Ray Gricar may have
closed the 1998 case due to a report from then unlicensed counselor, John
Seasock. Curiously, Seasock’s last name appears in paragraph four of the March 21st,
2012 article with no previous mention of him in the article. The use of less that Seasock’s full name the
first time it appeared in the article was an obvious giveaway that something
had been deleted.
An internet search found the missing text, which revealed
information that was NEVER made public – specifically, that Seasock’s
report made it to DA Ray Gricar two days before he closed the case.
A web-archive version provides the deleted text, and again, Ganim conceals that she had possession of the Seasock report at the time the column was published and that she had somewhat exclusive knowledge of the discussions regarding documents under seal.
Information made public in a searing grand jury presentment showed that Sandusky allegedly admitted to touching the boy known as Victim 6 while they were both naked and saying, “I wish I were dead.”
What wasn’t made public until now was that two days before Gricar closed the case, a psychologist concluded Victim 6 was not sexually abused by Sandusky.
The psychologist — John Seasock — was identified in court documents by Sandusky’s attorney as he asked a judge to force prosecutors to hand over the document, along with juvenile records and current and past addresses and phone numbers of the alleged victims.
The judge ruled that the defense can have them. But he made an exception. Unless prosecutors can convince the judge otherwise within the next week, Amendola can read through the psychological evaluation, but he can “make no use of the information contained in the reports without prior authorization of the court.”
A source who reviewed the documents and has knowledge of the case said he believed Seasock’s report was the reason the investigation was closed.
However, the source said, Seasock was not the only psychologist to make an evaluation.
The P-N’s attempt to cite an alternative
source of the information in its March 21st column was actually foiled when the leaked
information from NBC on March 23rd failed to reveal any information about the report being released two days prior to Gricar's decision.
Other information scrubbed from the column included this passage regarding the psychology report of Dr. Alycia Chambers (who in a familiar pattern, is not mentioned by name).
The day after Victim 6 came home from a tour of the football building with then-defensive coordinator and charity founder Jerry Sandusky and told his mom Sandusky had showered with him and a friend, the mother called police. She also called a psychologist.
“And that psychologist concluded that this incident, what the boy described, and I’m paraphrasing ... the psychologist concluded that what the boy described was a classic example of how a sexual abuser grooms his victim,” the source said.
Amendola confirmed that Seasock’s report and another psychologist’s report have been referenced in several other pieces of evidence turned over by prosecutors, but Amendola said he hasn’t yet seen the reports.
The source reviewed the entire police report from 1998. The investigation, which was done by Penn State University police, took a few weeks. It included a sting in which police set up a meeting between the boy’s mother and Sandusky as officers hid in another room.
Note: Full article can be obtained either by search of archive.org/web or by paying for archived version on PennLive.
The McQueary Handwritten Statement
When Ganim
didn’t have the benefit of lawyers watching her every word, she sometime
bragged about digging up information that was likely leaked to her. Such is the case of the McQueary hand-written
statement to the police.
The tweet
by Ganim was in conflict with her November 16th story that she had
only viewed the handwritten statement
of McQueary’s. Her report also contained an error regarding
the content of McQueary’s statement.
In his
expose’ about McQueary, titled The Whistleblower’s Last Stand, ESPN’s Don Van Natta obtained McQueary’s hand
written statement and reported it verbatim in the story (confirmed by Van
Natta). It contains nothing about Curley
and Schultz.
Full text of the statement 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
<end
statement>
Much like the court docket of
November 4th, this is another instance of Ganim receiving
information from an inside source sight unseen and reporting what she was
told.
McQueary's written statement eventually made its way to the P-N. On December 11, Ganim reported that it was in the paper's possession.
Dr. Dranov’s Testimony
Ganim’s
tweet stating the McQueary’s handwritten statement supported the testimony of
Dr. Dranov is clearly false. There is
nothing in the handwritten statement confirming Dr. Dranov’s testimony of an
arm pulling the boy back from around a corner.
Ganim’s
article on Dr. Dranov again cites an
unnamed source with knowledge of his testimony. Who that source might that be is likely a person from within the previously mentioned, small group.
On February
2013, Judge Barry Feudale ordered an investigation into the grand jury leaks
associated with the 33rd state-wide investigating grand jury (Sandusky),
the 2006 Dauphin County Grand Jury that investigated the slot machine licensing
to Louis DeNaples, and the yet to be impanelled 36th state-wide
investigating grand jury. The probe was
to end by August 8, 2013, however, nothing to date has been reported on the
progress of these investigations by Special Prosecutor, James M. Reeder.
Why should we be surprised that another Sandusky related investigation is going nowhere?
Conclusion
The evidence in the case reveals that quite a bit of leaking was going on and not just to Ganim and the P-N. However, the P-N appeared to use the leaked information to persevere on its theme of a "Penn State sex scandal" and to quash competing information before it could gain traction with the other media.
The reporting of leaked information and the back-tracking by the P-N also revealed that Ganim was much too inexperienced to take on the reporting of the scandal by herself and needed a lot of help from the P-N's lawyers and editors David Newhouse and Cate Barron to ensure the paper's reliance on leaked information was not exposed.
As the evidence shows, their attempt to cover-up the leaked information was far from "adept."
In the end, they failed.
