Patriot News Acceptance of TSM's Excuses for Not Reporting 2001 Incident Doesn't Pass The Test

The Second Mile admitted they knowingly kept a child molester in their organization from November 2008 through 2011 because of his value as a fundraiser.  Why did the Patriot News pass on the idea that TSM did the same thing in 2001?"

By
Ray Blehar

The series so far:  The Patriot News and Sara Ganim erroneously reported that TSM kept Sandusky out of children's programs immediately after his investigation began in 2008.  They also truncated the time frame of the abuse of Victim 9 to make it appear as if TSM had a protection plan that kept Sandusky away from children.  In the third part of the series, we'll examine how the Patriot News' and Ganim blindly accepted the charity's excuses for its failure to report the 2001 incident.

When the Sandusky scandal broke, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General's (PA OAG) press conference prominently featured two PSU administrators on a placard next to one of Jerry Sandusky.  Their alleged crimes were failing to report child abuse and perjury regarding what they were told by Mike McQueary.  


From the outset, the Patriot News reported how the report from McQueary was watered down by the PSU administrators which led to their alleged failure to report.  This report was based on the mostly discredited 23-page grand jury presentment and the alleged "watering down" of the incident was patently false and failure to report remains unproven.

While the grand jury presentment mentioned that PSU reported 2001 incident to The Second Mile (TSM), the Patriot News half-heartedly pursued the rather obvious alternative that TSM had failed to report the incident because of financial reasons.  

Early reports by the Patriot News' Donald Gilliland, Sara Ganim,  and Jeff Frantz included discussions of the charity's finances and the escalating salaries of Executive Director Dr. Jack Raykovitz and his wife, Katherine Genovese.  The reporting showed that the charity raised over $17 million from 2002 through late 2008, when Sandusky's consulting fee was stopped.  

Even though the Patriot News laid off the charity's finances in its future reporting, the fact that the victims all were from the charity and the horrific nature of the crimes reported in the presentment (though the worst two incidents have been debunked), the charity was unable to survive financially.

Amazingly, the financial failure - and the importance of Jerry Sandusky  to the charity as its key fund raiser- never "grew legs" as the reason why TSM didn't report Sandusky for the 2001 incident.

Excuses for Failure To Report Don't Hold Water

The Patriot News and the rest of the media led the public to believe that Penn State covered up for a retired coach (that Joe Paterno didn't even like) to preserve the school's reputation.  Absent alternative scenarios  (of which there are several), the public bought this nonsense, much like it did the Duke lacrosse/rape case.

But to sell this nonsense to the public, the Patriot News  promoted the narrative that a licensed, PhD psychologist, would not suspect that an incident of a man showering with a child was possible child abuse because an athletic director may have told him otherwise.  

That is simply preposterous.   

Dr. Raykovitz worked for Mid-Step Child Development Center, which specialized in children and adolescent development/counseling, as well as serving as the Executive Director of the charity.  Obviously, he would not have been been swayed by the report of a layman about a possible child abuse situation. 

Curley's testimony at the grand jury was that Sandusky's actions had made a PSU employee (McQueary) "uncomfortable."  If it was enough for Curley to meet in person with charity's Executive Director, then if anyone is downplaying what was reported, it was Raykovitz.  

Ironically, he's not the only "psychologist" in this saga to downplay Sandusky's actions.

But it gets better.

In Sara Ganim's five-part series, published in August 2012, one of the charity's directors, Bruce Heim, went on the record to state that he told Raykovitz that the 2001 shower incident was a "non-starter" and that it need not be reported to TSM's board.


So now we have Dr. Jack Raykovitz, licensed psychologist, not suspecting or reporting child abuse because he was advised so by a real estate developer.  

Interesting.

Heim's statement on his advice to Dr. Raykovitz was also quite remarkable:

“For five years, I worked out at the football facility, several times a week, and saw Jerry showering with children,” he said. “I said I don’t think it’s relevant. It happens every day at the YMCA. I remember the conversation specifically because it seemed like a nonstarter because of what Penn State said went on.”

And of course, the most preposterous statement of all came from Raykovitz, who  advised Sandusky to wear swim trunks if he showered with children after workouts. 

The Patriot News gave TSM a pass for not reporting the 2001 incident, citing these incredibly weak statements as justification.  And it didn't bother to raise the issue of the competency of Dr. Raykovitz to be running a children's charity -- or him being permitted to work with children.

Maybe that was because the Patriot News understood this was not about competency -- it was about money.  And their job was to follow (and not deviate from) the story line offered by the PA OAG.

Charity Kept Molester Around To Raise Money, Keep Charity Afloat
  
The Patriot News reported when Raykovitz was informed about the Sandusky investigation in November 2008, they decided to not tell the public anything about it unless they were directly asked.  The TSM Board was split on Sandusky's future involvement with the charity.   However, the split decision was to let Sandusky continue to fund raise while he was under criminal investigation.  

Ganim reported: 
Myra Toomey, who was hired to work in the development office in 2011, said she wasn’t told about the accusations against Sandusky until after she accepted the job.


Although Sandusky had formally announced his retirement from the charity in September 2010, he remained involved with the charity for special events and fundraisers even after his investigation was announced in March 2011.   In January 2011, Dr. Raykovitz mentioned Sandusky's continued involvement with the charity when it appealed to the Centre County commissioners for funding for the construction of its Center of Excellence.  Sandusky would later play in TSM's golf tournament/fund-raiser that spring.

The evidence that TSM kept an indicated child abuser involved with a children's charity after he had lost his clearance to work with children is bad enough.  But to admit they did it because of his ability to raise money truly shows their true motivation.  

Yet, the Patriot News never made this the story.  

That same motive existed in 2001, yet the Patriot News promoted the lame excuses offered by Heim and Raykovitz for keeping Sandusky's abuse a secret then.

The truth is that TSM's failure to report Sandusky in 2001 wasn't because of the advice Dr. Raykovitz received from an athletic director and a real estate developer.

Sandusky was not reported by TSM in 2001 because it would have been the end of the charity.

History has proven that.

Ganim & Patriot News Continue Cover-Up for TSM, DPW - Turn Back Clock on Crimes, Sandusky's Access

Recent columns by CNN's Sara Ganim and PN's Charlie Thompson turned back the clock on the crimes committed against Victim 9.

By
Ray Blehar

As the lawsuit for Victim 9 splashed into the news last week, the Associated Press reported that Victim 9 had been abused past his sixteenth birthday into the Fall of 2009.  The Collegian reported that Victim 9 met Sandusky in 2005 and his abuse spanned four years.

Those media accounts match the trial testimony, which also stated that Victim 9 was sixteen when the abuse finally ended. Victim 9 was born on July 29, 1993, which places his abuse into late 2009.

However, Patriot News staffer Charles Thompson wrote on November 22nd,  that Victim 9's attorneys were suing for abuse that took place between 2005 and 2008, shaving the last year off the time frame of the crimes (my emphasis added).

The new plaintiff's attorneys, asserting that their client suffered among the worst of the injuries inflicted by Sandusky on any boy through a period from 2005 through 2008, disagree.

Former Patriot News staffer and Pulitzer Prize winner, Sara Ganim, now reporting for CNN, also truncated the years of Victim 9's abuse in her November 21st article, stating that his abuse ended "about the time that another victim's allegations started a police investigation."  (Hat tip, JimmyW)

Ganim was referring the the Aaron Fisher investigation that began in November 2008.  Victim 9's abuse continued at least 8 months past that date.   Ganim who won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting on the Sandusky case, also made it a point of emphasis that she sat "through that trial every single day" when she appeared on Piers Morgan, opposite John Ziegler, in March 2013.

Obviously, Ganim was not being completely truthful with her statement because she fled the courtroom right before she was to be called as a witness in the case.  As a result, the attorneys stipulated that Ganim had passed the contact information for an investigator to the mother of one of the victims in the event the mother wished to contact authorities.

But more to the point, if Ganim sat through the trial every single day and listened to the testimony of the victims, then she had to know that Victim 9 stated his abuse occurred up until he was sixteen and thus into 2009.

So, the million dollar question is why do the Patriot News, Ganim, and Thompson, continue to obsfuscate the end date of this crime?

Are they protecting DPW?  Who should have insisted that The Second Mile put a protection plan in place to keep Sandusky away from children.

Or are they protecting The Second Mile?  Who knowingly let Sandusky access children after they knew he was under investigation?

As I wrote in last week's blogpost, Ganim wrote in her five part-series on The Second Mile (in August 2012) that the charity immediately banned Sandusky from interacting with children and advised him not to contact children in outside activities after learning of his investigation in November 2008.

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.

However, that passage has been debunked because several news reports from The Progress, a local news outlet serving Clearfield, Curwensville, Philipsburg, and Moshannon Valley, reported that Sandusky would be speaking at the Clearfield County Chapter of The Second Mile's all sports banquet to be held on March 1, 2009.  From the article....

Dinner will follow at 5:30 p.m. in the high school cafeteria before those in attendance move to the auditorium where The Second Mile founder Jerry Sandusky will speak, and the players will share stories about their journeys to becoming collegiate student-athletes.


The evidence is clear in this case.  The Second Mile kept the Sandusky investigation under wraps and did not immediately prevent Sandusky from future access to children.

It's also clear that the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare did not have an effective policing or enforcement method in place to ensure Sandusky's access was cut off.

The other thing that's clear is that some people in Harrisburg, the Patriot News, and Ganim don't want you to know about it.

"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

Freeh's Fake Investigation Covered Up the Ties Between The PSU BOT and The Second Mile

Freeh covered-up the financial relationships between The Second Mile and PSU and focused his reporting to railroad Paterno and the three administrators, while protecting his client, the BOT 

By
Ray Blehar

The Engagement Letter between Freeh, Sporkin, and Sullivan (FSS) and its client, the PSU Board of Trustees Special Investigations Task Force, required FSS to "perform and independent, full and complete investigation" of the Sandusky scandal.   Additionally, FSS was provided guidance to complete the investigation in parallel to, but independent of other ongoing investigations within or outside PSU (e.g. The Second Mile).

On the latter point, FSS's fake investigation clearly satisfied its client, as it covered-up  the financial relationships between key members of The Second Mile Board of Directors and Penn State.  This was very similar in approach to the omissions FSS made about the failures of DPW in the 1998 case, which I exposed in Report 1.

Not only did it omit the financial dealings of the TSM Board Members, but it also failed to identify PSU Board of Trustees and/or their companies who donated to the charity.  This information was readily available for the years 2005 through 2010 on the publicly available Annual Reports of the charity.  Moreover, the IRS 990 forms for the charity were also available for review by FSS, yet none of these documents are referenced anywhere in Chapter 7 (titled "Sandusky's Post-Retirement Interactions With the University").

Instead, FSS relied on a few newspaper articles and some alleged interviews with a program director and a counselor of TSM for the information.  I suspect the interviews are "alleged" because it appears that the  information on page 109 regarding the Friend Program may have come from a passage in the 1998 police report.

 FSS used a similar tactic when it regurgitated the grand jury report of the janitor  (see page 73 of linked report), called it his trial testimony, then said it was obtained through an interview of the janitor immediately after the trial.   And there are other examples of this in Chapter 7, where Freeh references an interview but the information appears to be taken from (erroneous) press reports.

Chapter 7 provides ample evidence that FSS conducted a fake investigation that resulted in a pre-determined outcome (blaming Paterno and the administrators for Sandusky's crimes) and attempted to spare its client (the PSU BOT) from being exposed as having financial incentives to cover-up for TSM.

The Nonsensical "Facilities As An Enabler" Ruse 

Part II of Chapter 7, Sandusky's Post-Retirement Involvement in Second Mile Activities provided a high level summary of PSU's support of Sandusky's activities with the charity that was mostly lies and  innuendo about the use of facilities enabling Sandusky's crimes.   The chapter leads off with the a few paragraphs about how Sandusky's access - and therefore people who approved his retirement package, sans Erickson -  put children in danger.

As I pointed out in this blogpost, there was not a single sign  ("red flag")  or complaint of child sexual abuse at Sandusky's privately held camps or at the camps on PSU's campus after his retirement from PSU.

Let that sink in for a moment.  There was not a single complaint emanating from any of the camps run by Sandusky from 2001 forward, yet PSU was castigated by Freeh for allowing Sandusky to use PSU facilities.  In fact, there is no evidence that Sandusky ever met a child during these camps that he groomed or attempted to groom for child abuse.

That is an amazing fact to consider.  Apparently, the environment and surroundings at the sports camps held on PSU property were not as conducive to Sandusky's abusive behavior as his "hunting ground" at TSM, yet TSM has escaped this scandal without being criminally charged.

However, there is another side to the facilities coin in this mess, and it appears that Freeh's whitewashing of the BOT's relationships with TSM and Sandusky is revealed in this passage if you know the background information on TSM:

The other non-University location was the Greenhills facility outside Reading, Pennsylvania.  It was owned by PSU BOT member Ira Lubert, who was also on the Board of the SouthEast Region of TSM for a period of years in the mid-2000s.   Therefore, if this was a "fair" investigation, the report should have made mention that Lubert also was putting children in danger by letting Sandusky use his facilities.

Those facts make all of Freeh's "reasonable conclusions" about the use of facilities granted through Sandusky's emeritus status quite meaningless and exposes the bias in his reporting.

Let's face it, if the key enabler for child sexual abuse was access to facilities, wouldn't the prime suspects in those types of crimes always be....janitors?

Freeh Report Hides Financial Connections Between PSU and TSM

While FSS was railroading Paterno, Spanier, Curley, and Schultz as the enablers of Sandusky's abuse, it did an even better job in ensuring that nothing would raise the public's suspicions regarding the PSU BOT's relationships with TSM's board members.

As noted earlier, there was ample information on the public record that any legitimate investigator would have utilized in conducting this part of the investigation.  But as we have learned, Louis Freeh is not a legitimate investigator -- he is a "hack" who runs a phony investigation racket.

The 2005 to 2010 Annual Reports of TSM revealed that many of the leaders of the 2011 PSU BOT and/or their companies were donors to the charity (see list below).

As you can see, US Steel, the company of the "hatchet man" (Surma) who fired Paterno, donated to the charity every year, but dropped its donations and the Sandusky investigation got underway in 2009.  Similarly, Merck, the company of the co-chair (Frazier) of the group that hired FSS, also was a donor up through 2009, but mysteriously stopped in 2010.   Coincidences?  Doubtful.

Linda Strumpf, who is on PSU's investment council may have believed TSM was a great "investment" in 2010 and chipped in between $5,000 and $9,999.  Strumpf is the retired chief investment officer of the Helmsley Charitable Trust -- yes, Leona Helmsley's charity.

Lloyd Huck, an emeritus trustee in 2011, and his wife Dottie, donated over $40 million dollars to PSU and was also a contributor to the charity.

However, where things get really interesting is when you examine the business relationships of Board of Directors of TSM and some of the prominent roles they play at Penn State.

First, the Chairman of the Board of TSM, Robert E. Poole, is a distinguished alumni of Penn State and sits on the Executive Committee of  Penn State's Campaign for the Future, along side PSU BOT members John Surma, James Broadhurst, Ed Hintz, and Karen Peetz (plus emeritus trustee Ted Junker).  Not so ironically, these PSU trustees on the Executive Committee for the Campaign for the Future were also on the 11-9-11 PSU BOT Executive Committee.

Poole is the major gifts chairman for the Campaign, which is expected to raise $2 billion for PSU by 2014.

However, Poole's relationship with PSU is not just as a fundraiser.  A visit to the website of his company, Poole Anderson construction, reveals that he has done a lot of big jobs (a spreadsheet has been reproduced below) for PSU over the last decade.  Isn't it amazing that the former-FBI Director and alleged top notch investigator, Louis Freeh, didn't report these facts after his fake investigation?  Note: This information was reported by Deadspin.com in November of 2011, yet the Freeh group didn't report it.

Another important TSM Board Member is Richard (Ric) K. Struthers, who is also a distinguished alumni and also is an at-large member of the Campaign for the Future.  As reported by blogger Marc Rubin shortly after the Sandusky scandal broke, Struthers was also on the MBNA team at the same time Louis Freeh was its General Counsel.

Struthers' MBNA/Bank of America credit card deal with PSU involved paying $30 million dollars to the University for exclusive use of its alumni lists for sales and marketing from 1994 to 2010.

Struthers donated at least $50,000 per year to TSM in 2005, 2006, and 2007.   He donated at lower levels in 2008 through 2010.  His family foundation donated $250,000 to the Building Fund for the PSU Smeal College of Business in 2010.

Finally, Linda Gall was also a member of the Board of Directors for The Second Mile, who also sits on the Executive Committee for the Campaign for the Future.  She is the chair of the Stewardship Committee for the campaign. Linda's husband, Blake, is the Founder and President of Micro Plus Plus Investments and is a member of Penn State's Investment Council.

Are we to believe that the former FBI-director and his team were not able to find this information that was not only on the public record, but in some cases already reported in the press?

At the July 12, 2012 press conference, where Freeh was asked about his investigation of the Second Mile by PSU alumnae Wendy Silverwood, he responded:

"Well, I think you need to direct your question there.  We did as much as we could in that regard, relevant to our mandate.  Many of the people there would not speak to us. We didn't have access to their records.  We didn't have subpoena power as you know. But you raise a good question."

Doing the Math for Good Governance

As alumni voice concerns as Penn State's bill for the Sandusky scandal will easily clear $100 million, one can easily see that $100 million is chump change compared to the $2 billion the University plans to raise through its Campaign for the Future.   As a result, the PSU BOT members (Hintz, Peetz, Surma, Broadhurst, etc) may have had an incentive to ensure Freeh's fake investigation kept the stink of the Sandusky Scandal off of their cohorts on the fund raising campaign.  Note:  Corbett's investigation appeared to keep the stink off of TSM for financial reasons as well.

Today the legislature will propose structural changes to the PSU BOT, but subtracting a member here and there and reducing the size of the Board will not get to the root of the problems in governing PSU and serve the University's best interest.

As we have known since the release of the Freeh Report, the Boards foot-dragging on the implementation of recommendation 3.2.2 - full and public disclosure of the Board's financial relationships - is key to fixing the governance problems at PSU.

Review of my Under Further Review Presentation and Link to Slides

UPON FURTHER REVIEW

November 9, 2013

Days Inn, State College, PA

Highlights

1.  Personal grudges were behind the firing of Paterno and Spanier
a.  The Surma Vendetta
b.  Corbett's hatred of Spanier

2.  The Sandusky investigation was stalled until Spanier and Corbett's budget battle
a.  Baldwin began complying with subpoenas in March/April 2011
b.  Victims began testifying at the grand jury in April 2011.

3.  The firing of Paterno and Spanier was a power play by the BOT

4.  The BOT lied about several things after the grand jury presentment was revealed.
a.   What they knew -- about 1998 and 2001 cases and who testified.
b.   Who knew -- at least 75 people.
c.   When they knew it -- by May 2011.

5.  Cynthia Baldwin was "retired early" because of her failure to comply with subpoenas.

6.  The BOT lied about why they fired Paterno.

7.  The BOT paid Freeh to conduct a fake investigation to justify the firing of Paterno and Spanier.

8.  The Freeh investigation didn't find much of anything - it followed the template provided by the OAG in the grand jury presentment of November 2011.

9.  The BOT never had any intention of reviewing or rebutting the Freeh Report.

10.  The BOT accepted the Consent Decree and promoted the moving forward campaign to dissuade alumni from attempting to find the truth.  Their attempt to do so failed.

The alumni have not moved on.  We aren't going anywhere until we know the truth.

 Link:  Power, Lies, and Deception - by Ray Blehar

Full event live stream/recording

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

Victim 6 Case's Discovery Materials Could Reveal True Sandusky "Cover-ups"

While Judge Anita Brody ruled the claims of "vicarious liability" were not substantiated, expansive discovery could prove that a "civil conspiracy" took place

By
Ray Blehar

Recent headlines in the Victim 6 lawsuit against PSU trumpeted that the judge ruled against the University's request to delay the lawsuit and went on to discuss the broad range of documents requested for discovery.   

However, the ruling that could tell the story - and perhaps get the media's attention - will be the ruling on the claims of civil conspiracy and the associated discovery.

Victim 6's lawyer, Howard Janet said Penn State officials gave Sandusky access to campus facilities where he abused children. 

Janet argued that their client suffered from “the fruits of an unlawful conspiracy” that was designed to conceal the shower incident and shield the university from negative public reaction.

“Permitting Sandusky to remain as a coach with unrestricted access enabled the abuse to continue and strongly supports an inference that inappropriate sexual relations were condoned by Penn State,” Janet wrote.

The Law

 A plaintiff bringing a civil conspiracy claim is required to aver “material facts which will either directly or inferentially establish elements of conspiracy.”  Id. Additionally, a plaintiff must allege (1) the persons combined with a common purpose to do an unlawful act or to do a lawful act by unlawful means or unlawful purpose, (2) an overt act in furtherance of the common purpose has occurred, and (3) the plaintiff has incurred actual legal damage.  Id.  Importantly, absent a civil cause of action for a particular underlying act, there can be no cause of action for civil conspiracy to commit that act.

Janet Is Arguing the "Wrong" Conspiracy

First, Janet is trying to shoe horn this into a civil conspiracy by stating the abuse occurred due to an unlawful conspiracy at PSU based on the scant evidence in the Freeh Report.

If Victim 6's abuse occurred in late 2001 or later, he might have an argument but 1998 was the first known incident of Sandusky showering with a child to be reported to PSU officials. 

Next, there was absolutely no effort on PSU officials Schultz, Spanier, Curley, or Paterno to conceal the 1998  incident.    Prosecutor Frank Fina is on record that there is NO evidence Paterno was involved in a cover-up, however he is pressing on with his charges of "endangerment" based on the 2001 incident, not the 1998 case.

The report of abuse in 1998 was fielded by University Park police and jointly investigated with caseworkers from the Department of Public Welfare. The investigation was joined by the State College police and had involvement the Centre County District Attorney's office.  

To make an argument of concealment of the 1998 incident against Spanier, Curley, and Schultz is a losing argument.

Penn State's Senior Vice-President for Business and Finance, Gary Schultz, was informed by then-Chief of Police Tom Harmon that there was no criminality to the incident, thus neither Schultz nor any other University official could have believed there was inappropriate sexual relations, let alone condoned it. 

Janet is simply grasping at a straw, much like Kenneth Frazier did, to conclude Schultz believed there was "inappropriate behavior" based on a few words written on Shultz's note.  However, those words were most likely attributable to Tom Harmon, but also could have come from Detective Ron Schreffler or caseworker John Miller.

If Janet wants to win this case, he is going to have to cast a wider net and use something more that the faulty conclusions emanating from the fake investigation of Louis Freeh -- specifically, that the PSU BOT influenced the 1998 case.

Casting a Wider Net at Penn State

According to press reports, the legal team of Victim 6 made 33 discovery requests for a wide range of information from Penn State, including the names of everyone Freeh interviewed, the entire police file from 1998, and every single document the university gave the grand jury investigating Sandusky.

Freeh stated his team reviewed 3.5 million documents.  As Eileen Morgan pointed out, that was mathematically impossible to cull through that much information in the eight months Freeh's team got paid for not investigating the case.  

We also know that key word searches were performed for Paterno, Spanier, Schultz, Curley, and McQueary.  It is unclear what other search terms were used or if the PSU IT department or OAG computer forensics teams searched on other names.

However, if Howard Janet wants to prove a "civil conspiracy," he may want to use the chart below for the list of names to search in those 3.5 million records.

As you can see, some of the people who were around in 1998 were still on the BOT in 2011 as trustees or emeriti trustees, including Joel Myers, Cynthia Baldwin, Ted Junker, David Jones, Ed Hintz, Al Clemens, Anne Riley, Robert Metzgar, and Barry Robinson.  Janet may want to search those names and see what he comes up with.

Note that Schultz's name appears as Treasurer of the BOT.  His role on the BOT may be unfortunate for the other members if he instructed PSU's IT department to transfer the BOT e-mails (as he did his own) during the 2004 system switch-over.

Casting the Net At The Second Mile

Janet also filed suit against The Second Mile (TSM), however TSM's lawyers denied any knowledge of the 1998 incident, claiming that Penn State "concealed" evidence of that incident from their organization. TSM also continued to repeat the false story that none of Sandusky's abuse occurred during any programmed activities of TSM.  

TSM's claims are quite tenuous regarding its knowledge of 1998 -- and they made a similar claim when the story of the Sandusky investigation broke in March 2011.

 As I pointed out at Upon Further Review on November 9, 2013, TSM's Executive Director, Dr. Jack Raykovitz was being untruthful about TSM's knowledge of Sandusky's activities when he wrote the charity was "shaken" when it learned of the allegations in the March 2011 Sandusky grand jury.   A number of press reports and the testimony of Clinton County CYS Supervisor, Gerald Rosamilia, made it clear that TSM was informed of the Sandusky investigation at its outset on November 20, 2008.  Sandusky lost his clearance to work with children and abruptly resigned from the charity in the Fall of 2009.   Yet TSM continued to use Sandusky in their fund raising efforts and did not announce his "retirement" from the charity until September 2010. 

In the same op-ed, Dr. Raykovitz repeated the claim that the charity received no reports of abuse related to any official TSM activities.  

"Throughout our history, there have never been allegations made with regard to misconduct occurring during any Second Mile program."

That claim just doesn't hold water for the 1998 incident (and the 2001 incident).

First, TSM's 1999 Annual Report (not available on-line) shows that $75.242 was spent on the Friend/Friend Fitness program and that 48 "kids between both the State College and Indiana sites" were served by the fitness program by 36 mentors.  In the 2001 incident, the Annual Report shows $95,334 spent on the program and 40 participants.  Reasonable people (i.e., a jury) would probably conclude that Sandusky was using the Friend Fitness program as a means to take showers with youths.  Howard Janet's discovery request should include the Friend Fitness program records for all years there were victims.


As I noted in Report 1, Centre County Children and Youth Services (CYS) was required under the Public Welfare Code to notify TSM of the initiation and closure of the 1998 investigation, as well as work with TSM to put a protection plan in place during the investigation.  While it's clear the latter was not performed, it is unclear whether or not CYS made the notifications.  Despite the fact no records from an unfounded report would be available, Mr. Janet should utilize the provisions of the Public Welfare Code to make his case against TSM. 

Finally, the search terms for PSU's records should use the names of Board Members and key donors at The Second Mile, which can be obtained from their 1997 IRS 990 Form (for year ending 8/31/1998) and 1998 Annual Report.   Searches of data are cheap, so why not run these names on the PSU data and see what comes up (Moulton and the Feds do should do the same).

Freeh Whiffed on TSM and PSU BOT Nexus and Protected TSM

Report 2 exposed that only 12% of Freeh's findings related to the NCAA sanctions held water, however, one of the few that I found to be correct was that Spanier, Curley, Schultz, and Paterno did not interfere with the 1998 investigation.  

What is not certain is if any of the members of the BOT interfered or pulled strings to ensure Sandusky was not indicated as a child molester.   While the Freeh Report erroneously faults Spanier and Schultz for not informing the BOT about the 1998 case (clearly a duty that belonged to the PSU General Counsel, Courtney, under the Standing Orders of the BOT), the Freeh Report did not consider other means in which the BOT may have learned of the investigation -- namely from TSM, the police, or from CYS.  

In other words, the BOT may not have gotten official notification but certainly could have learned of it through unofficial channels.  And that is where the relationship between the PSU BOT and TSM comes into play.


Chapter 7 of the Freeh Report, titled "Sandusky's Post-Retirement Interactions With The University," fell woefully short in identifying any of the PSU BOT members, past or present, that had ties to TSM. 

The TSM Annual Reports from 2005 to 2010 showed that USSteel and Merck, both with high ranking officials on the PSU BOT, were donors to TSM.  In addition, other BOT members such as Lloyd Huck, James Broadhurst, Paul Silvis, Anthony Lubrano, and Linda Strumpf were donors.  Trustee Ira Lubert sat on the Southeast Region Board of TSM for several years.  Again, this information was available on public records and should have been identified in Chapter 7, but was conspicuously missing.  

Full, fair, and complete investigation?  Not by a long-shot.


Freeh Attempted to "Cover-up" for TSM
There are numerous other errors describing the relationship between PSU and TSM on page 107 to 109. but what is particularly notable is the last paragraph on page 109, which appears to provide a "cover-up" for TSM by making no mention of the Friend Fitness program.

"Second Mile also offered a "Friend Program," a mentorship program that matched a college volunteer with an at-risk elementary student.....Friend Program events included picnics, holiday parties, swimming, and bowling.  Sandusky sometimes participated in the Friend Program at the Altoona campus.  When he did, Sandusky often arrived accompanied by a boy for Second Mile who was not part of the invited group.  According to a Director of Programs at Second Mile, the last time he saw Sandusky participate in any Second Mile activities was in 2008."

The Freeh Report also states that TSM's summer camps on the PSU campus took place from 1999 to 2008, but TSM's Annual Reports 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 through 2010.  I suspect the 2008 cut-off was done to protect TSM from criticism or liability for allowing Sandusky to interact with children after he was indicated for abuse.

(Note:  Similar tactics were used in later news articles written by Sara Ganim in the Patriot News)

Conclusion

For Howard Janet to succeed in the "civil conspiracy" case, he must widen his scope past the false allegations made in the fake investigation conducted by Louis Freeh.

Janet must use the discovery materials to dig into the areas that the original Sandusky investigation and the fake Freeh investigation failed to explore -- specifically, the PSU BOT, TSM, and DPW.  


Given the power and influence of the PSU BOT and TSM Board members, particularly their associations with government officials, I find it curious that the 1998 investigation was taken over by an investigator from Harrisburg, rather than the office that had jurisdiction, in Cresson.  

If there is a civil conspiracy in this case, it spans at least these three organizations, and possibly a few others.

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