Bad Faith, Addendum 1: Freeh's Mangling of the Janitor Incident

Many people, like media blowhard Keith Olbermann and disgruntled class action lawyer, Michael Boni , are still clinging to the myth that Louis Freeh's credentials are impeccable and he conducted a legitimate investigation at Penn State.  I suspect few have ever read the full Freeh Report and are unaware of the reports glaring inaccuracies. A prime example is Freeh's mangling of the janitor's testimony, which revealed just how shoddy and lazy his PSU investigation and report really was.  

By

Ray Blehar

At his press conference on July 12, 2012, Louis Freeh called the incident witnessed by the janitor as "the most horrific rape" that was described in the Sandusky case.  

Apparently, the former FBI Director, with impeccable credentials, decided the trial verdicts were irrelevant to his press conference remarks and his report.  

Many who continue to criticize PSU would likely be surprised to learn the most incendiary charge in the case -- that McQueary had witnessed Sandusky anally raping a boy -- resulted in a not guilty verdict.   Just as importantly, there was not a single victim who credibly accused Sandusky of attempting to rape them while they were on the campus.  Obviously, if there were no credible allegations of rapes, there weren't any rape convictions.

So how did Freeh come up with his wild claim of a "horrific rape" in the janitor incident?

Simply put, Louis Freeh appears to be a pathological liar (see here also).

Facts didn't matter to Freeh nor his PSU BOT handlers.  The public relations smear of the University, likely by the Core Group of Ken Frazier, Ron Tomalis, Freeh, and Omar McNeil, became a substitute for the facts of the case.  When the McQueary incident resulted in a not guilty verdict, the alternative was to pump up the janitor incident to indict the PSU culture.  Freeh stated that PSU's reverence for football was ingrained from the top (Spanier) to the bottom (the janitors).  

Freeh's PSU investigation's found very little
 and his report is riddled with serious errors.

Freeh was able to sell the janitor incident as proof that PSU had a morally corrupt culture and that the janitors were innocent "victims" who couldn't dare fight back against the system. The media and the public fell for it. 

Few, if any, bothered to fact check Freeh's story.  If they had, they would have found that it didn't stack up against the evidence and especially not the trial testimony of Ronald Petrosky.  Freeh embellished Petrosky's testimony in at least a dozen different places in the report's account on pages 65 and 66.  

Those who believe the Freeh Report was accurate need only look at the diagram below to see how inaccurate it was in reporting the testimony of Petrosky (Janitor B).  

Anyone who sat through the Sandusky trial and heard Petrosky's testimony should have known Freeh had gotten his account of the janitor incident terribly wrong.  As I pointed out in Friday's blog, Freeh used the Sandusky grand jury presentment as his report template and he did very poorly when attempting to edit it after the trial.  This also demonstrates that the contents of a grand jury presentment often do not reflect legitimate evidence that could be presented at a trial.  In  this case, the Pennsylvania OAG wrote a very inaccurate presentment based on shaky evidence.  As a result, it tripped up America's #1 phony investigator for hire.

The first very important error Freeh made was stating that two janitors testified at the trial.  The second janitor (Janitor C), who prosecutors had lined up as the corroborating witness, never did.  Therefore, the entire account that Petrosky gave at the trial was uncorroborated hearsay that may have been improperly admitted under the excited utterance exception.  Judge Cleland overruled Sandusky's appeal on the hearsay testimony by incorrectly stating that a second janitor had testified at the trial and corroborated Petrosky's testimony (p.18).  However, the exception also requires evidence of the crime - and none was presented.

Between Freeh, Cleland, Feudale, Baldwin, and Lunsford,  the competency of judges who have been associated with Sandusky isn't looking too hot.

Next, please point your attention to number 11, where Petrosky says Janitor A (Calhoun) didn't want to report Sandusky because he was afraid "they'll get rid of us all."  This statement doesn't pass the logic test. 

Petrosky testified that Calhoun - a temporary janitor - didn't know who Sandusky was.  So if Calhoun didn't know who Sandusky was, why would he conclude that reporting Sandusky would result in them all being fired?   That makes absolutely no sense (aside from the fact it wasn't testified to by Petrosky!).

Also, Freeh's contention that a culture of reverence for the football program caused PSU employees not to report Sandusky got "stood on its head" by the timeline of the case. 

Just three months after the janitors were paralyzed by their reverence for football (or fear for their jobs), lowly graduate assistant football coach Mike McQueary witnessed Sandusky in the showers with a child and reported him to Joe Paterno.  He didn't detour to an assistant to talk it through first.  He went directly to Paterno.   After which he continued as a GA until he was hired as a full-time assistant in 2004.  

Oh, the fear. Oh, the reverence for a retired coach!

Freeh's reasonable conclusions about the janitor incident didn't square with the facts -- and certainly not the testimony provided at the Sandusky trial.  

President Barron's review of the Freeh Report
is unlikely to recognize the report's errors

Those who continue to stand by the accuracy of the Freeh Report simply don't have the knowledge of the case to identify the report's errors.    And without knowledge of the facts of the case (that weren't included in the Freeh Report), reviewing it is rather pointless.  That's why I expect little from President Barron's review.

In the end, those who stood by the Freeh Report (and Freeh) will be embarrassed when it is completely eviscerated in the Paterno v. NCAA lawsuit and in Spanier's defamation suit.
  

Next: Addendum 2: Unintended Financial Consequences of the Sandusky Scandal.