Saturday, February 27

"Freeh source materials" confirm the Curley File

Freeh Report source materials already in the public domain, combined with other evidence, confirm that Tim Curley had a file on Sandusky -- and its contents found their way into the so-called Schultz "secret file"


By
Ray Blehar 

Even though the alumni-elected members of the Penn State University (PSU) Board of Trustees (BOT) have succeeded in gaining access to the Freeh source materials, the court sided with Old Main to keep the information from being publicly disclosed.

Regardless of that ruling, and likely unknown to the public, some of the Freeh source materials  are already in the public domain - and they prove that evidence was manipulated and/or tampered with in order to railroad PSU officials (i.e., Curley, Schultz, and Spanier).

However, when the source materials are combined with other existing evidence, the totality of the evidence confirms that former PSU Athletic Director (AD) Tim Curley had information related to the Sandusky matter -- and that information was illegally placed into the so-called "secret file" of former PSU VP for Finance and Business, Gary Schultz.

The Key Evidence?

What appears to be a seemingly insignificant document -- a February 11, 2001 computer printout that lists the names of the Board of Directors of The Second Mile (TSM) and its date/time stamp -- turns out to be a very key piece of evidence.



































According to the Freeh Report (at 71), on "February 12, 2001, at about 11:10 AM, Schultz researched the internet about the Board members of The Second Mile, the charitable organization Sandusky founded."

The passage is referenced to End Note #303: Schultz confidential file notes (5-1-12), however this printout -- that was printed at the exact same time "Schultz researched the internet" -- was not included in the Freeh Report.  Had it been included, most reasonable people (not Sally Jenkins) would have concluded that Freeh was making quite an evidentiary leap to tie an unlabeled computer printout to a specific individual.  In short, Freeh excluded the print out as a matter of maintaining his (alleged) credibility.

The document wasn't introduced as evidence in any legal proceeding to date -- for a very good reason.

The timeline of evidence does not support Gary Schultz searching for the names of members of the TSM Board on February 12, 2001.

Curley, Not Schultz, Concerned About TSM

Freeh Report Exhibit 5C, the February 12, 2001 "Confidential" hand-written note of Gary Schultz outlined an early plan for addressing the 2001 incident.  Schultz made no mention of  TSM in that plan.

According to the grand jury testimony of Curley (at 181 and 188), he originated the plan to inform TSM about the 2001 incident  and proposed it during the February 25, 2001 meeting with former PSU President Graham Spanier and Schultz.



































Freeh Report Exhibit 5G, Schultz's February 28, 2001  email  also confirms Curley proposed informing TSM: "we will inform his organization, with or without his cooperation (I think that's what Tim proposed)."




Schultz also memorialized Curley's plan, which included discussions with TSM, on February 25th and 26th, in handwriting (Exhibit 5G) and by email (Exhibit 5F), respectively.

Finally, Freeh Report Exhibit 2J, the notes of Graham Spanier, also confirm that Curley was very concerned about his impending interaction with TSM.



In summary, this evidence reveals that Curley came up with the plan to talk to TSM and had concerns about the charity's reaction.  Given the evidence, it was Curley - not Schultz -- who printed out the names of the TSM board members on February 12th.

While the printout turns out to be a very significant document in the grand scheme of things, it's not the only "source" document that provides evidence of manipulation and/or tampering.

March 7, 2001 Email Manipulation/Bias

A March 7, 2001 email allegedly obtained from the so-called "secret file" of Gary Schultz, memorialized a discussion between  Curley and Schultz's former administrative assistant Joan Coble, regarding Curley's follow up on the plan to address the incident.

Freeh Report's Exhibit 5I of the email is on the left, while the source document (introduced as Commonwealth's Exhibit 18 at the July 2013 preliminary hearing) is on the right.




The evidence shows that the Freeh Report exhibit was printed from an email file and was not the full email discussion between Coble and Curley.  The Freeh Report excluded any mention of Curley's affirmative response that he had followed through on the plan by March 7th.  Note that March 7th is the circled date at top of the full email.

This is significant because the Freeh Report stated, without equivocation, that Curley met with TSM on March 19, 2001.  However, the Freeh Report's March 19, 2001 date is based on a hearsay statement from an unnamed legal representative for TSM.

The Freeh Report's conclusion of the March 19th meeting between Curley and TSM was also refuted by Spanier's notes (Freeh Exhibit 2J).  Spanier wrote that he met with Curley shortly after their late February meeting that the former AD had followed through on the plan to speak with TSM.



The Freeh Report made several inferences that Spanier had been less than honest with the Freeh investigators, thus excluding the critical evidence of the March 7th date was two fold:  to support the Freeh Report conclusion of a March 19th meeting and to undermine the credibility of Spanier.

As shown in email obtained by PSU alumnus, Ryan Bagwell, Freeh made it a point to alert personnel conducting Spanier's background investigation for a security clearance about evidence found during the (criminal) investigation.  Spanier would eventually lose his clearance as a result of the charges against him.

The evidence manipulation to persecute PSU officials certainly was more widespread than those documents.  Over 80 documents cited as sources in the Freeh Report were excluded, and most importantly, some of the most critical missing evidence is tied to the Curley/Schultz files.

Curley's Notes Turned Over In February 2011

The grand jury questioning by Frank Fina revealed he was not yet aware that Tim Curley possessed any information about Sandusky.  Fina didn't ask a single question whether Tim had taken notes during any of the meetings about the 2001 incident.  In fact, Fina didn't even ask Curley (or anyone else) if they had searched for documents responsive to Subpoena 1179.  Clearly, Fina knew that Baldwin didn't tell these men to search for documents.

According to the Freeh Report (at 84), on February 15, 2011, Baldwin met with members of the football coaching staff to discuss their knowledge of Sandusky.  The next day, OAG investigators were present and conducted more interviews.  It is likely that the search for documents from the football coaches and AD officials occurred then or very shortly thereafter.

OAG special agent, Anthony Sassano later testified that the legal team of Duane Morris delivered boxes of information (he presumed was from Schultz's office)  that contained Sandusky's retirement paperwork.  Duane Morris was the former employer of Cynthia Baldwin -- and she brought in members of that firm in to assist her.  According to a notation on one of the retirement papers (Freeh Report Exhibit 3H), it was received (by someone, but certainly not Louis Freeh) on February 28, 2011 at 6:28 pm.







While the public has been led to believe that the retirement paperwork came from the Schultz file, it is clear that Curley had a copy of it.  As noted on the letter, Sandusky was instructed to return his signed copy to Curley (see below).  This indeed confirms that Curley and/or the AD's office had information related to Sandusky in its possession.


































But that's not the only significant issue regarding the Curley file.


More Tampering?
According to the testimony of Joan Coble, she had no specific knowledge of anything in the bottom drawer of Schultz's filing cabinet.  She testified she never looked in the drawer.  As such, Coble's testimony provided no legitimate information regarding the contents of the Schultz file.

Based on the evidence cited previously, by the time Kimberly Belcher removed the file from Schultz's bottom drawer in November 2011, it had been touched by so many hands that the authenticity/integrity of the contents would be compromised.

It also appears that one of the "hands" involved may have tampered with the retirement letter.

Under magnification, it appears that Schultz's signature has been overlaid on a previous signature block. Note that the words "BY UNIVERSITY OFFICER: and "for Finance" do not have shadowing or aliasing around them.

















For the purpose of comparison, here is top of page two at similar magnification, showing the clear, bolder, non-shadowed type as the authentic typeface.
























It is highly probable that those who tampered with the evidence did so thinking that Freeh's impeccable reputation would prevent anyone from questioning the authenticity of the evidence and that they could get away with railroading the PSU 3.

Under the patently ridiculous narrative of the Freeh Report, it was the lure of the Penn State football facilities that provided the "very currency" that Sandusky used to attract his victims. With Schultz's signature affixed to the document, each of the PSU 3 (and Paterno) would be tried in the court of public opinon for enabling Sandusky's sexual abuse.

Freeh publicly smeared PSU officials for allowing Sandusky to be on campus after there were no charges or findings against him in 1998.  Moreover, Freeh ignored the evidence that no crimes occurred on campus after 2001, instead stating that abuse continued on the PSU campus through 2009.

As has been demonstrated repeatedly, evidence timelines or chain of custody of evidence can be counted on to undo the false narratives of the cases prosecuted by the PA Corruption Network.

The Chain of Custody of the Schultz Files

According to OAG officials, the notes of Schultz were not provided to them until April 2012 -- by Schultz and his former administrative assistant, Kimberly Belcher.

Louis Freeh claimed, during his highly publicized press conference, that "we found them in conjunction with the Attorney General."  The Freeh Report notes the date of discovery as May 1, 2012.

However, both of those claims are refuted by the notebook of former PSU President Rodney Erickson.  On 31 January 2012, which was three months before the Schultz notes were either turned over to the OAG or "found" by Freeh, Erickson wrote that he was to get copies of the notes of Curley and Schultz.



PSU alumnae Eileen Morgan's excellent analysis of the evidence surrounding the grand jury questioning of Curley, Schultz, and the late former PSU football Coach, Joe Paterno almost certainly proves that Frank Fina received the Schultz file from PSU (i.e., Baldwin) prior to the January 12, 2011 proceeding.

While Erickson's notebook confirms that he knew that Freeh's alleged discovery of the Schultz file and the OAG's pretense that the files were not turned over until April 2012 were both shams, it also confirmed that he was aware of Fina's strategy to get Curley and Schultz to flip.

Based on the analysis of the evidence, it is highly probable that Fina, et al, decided to throw the whole kitchen sink of evidence at Schultz, rather than Curley, in an effort to produce the flip.

The Truth

PSU, under Erickson and new puppet President Eric Barron have paid out untold millions to keep various litigants, including some of its own trustees,  from accessing the Freeh source materials.

In doing so, Old Main and the Old Guard utilized specious arguments or protecting employee confidentiality and that the Freeh Report didn't impact University decisions as a means to keep the alumni trustees from finding out the truth.

The reality of the matter is that Erickson, Baldwin, and others know that it is only a matter of time before the Freeh source materials expose the truth about the Sandusky matter.

And the only thing Erickson, Baldwin, Harmon, Fina and numerous others fear more than the truth is what the truth will eventually do to them.




Friday, February 26

Wendy Silverwood: 2/26/2016 Public Comment to BOT

At the core of any community is its values -- the shared ideals about how people should act toward one another, the standards to which we hold ourselves, and those beliefs we find important.

I wanted to address two of these Penn State core values out of the six that are published.

INTEGRITY: We act with integrity and honesty in accordance with the highest academic, professional, and ETHICAL standards.

Conversely the integrity, professional and ethical standards of individuals within our former Office of Attorney General ran counter to those of the University.

Frank Fina was the star prosecutor in that office — the guy who made Governor Corbett’s career.

Fina, along with other officials including those involved with the Sandusky case are caught up in what we now know as ‪#‎PornGate‬ and ‪#‎HateGate‬.

Among the hard core pornography Fina circulated from his office, much of it included images of women engaged in anal sex, oral sex and group sex.

Images of women being VIOLATED with various objects.

Recall that prosecutor Fina supervised that inflammatory grand jury presentment indicting Tim Curley and Gary Schultz with failing to report a crime of violation.

A crime acoustically and physically impossible as described, and later born out as untrue by evidence and testimony to a jury in the courtroom.

Yet nevertheless the media has repeated this singular lie as if it were the unassailable truth.

Prosecutors have a license to lie. It is not a stretch to see who was behind that lie.

Not once has Penn State ever paused to reflect on the established ethics, honesty and integrity of Tim, Gary, Graham & Joe – instead you chose to question and disbelieve.

Perhaps you should seriously question the ethics, honesty and integrity of Frank Fina.

RESPECT: We respect and honor the dignity of each person and embrace civil discourse.

Civil discourse ceased the moment John Surma stepped over Steve Garban’s body to ax Joe in an ill-timed, late night press conference carrying out a personal vendetta.

Civil discourse was replaced by verbal and physical harassment, death threats, vandalism and horribly flawed, sensationalist reporting in a media stampede.

Respecting the honor and dignity of Joe, Tim, Gary, Graham, the Lettermen, the student/athletes and the Penn State community at large, vaporized when a former prosecutor with a License To Lie indicted and smeared us all on July 12th, 2012.

Fina and Freeh chose to dishonor by selectively leaking to the media, even including a few Board members to carry out their deeds.

I ask that you respect and restore that honor to these people and their families and you insist on civil discourse by the media and the public.

Frank Fina and his fellow gunslingers in the Office of Attorney General reigned with fear & intimidation. It meant there were no holds barred on anybody who worked there.

These same prosecutorial bullying tactics were used to silence and discredit Tim Curley and Gary Schultz – suppressing evidence, falsely charging them and corruptly cooking up a scheme to charge Graham Spanier.

Appallingly, your own General Counsel helped with the deception.

Frank Fina’s email scandal of #hategate and #porngate has ripped open a constitutional crisis in our commonwealth.

It has exposed a network that ascribes to core values of Intimidation, Misconduct, Malfeasance, Dishonesty & Deceit.

A set of values that are antithetical to the values of Penn State.

Values that have destroyed lives, livelihoods and reputations, and shaken the very core of the community.

Is this our new standard?

Sunday, February 14

Bethel's "Unverified" is a must see

Bradley Bethel's "Unverified" documents  another case of media sensationalism leading to innocent people being scapegoated -- while UNC puts political correctness and expediency above common decency.

By
Ray Blehar

The media soundbites and headlines said....."fraudulent paper classes"...."no show classes"...."no show classes for athletes"....."an iconic program gone bad"....and the "longest running cheating scandal in NCAA history"

What went on at the University of North Carolina (UNC)- Chapel Hill -- in terms of media sensationalism -- was on par with the inappropriately labeled, Penn State sex scandal.

And that is why Unverified is a must see for all Penn Staters.

Bradley Bethel, a former academic counselor at UNC, adeptly lays out how the media sensationalized a false story, resulting in a so-called independent investigation with a pre-determined outcome. In the end, innocent people were scapegoated so that the school could put the scandal behind them.

Sound familiar?  

At UNC, the administration came down hard on lowly academic counselors, firing those who were actually helping the athletes with their studies.  It also fired two other administrators, but certainly put no blame on those who created the problem.


No Show Classes
"No show classes," CBS's Scott Pelley sternly stated as he stared into the camera.

Yes, no show classes, Scott.  Welcome to the world of on-line education.  


On-line courses, while not requiring attendance at a "brick and mortar" building, do require considerable work.  PSU has a World Campus full of "no show classes" offering a variety of degrees.  Some of the classes are quite difficult.  There are Universities, such as the University of Phoenix, who specialize in "no show" classes (a.k.a, on-line learning).  


Most of the UNC athletes enrolled in the "no show" classes did required reading, took on-line quizzes, and wrote papers.  The UNC athletic counselors helped students, but didn't do work for them. 

However,  the media covering wasn't interested in finding out the facts...  


Ganim's reporting on the UNC and PSU cases were based on unreliable, biased sources.


...they had a source named Mary Willingham.  And as we saw in the Penn State case, it was a source whose story was too good to check.

UNVERIFIED  

A January 2014 CNN report by Ganim relied extensively on Mary Willingham's  "research" which allegedly found 183 athletes reading between the 4th and 8th grade level.   Willingham, adding fuel to the fire, claimed she turned a blind eye to cheating and NCAA violations.

But, Willingham's study was not peer reviewed.  

Her allegations of cheating and NCAA violations were unchecked.

In a word, Willingham's work was UNVERIFIED.

Ganim and the rest of the media didn't let facts stand in the way of a good story.

McDonald's and Swahili

The stories -- and that's what they mostly were -- of student athletes abusing the system were sensationalized.

As one UNC professor put it, "it was not a time for compassion."


ESPN painted Deaunte Williams as a "fast food worker" who was exploited by North Carolina's paper class curriculum when the real story was he took out a loan and built his own restaurant and employs people.  

He is, to quote, "a job giver" and "not a poor black kid who works at McDonald's."


Amazingly, just one year earlier, ESPN did a feature on Williams, that showed he was a successful entrepreneur, homeowner, and volunteer football coach.

Joe Nocera of the New York Times wrote, Football and Swahili, in which he took shots at the idea that football players were taking Swahili.  In the article, he misquoted Williams, alleging that the former football player said 100% of freshman football players took Swahili.

Williams actually took Portuguese -- and flat out said he was misquoted.  

Nocera wouldn't entertain a discussion the misquote. 

Similary, Bernard Goldberg, looked down his nose at a former UNC athlete who took Swahili, asking him how often he used it.  The athlete responded never, to which Goldberg reacted with disgust.

Of course, no one cared about "the other side" of the story.

When the African American (AFAM) curriculum was developed the proponents of it believed native African languages should be used rather than other foreign languages, like Spanish or French. It made sense then and it makes sense now.  That was the reason why football players enrolled in AFAM were taking Swahili.

But it's too much to expect the media to figure it out.  

And that's another reason why Bradley Bethel's Unverified is a must see.

Political Correctness Run Amok

Imagine the blow back from the politically correct  if UNC eliminated Swahili because it's not particularly useful to know.

That gets us to the bottom of the so-called UNC Cheating Scandal.

Former Governor Jim Martin investigated the UNC paper classes back in 2012 and correctly found that the problem was a lack of oversight of the AFAM department by the academic side of the school.  Many of the classes were "aberrant" or "irregularly taught" from 2007 to 2011.

"The athletic department, coaches and players did not create this," Martin told the board of trustees. "It was not in their jurisdiction, it was the academic side."

Chancellor James Moeser said that UNC felt that they were helping minority students who were not quite as adept academically to get through their studies and graduate.

When the media began fanning the flames about a cheating scandal in 2013,  the administrators claimed no knowledge of what was happening in AFAM and pulled out the "corporate crisis playbook."

Wainstein Report

UNC hired a high profile lawyer, Kenneth Wainstein, to perform an independent investigation.
Wainstein Report's had a pre-determined outcome that would begin the public cleansing.

Much like the Freeh Report, Wainstein's Report would form the basis for the public cleansing.  There would be a few sacrificial lambs -- academic counselors Beth Bridger and Jaimie Lee, among others --  but those who caused the problem were not be held accountable.

It was a big time athletics problem. Everyone knew it. 

The media didn't need to read the Wainstein Report -- they wrote it.

Fired coach Butch Davis quite aptly summed up the Wainstein Report:  "tie it up and put a bow on it, blame him, kick football to the curb and move on."    

Sound familiar?


A Voice of Reason


Once again, ESPN's Jay Bilas was a voice of reason.  He properly assessed the problem was academics, not athletics.   He pointed out  that no coach can establish a class and a coach assumes if a class is offered, it's legitimate.  

If this went on for 20 years -- and the majority taking classes were not athletes --  then where were the checks and balances on the academic side?


Should athletics role to be to question the academics of an institution?  


Cue Joe Paterno, circa 1983!


Truth, Healing, and Hope

Bethel finally got a chance to interview one of the high ranking adminstrators, Chancellor James Moeser.

Moeser admitted that a "case can be made" that media pressure caused the University not to exercise "appropriate due process" and "rush to judgment."


Individuals were "harshly judged without all the evidence, without due process."

Those admissions of truth that can bring about the healing needed when a false narrative rips away at the fabric of an institution.



John Blanchard, UNC's senior associate athletic director, fired in the scandal's wake provides an uplifting -- and somewhat familiar message -- near the end of Bethel's film. 


"Don't drop out of the story and be bitter and resentful.  Keep going.  Enjoy life.  Remember the best days are ahead when we will be able to help others."  


But it was Blanchard's other message that resonated most with me.



"Have faith in the end of the story, even if you don't know what that story is going to be."

The film is a must see...and Bethel hopes to bring Unverified to State College.