Sunday, September 11

PA: State of Deflection (Part 2: FTR)

Media Molestation:  Sara Ganim and Patriot News deflected attention away from the failed 1998 DPW investigation and onto PSU officials using the illegitimate Failure To Report (FTR) charges.

By
Ray Blehar


In Part 1 of the series, Brad Bumsted and Terry Madonna, among others, used a concocted leak case against former Attorney General Kathleen Kane to deflect attention away from her outing of corrupt elements of the Pennsylvania criminal justice system who were intimately involved in the Sandusky case.

Another deflection was carried out by the editorial board of the Patriot News and its award winning reporters Sara Ganim (now of CNN) and Charlie Thompson.   This group has very busy keeping the focus on Penn State and Joe Paterno -- while deflecting attention away from the people who were paid with PA's tax dollars to protect children.

Those people were employed by the (then) Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW) and Centre County Children and Youth Services (CC CYS).


The blatant falsehoods, fabrications, and lies by omission of the Patriot News are too numerous to count (see my nine part series). 

However, one of the greatest deflections  was the Patriot News November 13, 2011 op-ed calling for reforms to the PA child abuse reporting laws.

As was the case with their entire reporting on the scandal, it supported the PACORN prosecutor's tortured version of the law and the statutes of limitations.  While the editors tried to dance around the laws as much as possible, they still managed to mention that the 2007 law was retroactively applied (ex post facto) to the 2002 (sic) incident.

The Patriot News employs a solicitor or legal counsel to review column.  We know this because Sara Ganim made a remark that the lawyers assisted largely in her story that broke news of the investigation.   

The editorial board, apparently attempting to feign ignorance about the FTR law or that it employs lawyers, used the Office of Attorney General's (OAG) incorrect interpretation that PSU was a school (it wasn't) and that the "person in charge" of the school was responsible for the report.  

Next, in an attempt to explain away the lack of charges against former PSU President Graham Spanier,  the editorial board stated the law was ill defined regarding who the "person in charge" is.

Seriously?  

Did the editorial board -- and OAG -- not understand the "person in charge" at Penn State is called "the President?"  

Of course they did.  

In addition, the editors made no attempt to explain why two individuals who would never remotely be considered the "person in charge" of a school -- an Athletic Director (AD) and a Senior Vice-President (SVP) -- were facing charges.

They knew what was going on with the bogus charges because they had seen this go down before in Bonusgate and Computergate.

They knew the PA OAG had yet to manufacture the case against Spanier. 

Those things take time. 
Documents need to be altered. 
Witnesses need to be coerced.  

In short, the OAG didn't possess the evidence -despite having the original PSU emails and notes -- to get AD Tim Curley and/or SVP Gary Schultz to flip and testify against Spanier.

The so called members of the Fourth Estate, who are given protection under the law as guardians of the truth, went along with the corrupt prosecutions of innocent people for perjury and FTR.

That is appalling.

Even more appalling was their own work in accusing PSU officials of endangering all 8 Sandusky victims.  

Who Could Have Done More?

This piece of dishonest tripe led off with the following  passage:

The central question in the Penn State child sex abuse 

allegations is who is culpable? 

It is a legal question and a moral one. Who could have done

more?


The accompanying image and opinions in their dishonest op-ed clearly made the case that all 8 Sandusky victims could have been spared had PSU officials made a phone call in 2001.   

Deflection?  Yes.

Dishonest?  Absolutely.

The fact of the matter was that the November 2011 grand jury presentment stated that seven of the eight children were victimized on or before the 2001 incident.  

There was nothing a phone call in 2001 could have done to stop those events from occurring.  

And they knew it.

The dishonesty continued as the editorial board wrote:

"If Pennsylvania had child abuse reporting laws such as

 Connecticut (which requires reporting to police or a state 

agency), the alleged Sandusky abuse might not have 

continued beyond 2000 or 2002 or even earlier."

In 1998, both the police and a state agency were involved in the investigation -- after that call got made by PSU Detective Ronald Schreffler.  

The  Patriot News knew this because -- in a November 23, 2011 column, editor David Newhouse revealed that Sara Ganim obtained the 1998 University Park police report in early (January) 2011.















The editorial board of the Patriot News didn't even mention 1998 Sandusky investigation in its op-ed! 

The 1998 police report was over 100 pages in length and contained the details of the investigation.  

According to the redacted version, released in March 2012, the interview transcript of Victim #6 and the report of Dr. Alycia Chambers were attached to it.

The Sandusky PCRA exhibits contained almost the full transcript of the Victim 6 interview -- and it provided very convincing evidence that Sandusky was using his charity's Friend Fitness program workouts as a grooming tool.

Moreover, the report of Dr. Alycia Chambers was similarly damning and labeled Sandusky as a possible pedophile.

Ganim, Thompson, and the editors surely understood that evidence should have resulted in child welfare investigators taking steps to prevent Sandusky's access to children.  Instead of reporting it that way, they (and the OAG) blamed the 1998 failure on the dead guy -- former District Attorney Ray Gricar.

Had the full details in the 1998 police report been reported, it would have surely put the blame for enabling Sandusky's crimes where it belonged --  Pennsylvania's child protection system.  

They weren't about to let that information see the light of day.


Ganim and editors Feely, Newhouse, and Barron deflected attention away from 1998 failure.

Regardless of the facts, making the story about Penn State and Paterno benefited them.  They were choosing to win a Pulitzer Prize rather than protecting the welfare of PA's children.

They tore down a legend.
They tore down a University.
They won a Pulitzer.
They kept the public in the dark and endangered children.

The issue was not the reporting law.  
The bottom line was that DPW failed after the call was made.     

In a craftily written, but dishonest piece, Sara Ganim, excused the failures of DPW by reporting that its investigator, Jerry Lauro, never saw the Chambers report.  In fact, her report accused PSU officials of hiding the report from him.

Ganim, the seemingly intrepid reporter who got scoop after scoop, wrote next nothing about the contents of the rather significant 1998 psychology report of Dr. Chambers (that had been in her possession since January 2011).    In fact, she pretended (in March 2012) that she had not seen the report and that it was shown to her by another person.  

Obviously, she was unaware that David Newhouse revealed she possessed the report four months earlier.


Ganim's dishonest reporting on the Sandusky scandal won a Pulitzer & a job at CNN.  





She also knew that the 1998 police report confirmed Lauro was intimately involved in setting a second evaluation of Victim 6. 

Lauro, to escape his role in the colossal 1998 failure, alleged that the PSU police "never shared any of these (reports) with me."  

Ganim, reported the dubious statement as evidence that Lauro was unaware of the Chambers report.  However, it was obvious he could have obtained it through other means.


The Chambers report was provided to the PSU police and CYS on May 7th.  She had also made a report to DPW.  Lauro's last known contact with CYS was on May 27th.   

But Lauro somehow never saw or was told about Chambers oral or written report?  

The Patriot News was obviously not interested in getting to the bottom of this "missing" report.  Its only two mentions of Dr. Chambers were in relation to her receiving a subpoena to testify in May 2012 and a June 2011 report of her vehicle striking a deer.  

Up to May 2012, Dr. Chambers was referred to as "the first psychologist" and the "female psychologist" in its reports.

There is little doubt why the Patriot News, that was set on winning a Pulitzer prize, was avoiding this rather big story that had the potential to undermine their fabrications of a PSU cover up.

Again, the editorial board chose winning a Pulitzer over telling the truth and fixing a broken child protection system.  To put it bluntly -- the editorial board of the Patriot News decided the kids could get screwed (literally).


The editors continue to avoid any meaningful discussion of the 1998 investigation. 
Micek: Avoiding real discussion of PA problems

When invited to discuss the failures of DPW and the 1998 Sandusky investigation and other problems with child protection in a public forum, editor John Micek appeared willing but didn't make himself available.  

The avoidance to discuss child protection issues and the 1998 Sandusky investigation speaks volumes.   

The editors of the Patriot News know that if they had to defend the Pulitzer prize winning reports in a public forum, their deflections and falsehoods would be exposed.  

19 comments:

  1. Thank you so much Ray for exposing this Patriot News fraud for what it is. Mayor Papenfuse has also shown great courage and publicly rejected the Patriot News for its fraudulent reporting. Do these people, Mike Feeley, Cate Barron, David Newhouse, Sara Ganim, and John Micek, not learn from history? Did they not learn in grammar school what took place in Nazi Germany? What took place in Nazi Germany was the Holocaust. The attempted extermination of an entire race of people and the systematic persecution and murder of scholars and intellectuals that tried to expose it. It required the complete cooperation of news outlets to demonize Jews, lie to the public about the "righteous" Nazi ideology, and cover-up the starvation, torture, and mass murder of innocent civilians (children included) at the hands of the mentally ill Nazi regime.

    The news media then did what the Patriot News is doing now---willfully participating in covering up crimes against humanity. Yes, crimes against humanity. These children that have been sexually exploited by PACORN for years are human beings! They are not expendable commodities here for the sick, twisted minds of those that pay to abuse them. With Kane's attempted exposure of The Second Mile's role in institutional child abuse, and her successful exposure of the diocese child abuse, she became a target for elimination. With the persecution of Kathleen Kane, and Attorney General Beemer wiping Second Mile records off of state computers, does anyone doubt for a minute that PA is experiencing a Holocaust?

    Centre County DAs and Risa Vetri Ferman are the new Nazi SS. It's my belief that they are threatening, killing, publishing lies and doing everything they can to cover up their Holocaust. Perhaps Professor Bettig (a media corruption expert) was considered an intellectual threat to exposing their alliance with the "press". If any one group of people in this country is dumb enough not have learned the lessons in history that show how the sickness of Nazi Germany developed, then they deserve to be labeled as Nazis and suffer the same historical judgment. Remember, the raving madman Hitler, and his Nazis won some battles. But they lost the war.

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    1. At this point in time, I'm not sure the Patriot News is witting to their role in keeping child sex trafficking alive and well in Pennsylvania.

      I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now. But we'll see what happens when they eventually have to answer for their Media Molestation.

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    2. You say the Patriot News and their fake reporters will eventually have to answer for their media molestation. Do you think The Tribune Review's Bumsted saw the writing on the wall? Maybe he felt the dragnet getting a little too close for comfort?

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    3. Truthseeker,
      I'd like to think that about Bumsted, but I do believe these guys think they are untouchable.

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  2. I certainly agree.

    So how did Sara Ganim get the 1998 police report in Jan. 2011?

    Most major news and sports providers have been dishonest in refusing to cover any stories that disagree with the Attorney General's imagined conspiracy by PSU.

    When victims 1 and 4 publicly objected to the NCAA sanctions, that was not reported by the major news outlets.

    When victim 1 blamed his high school officials in his ABC News interview, most other major news outlets didn't report it.

    Victim 1's psychologist, Michael Gillum, lambasted the Moulton Report as a whitewash for its failure to investigate Second Mile and law enforcement's failing to search Sandusky's home for three years after victim 1 reported it as the crime scene. Again major news outlets didn't report it.

    Recently, a respected author claimed that Sandusky may have been wrongly convicted because of the use of repressed memory therapy, which has been discredited by the American Psychological Association and other psychology societies. That story was not carried by any major news outlets. Yet they publish inaccurate editorials and outlandish, uncorroborated accusations from 40-45 years ago.

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    1. Tim,
      I don't know (for sure) how Ganim got the 1998 police report, but I suspect the Patriot News had it BEFORE she arrived in January 2011.

      There is evidence suggesting the AG knew about the 1998 investigation in June 2009. Jan Murphy of the Patriot News called PSU in September 2010 to inquire if anyone had knowledge of the Sandusky investigation.

      It seems to me that the Patriot News had the 1998 police report before it was ALLEGEDLY recovered by the AG and PSP investigators in January 2011.

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    2. Thx Ray. It certainly is interesting that the Patriot News might have had the 1998 investigation file in 2009 or 2010. Might they not be charged with obstruction if they didn't tell the Attorney General's office?

      Or maybe they did tell the OAG in 2009 or 2010 and the OAG lied that they didn't know about it.

      They really need to get Sara Ganim on the witness stand. I don't see that she could invoke the shield law if they asked her when she first saw the 1998 investigation file. That isn't asking for her source.

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    3. I went back and read Sara Ganim's March 2011 article on the Sandusky grand jury. She names many of the people she talked to. It wouldn't be that difficult for another reporter or the OAG to question everyone she talked to and everyone she mentioned.

      She stated she had "sources close to the [1998] investigation." That could only be so many people, who could all be questioned to see if they talked to Ganim.

      She even quoted Detective Schreffler as asking her “How did you see that report?” It sounds like she might have even showed it to him.

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    4. Tim,
      I know that Ganim spoke with Gricar's former assistant, Steve Sloane, but he was not the source of the 1998 report. I suspect that Mike Madeira slid the University Park & State College PD police reports of the 1998 incident to Corbett.

      He probably gave them to Fina & Eshbach and told them to sit on them until his gubernatorial bid was complete. As the evidence shows, the big lead didn't come until the day after his election.

      At some point in time, an independent panel will have to conduct an investigation of this whole mess. The fact that the PSP didn't cooperate with the Moulton Report is problematic.

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    5. Ray, Madeira (whom I am a fan of) did not have knowledge of the 1998 incident. The PSU police report was not filed as a police report and there was no State College Police report.

      Moulton notes when the information was received by the OAG. They did not get it until January 3 2011. Earlier checks of the actual police report did find it, because it was not filed as a police report.

      As for 1998, Mouton said this: "The District Attorney in 1998, Ray Gricar,declined to prosecute the case and no further investigation of Sandusky occurred at the time. 65"

      Footnote 65 says: "The merits of that declination are beyond the scope of this report."

      Moulton was an investigation of the investigation beginning in 2008. He did NOT even look at 1998. Now, what Moulton would be looking at was then AG Kane's decision.

      Now, that said, if you think that there should be a thorough explanation of what happened in 1998, I agree.

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  3. Ray: 2 typos in this graf: "Had the full details in the 1998 police report been reported, it would have surely but the blame for enabling Sandusky's crimes were it belonged -- Pennsylvania's child protection system."

    Should be: put the blame... where it belonged

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  4. I would like to refer Ray's blog readers back to his article, "About that oath". The basic premise of the article is that Risa Vetri Ferman and her underlings created and forged the "smoking gun" secrecy oath document that was to somehow erroneously suggest Kane leaked grand jury information and lied about it. Even with that forged document, how does that prove Kane actually leaked information? It doesn't.

    Now, with that question out of the way, I'd like to direct your attention to one of the photographs within that article. It's the one with Vetri posing with her underlings just before they charged Kane with perjury at the televised press conference. Vetri is center, at the podium, with a cheesy, poorly acted self-righteous gaze into the distance before she announces charges. If you'll notice, there is a definite symmetrical arrangement of Vetri's underlings on either side of her that would seem to symbolically suggest "The last Supper". Hmmm, the announcement of Kathleen Kane's crucifixion? This is beyond belief and shows symbolically that Vetri-Ferman and these members beside her are the Italian Mafia that have infiltrated PA government. The Cosa Nostra has traditionally communicated with symbols to put their mark on a crime or a hit.

    I don't think that what I've just stated is a revelation to any insider involved in trying to fight this Mafia takeover of government. Kane wouldn't use the word "Mafia" to describe what's going on. She only said, "these people exude a power". And Governor Wolf won't use the 'M' word to describe what's going on in Pennsylvania either. Seems nobody will say it to describe Montgomery County and Centre County. Okay, so fear dictates, they're threatening to kill people. But what I want to know is when will the U.S. marshals and the FBI move in and do their job? If they don't do something about it, then the people living in Mafia-infested towns in PA have a right to stop paying taxes to fund the Mafia-infiltrated government. In a term borrowed from war time, conscientious objector, could describe people that refuse to fund the Mafia's war on our legal system.

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    1. I'll respond to this from a quote from former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District (includes Harrisburg) Gordon Zubrod:

      Mr. Zubrod described the kids-for-cash case and related investigations that have led to more than 30 arrests as part of a decade-long process aimed at rooting out organized crime's influence on public institutions in the U.S. Middle District, which covers 33 counties in Pennsylvania.

      "It is one of a series that has been going on, a very intense series by the FBI and the IRS and our office from the late '90s on to focus first of all on the connection between organized crime and public corruption, which is very real in this district, and then, secondly, step by step taking out each pocket where there is a power and people who think they can't be touched," Mr. Zubrod said.

      "This is now the third judge that's been prosecuted in this case. The idea as some said during trial that these people are powerful and can't be touched, I hope that's been broken. But the circle is much wider than that and we have to keep going at it."

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    2. Thank you Ray. Please don't take my frustration the wrong way. I have no idea what intelligence agency you work for and I certainly wouldn't want to criticize the methods of your agency or any other. I do know you've stated you're researching and doing this blog on your own time. So I'm sure you know by now, with all the praise you've gotten from me and your other readers, that your efforts put forth as an individual are greatly admired and appreciated.

      Vetri's arrogance about her own criminality is very upsetting to me. I hope she can finally be exposed and brought to justice for what she is and for what she's done.

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  5. This brings up the question of motive. Why would the PN pull this sort of distortion and deception when a big chunk of their subscribers and advertisers are big PSU supporters or alumni? Economic suicide. Why would they point the finger at Gricar when a clear reading of PA law states that DPW is in charge of the investigation and must make a determination other than "unfounded" for a DA to do anything? Do they play the public to be THAT stupid. Lauro committed perjury. Being that Alycia Chambers initiated the 1998 investigation with a call to Childline, it is beyond belief that he did not talk to her and read her report...especially since it was included in the PSU police report. And why was Lauro assigned to the case instead of an agent from Altoona?

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  6. Knowledge of the 1998 investigation was far wider than anyone realizes. The first quarterly newsletter of the Second Mile in 2011 had words similar to "..some of you may have heard that Jerry Sandusky is under investigation. This has happened before, and the allegation was determined to be "unfounded"". As to Charles Thompson's sophomoric journalism....he's probably praying every night that he never gets thrown into the job market.

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    1. Was Second Mile's 2011 Newsletter published before Sara Ganim's March 30 article? Sandusky himself could have provided the line that it happened before and that earlier allegation was determined to be unfounded.

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    2. It's hard to tell the exact timeline. Also hard to tell how many people knew about 1998 and 2001. Lots of loose lips in small towns. I would bet that at least half the BOT knew something was going down in January 2011. Since JS had not been a PSU employee for 12 years, it was probably considered interesting, but irrelevant. All they would really know is that some kid made an allegation that was "unfounded" (very common when working with street-wise kids. I got talked into co-leading a multi day backpacking trip with an inner city Boy Scout troop. The asst. Scoutmaster who talked me into it was an LA County asst. DA, and gave me a thorough briefing.),and that JS was seen in a shower with a teenage boy. That really wouldn't raise an eyebrow in most people, myself included. Since my first swimming lesson at age 10 to the last time I went to the gym, I've taken showers with males of all ages. It just wouldn't register as anything to me. Combine that with them knowing that JS had been vetted multiple times for adoption and placement of foster children, and that neither the investigators or case workers following up found anything amiss, no rational person would deem anything sinister is happening.

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