Tuesday, March 28

Cipriano/BigTrial.net: Special Agent Blows Up Case

TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2017

Special Agent Who Investigated Spanier Blows Up Case

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net


What if everything you thought you knew about the so-called Penn State sex abuse scandal wasn't true?
FIS Special Agent John Snedden
What if that infamous locker room incident that Mike McQueary supposedly witnessed 16 years ago -- featuring a naked Jerry Sandusky showering with an underage boy -- had nothing to do with sex? And what if the only two officials at PSU who ever spoke directly to former PSU President Graham Spanier about that incident really did describe it as just "horseplay" and not sex?

And what if the guy advancing this contrarian story line was not some crackpot conspiracy theorist, but a decorated U.S. special agent? A guy who had already done a top-secret federal investigation five years ago into the so-called Penn State scandal but nobody knew about it until now?

There would be no pedophilia scandal at Penn State to cover up. And no trio of top PSU officials to convict of child endangerment. The whole lurid saga starring a naked  Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing little boys in the shower would be fake news. A hoax foisted on the public by an unholy trio of overzealous prosecutors, gullible reporters, and greedy plaintiff's lawyers.
Read more at 
http://www.bigtrial.net/2017/03/special-agent-who-investigated-spanier.html

18 comments:

  1. SMDH (shaking my damn head).

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  2. That's the kind of article that should be reprinted in the NY Times, Washington Post or New Yorker.

    Spanier's lawyers were certainly right that the prosecution did not prove their case. Spanier is legally innocent.

    Yet, I don't see how Spanier's defense team could have missed that the prosecution was going for an emotional verdict, not a rational one based on evidence and the law. They badly miscalculated by not cross-examining victim 5 on the year and not cross-examining others more vigorously, especially Mike McQueary on his credibility and Jack Raykovitz on Second Mile's Friend Fitness program that violated the standard of never allowing a child and adult to be alone together.

    The defense should have also put on their own witnesses including Snedden, Jerry Lauro, John Miller, Karen Arnold, another emeritus professor or two to say the President was not their supervisor, a Boundary Issues expert, a child sex abuse expert, etc.

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    1. I would trust Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker to competently handle the material from the FBI special agent.

      Presumably Snedden will be a key witness in Sapnier's defamation suit against Freeh. No wonder Freeh issued that rant a few days ago!

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    2. Tim,
      I agree with you. Add to a few character witnesses to the list who would testify to Spanier's father physcially abusing him as a child as a means of whipping up some emotions on Graham's side.

      Snedden interviewed Paula Ammerman, the long time administrative assistant for the BOT, who told him of Spanier's abuse and that if Spanier had even an inkling of a child being mistreated, he would have intervened.

      Truly a head-scratcher.

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    3. Ray,
      It's even more bizarre with the jury foreman now saying that the guilty verdict was a mistake and he would have held firm for acquittal if only Spanier had testified, even if it meant a mistrial.

      Th defense must not have gotten through to the jurors about the administrators' concern about Sandusky's "boundary issues" even though Curley mentioned it.

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    4. Tim: So we have a juror that admits the guilty verdict was a mistake? He would have held for acquittal if Spanier had took the stand? How on earth does a responsible jury go that route without a scintilla of conscience? Is the brow-beating of the media and child advocacy jackals that much feared that they would put an innocent man in possible prison to avoid the consequences? Even our jurors are cowards. What hope is there anymore for justice in America?

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    5. Concerning the publishing of news stories such as this, you can add the January articles where the SNAP organization is under attack for taking kickbacks and exploiting victims. Lawsuits were filed and even the founder and president had to resign as a result. You had to dig to find that information. Where is the media coverage for this whopper?

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    6. Philip - I don't know the specifics in this case, but it is quite common for jurors to be intimidated by other jurors.

      http://www.thejuryexpert.com/2010/05/the-biggest-bully-in-the-room/

      A lone holdout can feel a lot of pressure with 11 other jurors trying to get him to change his vote.

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  3. I have been through the clearance process with the 5 year updates. Believe me filling out OPM Standard Form-86 is tedious at best. You are laying open every aspect of your life for investigator's like Snedden to delve into. If you have any proclivities, habits, vices, traits, etc. They will know and they could become ISSUES.

    It's hard to believe hard to believe Spanier's lawyers did not use Snedden at trial!!

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    1. When I was interviewed for my TS, I was even baited by the NCIS agent to see if I'd get angry. Those guys are good.

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  4. Clearly, Graham Spanier was betrayed by his current attorney(s). The reason for the betrayal is the big question. Threats? Bribes? Maybe even a well-planned and long-running betrayal of trust is at work here.

    Like I said before in another post, it makes no sense whatsoever to not use your star witness(s) on the stand against a known corrupt entity like the state of Pennsylvania. Kane and Spanier were lied to when they were told their defense case was so "slam dunk" we don't need to call a single witness.

    The need for a retrial in the Spanier and Kane cases is crystal clear due to the incompetent legal representation they were each duped into using.

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    1. I think Spanier will have a harder time proving incompetent counsel than Sandusky. Spanier is legally innocent for several reasons (listed below) and Spanier's lawyer believed the prosecution had not come close to proving their case.

      1. The EWOC law he was convicted under was passed years after the alleged crime. It was an unconstitutional charge that violated the ban on ex post facto laws.

      2. Charges were filed years after the statute of limitations expired.

      3. Spanier was not an employer or supervisor of Sandusky at the time of the alleged crime as the law required.

      4. The prosecutor overreached on the EWOC law. That law was never intended to apply to unknown children in the future. It was only to hold an employer or supervisor responsible if their employee endangered a child in the present, they knew about it and failed to stop it.

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  5. Kane and Moulton had access to this information for the "no stone unturned" investigation. Moulton ignored it. Why? Rattlesnakes curled up under stones?

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    1. Moulton's investigation had a very narrow scope. He was just looking at the Sandusky investigation to the point of Sandusky's arrest to see if it was delayed for political reasons.

      Moulton wasn't tasked with looking at the investigations of Curley, Schultz and Spanier.

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    2. Yes, I agree. Geoff Moulton was paid to do a job for the people of the Commonwealth. He was paid to find out why Tom Corbett and his gang of organized crime cabinet members didn't stop Sandusky long before the public even learned there was a problem with Sandusky. Moulton took his payment but failed miserably.

      Apparently Louis Freeh even knew of and "investigated" Sandusky complaints in the late seventies? Why didn't he stop Sandusky 30 years ago if he knew? Looks like the two men that actually knew the most about Sandusky a long, long time ago(Corbett and Freeh), double teamed against PSU to manufacture a distraction away from themselves.

      So yes, the two rattlesnakes curled up under stones are actually the ones in plain sight. The snakes that are hidden from us are the ones providing the financial backing to keep Louis Freeh, Tom Corbett, and The Second Mile in the clear. Let me just say that if Risa Ferman and Josh Shapiro were in need of "assistance", they too could rely on the same funding from the same sources.

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  6. Mr. Cipriano's article has me thinking that Mr. Spanier's conviction can be easily overturned. What bothers me most is that a jury can convict someone based solely on emotion. That does not give me much faith in the American judicial process. Could they have been threatened into convicting Spanier? And the defense not calling Snedden as a witness is unbelievable.

    As for Curly & Schultz copping pleas, that is another abomination. Were they led to believe that justice was not even a possibility in doing so? Or were they just simply that spineless to allow themselves to be manipulated in that manner? Very disappointing.

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    1. Philip,

      Just like you, I am disturbed by the tainting of juries in Pennsylvania. It would appear that one tactic that is used by the corrupt PA courts is delay, as in six years for Spanier, Curley, and Schultz. The delay in itself is a violation of their constitutional right to a "speedy trial by an impartial jury". This denial of basic American rights then allows the complicit criminal newspapers to do their dirty work of lying to the public for six years. After six years of "official" government lies in the local papers, it is simply impossible to have an impartial jury. Their case should be thrown out based on this alone.

      As for faith in the American judicial process, we might as well face it, America itself has been usurped. If the man at the top got into office through fraud, then it's not "America First" anymore.

      All the misdirection and disinformation from the MSM would have us believe that Trump is beholden to Russia---pure fiction. Dig a little deeper into Trump's loyalties and you'll find out why our justice system doesn't work anymore. And dig a little deeper and you'll find out what country controls our media. It's the same reason that Josh Shapiro and Governor Wolf ignore the crimes of Sandusky's Second Mile. To them, it's not about serving America and its honest citizens. It's about putting up a facade to have us believe they still work for this country.

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  7. Philip Carey - I don't know how easy Spanier's verdict will be to overturn given the corrupt judicial system in PA. The Spanier judge should have never allowed it to go to trial because the charge was bogus to begin with. Spanier was not Sandusky's employer or supervisor in 2001 as the child endangerment law required.

    In the similar Monsignor Lynn case, the Superior Court ruled the 2007 law under which he was convicted was a violation of the US Constitution's ban on retroactive laws. Then the PA Supreme Court overruled them and reinstated an unconstitutional conviction.

    That may have created precedent that will prevent Spanier from making a similar appeal that it was unconstitutional to apply a 2007 law to an alleged crime that occurred in 2001. Then again, maybe there is hope because the composition of the PA Supreme Court is almost entirely different then when they ruled against Lynn and the US Constitution.

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