Thursday, May 30

Shapiro Continues His Crime & Justice Charade

PA Attorney General Josh Shapiro continues to waste tax payer dollars to pushing his "no one is above the law" charade

By 
Ray Blehar
May 30, 2019, 9:06 PM, EDT; Updated at 9:40 PM

Yesterday, PA AG Josh Shapiro filed notice that his office intends to appeal the Federal Court's decision to vacate the verdict against former Penn State University (PSU) President Graham Spanier.  According to media reports, Shapiro continues to insist that the U.S. District Magistrate overreached in vacating the decisions of various Pennsylvania county and state courts who allowed the ex post facto application of the law every step of the way in the Spanier case.

Shapiro's appeal will be heard by the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.  The court notably includes former AG D. Michael Fisher, who some believe may have had a role in influencing the outcome of  the 1998 investigation of Jerry Sandusky. 

In a tweet (sent out by his lackey, Joe Grace), the AG's office told a baldfaced lie by stating that Spanier was told children were being abused.  No such evidence was presented at the trial nor does that evidence exist anywhere else in the universe.






Since October 2010, officials within the PA Office of Attorney General (OAG) have spent countless millions of dollars and likely thousands of man hours in a fruitless attempt to find some evidence that Spanier was responsible for enabling Sandusky's crimes or otherwise endangered children.   

In the process of this charade, these individuals torched the reputation of the state's flagship university, destroyed the reputations of Spanier, former legendary football coach Joe Paterno, former Athletic Director Timothy Curley, and former Vice President for Finance and Business, Gary Schultz; and helped to remove former AG Kathleen Kane for digging into their reluctant investigation of serial child molester, Jerry Sandusky.


The "No One Is Above the Law" Charade:  Part 1, Leaks

Shapiro's court filing was produced under the supervision of James P. Barker, who was fired by Kane for his failure to investigate and stop grand jury leaks. 




Barker was rehired in 2016 by then-AG Bruce Beemer.


After his firing, Barker was interviewed by the PA government's media lap dog, Brad Bumsted.  In the interview, he stated:

“I have never leaked grand jury information. I don’t know anything about it.”

He also called the firing "unbelievable."

Really?

In February 2013, disgraced formcer Supervisory Grand Jury Judge Barry Feudale assigned James Reeder, who happens to be one of the original team members of Tom Corbett's then-newly established (2006) Corruption Division,  to  investigate the Sandusky and DeNaples leaks

According to proceedings from the Sandusky case, no investigation ever took place.

James?
Hello?

So.....

No one has been brought to justice for leaking the Sandusky charges or for leaking other secret grand jury and criminal investigative information (CHRIA) from the Sandusky investigation.

No one has been brought to justice for leaking the existence of the grand jury to the media in the case of Louis A. DeNaples.

The only person who seemingly has ever been held accountable and get jail time for leaking secret information is Kane -- and they had to frame her to make it happen.

The Charade: Part 2, "The Penn State Cover-Up" 


The November 2011 grand jury presentment regarding the Jerry Sandusky investigation was so unbelievable you'd have to be a moron to believe it.  Fortunately, former AG Linda Kelly and then governor Tom Corbett were in luck because there were quite a few morons in the news media who bought the story hook, line, and sinker.

The hook, of course, was the lie that Joe Paterno was told a boy was raped and that PSU officials covered it up.

How the media could write -- and that Shapiro continues to claim that a "cover-up" occurred -- even though the evidence from Day 1 and through Spanier's trial clearly shows that PSU officials reported the incident outside to the University (to The Second Mile) is simply astonishing.

But if Josh "No One Is Above The Law" Shapiro believes a cover-up occurred at PSU and that children were endangered, when why doesn't this hold true for Dr. Jack Raykovitz and other officials at The Second Mile?

According to the proceedings at Spanier's trial, Tim Curley informed Dr. Raykovitz that Sandusky was observed showering with a child, that the situation made the observer uncomfortable, and that Sandusky was not allowed to use the athletic facilities with children.  Curley also informed Raykovitz that it was the second instance of a complaint or concern over Sandusky showering with children.

Raykovitz's testimony shows complete disinterest in the situation when informed of it by Curley.  

Maybe that was because, as Kathleen Genovese stated, "we've had to tell him to back off certain kids before."

Oh, just showering this time.  Jerry needs to put on a swim suit!

Shapiro's, and those who held the AG slot before him, decision not to prosecute officials from the TSM victim factory, but to prosecute PSU officials, came as a result of a personal vendetta that could only be furthered by numerous instances of unconstitutional misapplication of laws and alleged acts that were supported by nothing more than faulty logic.

In their unconstitutional prosecution of the endangerment case, the AG's faulty logic was that Curley and others at PSU knew Sandusky was engaged in sex acts with children but later watered down the story when they told TSM. 

And Curley's alleged motivation for watering the story down in 2001 was to protect the reputation of PSU for the actions of a retired football coach... even though just 3 years earlier PSU officials did nothing to stop a child protective services and police investigation into Sandusky when he was a nationally revered (active) defensive coordinator.

The AG's story doesn't hold water.
It never did.

That's why Shapiro is attempting an end run to the 3rd Circuit instead of re-trying Spanier.


10 comments:

  1. Shapiro is WAY over his head in the third circuit. He's going to be domare con pesche in the Potomac when it's over. His swan song was filing a lawsuit against the Little Sisters of the Poor. I would opine that any Federal judge that got that case would throw Shapiro under the Zamboni.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope Shapiro gets laughed out of federal court.

    I can only guess that he will argue some wacky theory, without zero evidence, that every day from 2001 to 2009, Spanier asked himself "Should I report Sandusky to the police today or should I endanger some other unknown boys?"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Greg and Tim,
      Thanks for your comments.

      I have given up trying to predict the outcome of any court located in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. That said, I agree that Shapiro should be laughed out of court for trying to argue that Federal court can't overturn or vacate a county or state court verdict on Constitutional grounds.

      As I wrote, Shapiro understands that if he retried Spanier on the law in effect in 2001, he'd have no case. The same thing occurred in the Monsignor Lynn case, but in that case corrupt Philly DA Seth Williams didn't retry or appeal. Right now, Williams sits in jail for public corruption....and that tells you quite a bit about the moral fiber of Josh Shapiro.

      Delete
    2. I think Shapiro and Williams knew they had losing cases but just wanted publicity and to drag it out to punish Spanier and Penn State and Lynn and the Catholic Church.

      It's just outrageous that 5 PA Attorneys General have dragged out Spanier's misdemeanor case for nearly 7 years and counting when what they accuse him of doing was not a crime at the time.

      Delete
    3. UPDATE: Philly DA loses Appeal in Lynn case.

      http://www.bigtrial.net/2019/06/da-krasner-loses-msgr-lynn-appeal-up.html

      Delete
    4. Tim,
      I agree both of these cases were about garnering publicity for the prosecutors who went "whale" fishing instead of following the law.


      The media is just as disappointing by condoning this behavior. Has anyone written a story about the money spent by the PA AG over the last TEN years that ended up resulting in THREE misdemeanor convictions and four months in jail time for a couple of administrators who made a MISTAKE? The same MISTAKE was made by the University Park police, Centre County CYS, DPW, and The Second Mile, but the media summarily ignores those facts.

      It's the very same thing with Larry Nassar's case. The media is all over USAGymnastics and USOC executives, MSU coaches and administrators, but rarely if ever speaks about the failures of the parents, low level USAG coaches, the police, and child protective services.

      And the public remains completely in the dark about what really happened.

      I have not yet read the Ohio State Report, but I'm guessing it is similar to Ropes-Gray and the Freeh Report by putting forth the worst possible version of events. I'm also guessing that the depositions taken from the athletes who claimed to be abused by Strauss were not rigorously evaluated to determine if they were true or false.

      Delete
    5. From what I have seen the Ohio State case is the worst with well over a dozen coaches saying they were aware of complaints about Strauss at the time, and no action was taken. The wrestlers also showered in an area open to the public where men would gather to ogle the wrestlers as they showered. Stauss also showered with the wrestlers, which was highly inappropriate. The coach knew about that plus he knew men had been caught having sex in the building but no action was taken. It would have been a simple matter to close the shower room to the public when the wrestling team was using it.

      I agree that MSU got far too much blame in the Nassar case. Nassar's invasive and uncomfortable treatments were considered highly effective according to athletes, coaches and parents. Nassar's abuses were also less obvious. Many victims said they didn't realize they had been abused until after others came forward.

      Delete
  3. The Ohio State and USC cases point to a failure of State Medical Boards. Maybe MSU, too. College administrators and police are in no position to determine if a medical procedure is legitimate or not. In all three cases, there were physicians who said that they observed nothing abnormal. It was the totality of questionable behavior that did them in. Remember that Nasser had the parents of the girls in the exam room. At OSU, they were doing what was thought to be legitimate research. At USC, the Dean of the Medical School was implicated in a drug/sex scandal. He did bring a lot of $$$ to USC, and the Keck School of Medicine is tops in several fields.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Beware of those who spray mantras. A red flag should go up when you hear one. "nobody is above the law", "we put a monster behind bars". There is always something that is being hidden when you hear one, something that they are trying to get you to ignore. Power corrupts, and those who allow it to happen are in the corruption up to their necks. When good men look on and do nothing, your society has been sold to the devil.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gregory,
      Agree with you on both comments. One problem at MSU, however, was that their internal Title IX review did use a panel of doctors -- but who were all colleagues of Nassar's. Those doctor's found his procedures to be legitimate, but not his practices of not wearing gloves and unchaperoned exams.

      The PA government is really a can of ____. "No one is above the law"...except the PA government who can ignore the law when prosecuting people if the end result "puts a monster behind bars."

      The AG set off an atomic bomb with the 2011 Sandusky grand jury presentment and ground zero was Penn State. That was done to deflect attention away from something far worse.

      Delete