The PA Corruption Network's Playbook

The similarities between the prosecution of Kathleen Kane and of the PSU 3 reveal the "playbook" of Pennsylvania's corruption network

By

Ray Blehar

The cases of current Pennsylvania Attorney General (AG) Kathleen Kane and that of former Penn State University (PSU) officials (i.e., the PSU 3) are connected by a common thread.

A group of the Commonwealth's attorneys, judges, political operatives, and their media accomplices -- hereafter referred to as the "network" -- used trumped up charges, purposely misinterpreted laws, and oversold highly dubious evidence to convict these individuals in the court of public opinion.

After examining the timelines and evidence of these cases, it appears that the network has a well defined playbook for taking out its targets and it works like this:

1.  Individuals within the network fear their own heinous acts may be exposed and publicly accuse their opponents of crimes as a means of  deflecting attention away from themselves. 

2.  The network next co-opts individuals close to the target(s) --insiders -- to assist in setting up the target(s) to be charged with perjury and other crimes.

3.  After the insiders have sufficiently undermined the targets (using various means of deception), the network's attorneys and/or judges leak damaging information about the targets to the media. 

4.  The media arm of the network uses the information in an attempt to compromise the targets or to promote guilt by association in the press.

5.  At the conclusion of this "framing," that was mislabeled as a criminal investigation, attorneys go public with charging documents that allege crimes based on misinterpretations of the laws and that are chocked full of questionable testimony from unreliable witnesses, completely illogical scenarios, and dubious evidence.  Perjury charges are standard in order to publicly smear the defendants as being dishonest individuals while attempting to pump up the veracity of the Commonwealth's lousy witnesses (who would be eviscerated at an actual trial).

6.  The media accomplices ignore the illegal application of relevant laws, that the charging documents are illogical, the lousy witnesses, and the highly questionable evidence in order to continue treating the allegations as facts and even go as far as to allege the target committed crimes for which he or she has not been charged.

7.  The public falls for the deception and believes the targets are guilty of everything and are corrupt individuals -- whether they have been charged with a crime or not. Citizen activists, public officials, and other groups and individuals -- who are beneficiaries of the corrupt network -- jump on the media bandwagon to publicly condemn the targets.

8.  Witting and/or unwitting employers recommend the targets be relieved of their duties or actually do so through employment actions -- before anything is proven and without conducting a legitimate legal review.  

9.  When legal proceedings in the cases reveal the false and questionable testimony put forth in the charging documents and the dubious evidence used in the case, the network's media arm ignores the information and continues to slant the reports so the public continues to assume the targets are guilty.

10.  The legal issues from the misapplications of the laws result in appeals to the network's  judges, who refused to rule on simple matters and keep the trials on permanent hold.  If the cases make it to trial, the targets will be convicted of lesser crimes -- that the media will treat like crimes of the century.

The network's playbook achieves the goal of protecting its corrupt dealings and/or heinous crimes by never legally proving, but publicly scapegoating the targets in a media firestorm that is high in supposition and light on facts.

To wit:  the grand jury and Montgomery County DA Risa Ferman did not find the evidence to charge AG Kane with directly leaking grand grand jury information in the Mondesire case, but you wouldn't know that if you just read the news headlines. 

Instead, they charged her with perjury (part of the playbook), lesser crimes, and for orchestrating the leaks, the latter of which Ferman and others know can't be proven.

Then again, the network's playbook doesn't necessarily include actually prosecuting the case -- because the media has already done it. 

In the following weeks, the dubious evidence used in Kane's case will be exposed, as will the details showing how the network of attorney, judges, and media worked together in an attempt to prevent AG Kathleen Kane from breaking PA's chain of corruption.

Trial transcripts add evidence that Spanier was Corbett's ultimate target in Sandusky investigation

A sidebar discussing the possible use of e-mail evidence during the Sandusky trial revealed that the PA OAG wasn't going to try the cases of Curley and Schultz

By
Ray Blehar

In my February 1, 2014 blogpost, titled "Sandusky scandal marked by deception, suppression and manipulation," I posited the theory that a political vendetta by Tom Corbett against Graham Spanier was the critical turning point in the Sandusky case.  The timeline below, which shows that the case took off after the Corbett-Spanier budget battle, as well as other evidence, supported that theory.

























The timeline not only supports the theory that the budget battle was the most important catalyst of the Sandusky investigation, but negated the theory that electoral politics were what caused the investigation to lag.  

Other evidence supporting the budget battle theory includes that PSU officials were informed (on or about January 31, 2012) that "Fina expected Curley and Schultz to flip,' the failure to charge Spanier at the same time as Curley and Schultz, the chain of custody and tampering issues regarding the e-mail evidence, and Baldwin's forced "flip-flop" on Spanier.

Trial Transcripts Provide More Evidence

While reviewing the 6-18-2012 Sandusky trial transcripts (pps. 162175)-back in June of this past year, I took particular notice to a sidebar discussion regarding the possible use (by the defense) of the grand jury transcripts of Curley, Schultz, and Spanier as a method of impeaching the testimony of Mike McQueary.  

After some discussion, defense counsel Karl Rominger then limited his request to just pages 3 through 8 of Tim Curley' s testimony. As the discussion continued, prosecutor Joseph McGettigan brought up that their side could use the e-mails and Schultz's notes,as well as the perjury charges, as "tremendous contrary evidence."  

Not long after that, Judge Cleland began discussion and brought up the concept that the Commonwealth could have been using the indictments against Curley and Schultz to "hamstring the defense" in the Sandusky case (see page 169).  However, as it concerns Spanier, Judge Cleland's comment that use of the email and other evidence might compromise the OAG's case against Curley and Schultz is the more critical discussion.

McGettigan: "We're not
going to try that case."

As the discussion continued, Judge Cleland was "thinking out loud" that the use of the email and other evidence might compromise Curley and Schultz's right to fair trial down the road.  

Seconds later, prosecutor Joseph McGettingan made the surprising admission that the Commonwealth was "not going to try that case."  The latter statement supporting the existing evidence that the OAG's strategy was to get Curley and Schultz to flip on Spanier (after Spanier was charged).

"Flip" would save Commonwealth's weak case

The Commonwealth's case against Spanier is flimsily supported by the grand jury testimony of former PSU General Counsel Cynthia Baldwin and three emails, only one of which  contains anything of substance, and even it is of dubious provenance.

Baldwin
As I wrote back in December 2013, Baldwin's grand jury testimony has been refuted by practically everyone else who had some role in the case, including Spanier, PSU PR employee Lisa Powers, PSU IT employee John Corro,  OAG employees Braden Cook and Agent Sassano and even members of the PSU Board of Trustees.  

Baldwin's testimony was refuted by
everyone else in the Sandusky case

If Curley and Schultz were not facing charges, they too would have refuted Baldwin's testimony, however their pre-grand jury interviews managed to do just that.  Baldwin contended that she had met on several occasions with the PSU Three to discuss grand jury Subpoena 1179, which requested files relating to the 2002 (sic) incident involving Sandusky and any other known incidents.  Ironically, at their pre-grand jury police interviews (Exhibit B) neither Curley or Schultz knew the year of the incident, with Schultz believing it took place sometime after 2003 and Curley stating it was in 2000.  It's a stretch to believe Baldwin told them to search for records but didn't tell them the year in which the incident occurred.

Then there's Baldwin herself, who can only be described as duplicitous in her representation of the PSU Three.  When asked the question if she represented Tim and Gary, she evaded answering by simply stating that Tim was an employee and Gary was retired.  In Spanier's case, before he testified she told the grand jury judge (page 28)  that she "represents the University solely," then did not correct the record when Spanier identified her as his counsel (page 3).  

Baldwin also "flipped' her position on Spanier, first telling government investigators who were processing his security clearance that he was "a man of integrity" but later told a grand jury (page 70) the exact opposite, "that he was not a man of integrity. He lied to me."  Baldwin's alleged change of heart about Spanier came after the Freeh Report was released. That argument doesn't hold water either, because there was no evidence about Spanier in the Freeh Report that Baldwin shouldn't have already seen (save the one tampered e-mail).  Even so, that e-mail doesn't refute Spanier's claim of believing horseplay took place in 2001.

I doubt the Commonwealth has much confidence that Baldwin's testimony would be believed by a jury.


E-mail Chain of Custody
The prosecution, Spanier/PSU critics, and the media all seem to believe that a February 27-28, 2001 email of which Spanier was a conversant, provides "rock solid evidence" that Spanier, Curley, and Schultz decided not to report Sandusky to the authorities.  It was in that email that Spanier allegedly wrote "then we become vulnerable for not reporting it."  

One of the reasons they believe it is because they are oblivious to the chain of custody issue  regarding all of the e-mail evidence used in the case.

Freeh Report findings about Paterno and
 e-mails refuted by Fina, Moulton, and others

Snippets of the e-mail were first leaked in the press in mid-June 2012, just before the Sandusky trial.  Media coverage of the e-mail leaks then became more prominent at the end of June, with CNN leading the reporting.  The full e-mails were released as part of the Freeh Report as the most important evidence in the case.  According to former FBI-Director Louis Freeh, they proved not only a cover up, but that Joe Paterno was the only intervening factor that caused PSU officials not to report Sandusky to the proper authorities.  

In September 2013, Freeh's allegation that Paterno was part of the cover-up was refuted by lead prosecutor Frank Fina.   

But Fina was not the only person to refute Freeh's e-mail assertions.

All of the e-mail evidence used in the case were from the mail folders of Gary Schultz.   At the report press conference, Freeh announced that his team had made "independent discovery" of the e-mail evidence on March 20, 2012.  

"Our investigative team made independent discovery of critical 1998 and 2001 emails – the most important evidence in this investigation."

Freeh's statement was refuted by testimony at the July 2013 preliminary hearing of the PSU Three, Spanier's grand jury proceedings, and by Geoffrey Moulton's investigation.  The media, particularly the Wall Street Journal (whom I contacted personally) refused to print these revelations, thus the public has yet to learn that Freeh lied about the e-mail (and other evidence) during his press conference. 

At the preliminary hearing,  PSU IT department employee John Corro testified that he had provided three thumb drives containing emails in response to Subpoena 1179 to Cynthia Baldwin in April 2011 (page 89).  Furthermore OAG computer forensics expert Braden Cook stated that in March 2012, he realized the Schultz e-mails were missing from the inventory.  Cook then stated he received Schultz's network file share on a DVD from the OAG computer unit on March 23, 2012 (page 107).   

Then PSU-Counsel Cynthia Baldwin informed the court at Spanier's April 2011 colloquy (page 27) that the PSU IT Department (i.e., PSU's SOS unit) was searching for the e-mails related to Subpoena 1179 and she promised to turn them over by April 15, 2011.

To recap to this point, four different timeframes were mentioned regarding the turnover of the email evidence:  April 2011 (Corro); April 15, 2011 (Baldwin); March 20, 2012 (Freeh); and March 23, 2012 (Cook).  

It doesn't stop there.

Kelly:  Obstruction allegations re: email
have been refuted by the Moulton report.

The Conspiracy of Silence grand jury presentment (page 32) alleged that the emails and other evidence were not searched for and found until the first four months of 2012.  In addition, it alleged (page 22) that the PSU IT department (SOS) was not used to find the email evidence until after the arrests of Curley and Schultz.  Both allegations are patently false, given that Corro is an SOS employee and testified to searching for and obtaining the emails in April 2011.



After five different dates/time-frames, Geoffrey Moulton put the final nail in the coffin at #6.

#6:  The Final Nail
The report of the Sandusky investigation (page 158)  by Special Deputy Attorney General Geoffrey Moulton  revealed (as part of the investigation timeline )that a thumb-drive containing the Penn State e-mail evidence was turned over to Trooper Scott Rossman on July 7, 2011.  


"July 7, 2011.  Tpr. Rossman receives a thumb drive containing Penn State emails. "

Therefore, the Moulton Report disproved not only Freeh's statement of independent discovery by his team in March 2012, but also disproved the former-AG Linda Kelly's allegations in the Conspiracy of Silence presentment that the e-mails were not turned over by PSU until the first four months of 2012.  

The analysis and conclusions regarding the e-mail evidence (which could be tossed due to chain of custody) also lends credence to the theory that getting Curley and/or Schultz to implicate Spanier was the preferred, if not the only way, that the OAG could get a conviction.  

E-mail Tampering
Moulton's verification of the true date that the e-mails finally made their way to the lead investigator also lends credence to my theory of evidence tampering.   If the e-mail evidence, particularly from 27-28 February 2001, was turned over in April 2011, then Spanier could have been (wrongly) charged with failure to report child abuse at the same time as Curley and Schultz.

The likely reason Spanier wasn't charged is because the contents of the e-mail in April 2011 didn't match the contents of the e-mail that was included in the Freeh Report.

Given that Freeh's computers were not part of the University system, any information processed on them could have been subject to alteration and there would be no audit trail left behind at PSU.  When Freeh packed up and left State College, you can bet his computer hard drives were either wiped or trashed as not to leave an evidence trail.

Forensic analysis of the email in question by document and computer forensics experts all concluded the e-mail was suspicious and needed to be compared with an original version of the e-mail from the PSU server.   The interpersed html code, specifically the single " " within the response by Curley, as well as the fact that Schultz signature block, not Spanier's should be at the bottom are indications of suspected tampering. 

The appearance of html tags in the body of emails can occur when when converting a Eudora mailbox to Outlook.  In this case there were five Eudora emails from the February 2001 time-frame included as evidence exhibits in the Freeh Report.  Only two of the five have the interspersed html code and in both cases, contain the wrong signature block, which (not so) coincidentally belonged to Spanier.   Those emails were likely subject to tampering.

When the e-mails were tampered with, they were first downloaded from Eudora as plain text files and edited in Outlook in rich text (or html).  They were likely messy looking when downloaded, but to no avail, Freeh's team went about its business. When the changes were made, they were saved back to the Eudora mail box with the messy html still visible. 

My review of the Freeh Report appendices found that nearly of dozen e-mails and documents showed signs of tampering. This evidence has been turned over to law enforcement.

Fina's statement to PSU officials

Despite the lack of openness we've experienced from the Penn State administration recently, Universities are rather open environments and not of the mindset of the ways in which seemingly benign information can be very valuable to an adversary.  As a result, Universities, including PSU, are not very proficient at safeguarding information and data.  

As a result of these deficiencies, information related to the Sandusky case and subsequent NCAA investigation was not properly safeguarded and made its way outside the University.  Among that information was Fina's statement to PSU officials that he "expected Curley and Schultz to flip."  

In addition, other leaked information revealed that Schultz had been approached by the Commonwealth and asked to testify against Spanier.  Schultz refused to do so, allegedly telling the prosecution that he wasn't going to perjure himself to implicate Spanier, especially when he was already facing perjury charges.

Conclusion

In summary, Fina is on the record as expecting Curley and Schultz to "flip."  McGettigan is on the record stating that the Commonwealth "wasn't going to try that case" (i.e., Curley and Schultz).  It seems clear that by June 2012, the OAG was getting the charges ready against Spanier and believed that Curley and Schultz would testify against the former President to save their own backsides.   That didn't happen.

AG Kathleen Kane has been steadfast in her statements about prosecuting the case, however, the key driver there appears to be politics.  As we saw in the un-prosecutable Ali bribery case, Kane's opponents in the GOP and the media went after her relentlessly for not prosecuting four Democratic legislators who accepted gifts totaling  $16,500.  Meanwhile, the informant, Ali, had been given "the deal of the century" by former prosecutor Fina, who dismissed over 2,000 charges related to a fraud of $430,000. 

Schultz, Spanier, and Curley: Being scapegoated to
cover up the failures of PA's child protection system

I suspect that Judge Hoover and Kane are waiting for the Federal investigation of The Second Mile to conclude in order to have the political cover to ditch the case of the PSU Three.

When, and if that happens, how long will it take for  the media realize the whole case against PSU was a smokescreen to cover up the failures of PA's child protection system and of The Second Mile in the Sandusky case?  And that the Freeh investigation was a complete sham.

Kathleen Kane and the Corbett Investigation: WHY PSU and NO TSM?

by Barry Bozeman 

This week's news suggests that Kathleen Kane's investigation of Tom Corbett's handling of the Sandusky Investigation will not end with anything like an indictment. In fact Penn Live is reporting: 

Sources say report finds no evidence Corbett delayed Sandusky investigation

A report commissioned by Attorney General Kathleen Kane found that no evidence indicates then-Attorney General Tom Corbett delayed the investigation into convicted sex offender Jerry Sandusky, but it questions the case's pacing. 

Attorney General Kathleen Kane rode into office, cresting the wave of that ire and promising to investigate Corbett for allegedly "slow-walking" the original investigation of Jerry Sandusky for sex crimes against children in order to make sure he was securely in the governor's mansion before the charges dropped. 

Now, Kane says she is ready to release the report of that investigation, and multiple sources — citing people who've read it in advance — are reporting that it exonerates Corbett.

Corbett: Has Read Sandusky Report, Won’t Comment

Waiting until it is released publicly. BY JOEL MATHIS  |  JUNE 11, 2014

Gov. Tom Corbett has read AG Kathleen Kane’s report on his handling of the Sandusky case while he was the state’s top prosecutor, but won’t comment until it’s released publicly.
Sources say the report largely absolves Corbett of dragging his feet on the case, although it suggests prosecutors could have searched Sandusky’s home sooner in the investigative process.

No kidding - the accusation of one victim would have been quite enough to merit a search warrant.  And if all this is true it is very disappointing because is appears that the report does not address the most baffling thing about Corbett's investigation. 

The failure to investigate The Second Mile. 

SMSS has long wondered along with others why Doctor Jack Raykovitz - the professional child psychologist who worked closely with Jerry Sandusky - was not charged with "failure to report". It was Raykovitz who was informed by Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley that an assistant football coach (Mike McQueary) was made to feel uncomfortable when he saw Sandusky taking a shower with a boy after 9pm in February of 2001. Sandusky was an employee of The Second Mile, not Penn State; and the children who Sandusky was eventually charged with molesting were Second Mile boys. A Doctor of Child Psychology should have a much better handle on grooming behavior and how to evaluate a child in possible trouble than an Athletic Director or Penn State's VP for Business.  

The Second Mile was responsible for those boys and for Sandusky, since he was paid by the charity. Raykovitz was the professional who would have been trained to recognize grooming behavior. When Kane first announced her investigation The Second Mile was on her mind at least because of the campaign contributions from TSM to Corbett:

Investigation to Focus on Governor’s Handling of Penn State Abuse Case

Ms. Kane, 46, is a former county prosecutor who specialized in child sex abuse cases. She questioned why it took 33 months to arrest Mr. Sandusky in late 2011 after Mr. Corbett, as attorney general, received a complaint against Mr. Sandusky in the spring of 2009.“It’s never taken me that long” to build a case against a molester, Ms. Kane said in the Harrisburg office she had just moved into, a Carpe Diem paperweight on her desk, adding that speed matters because child abusers seek new victims. “I was on the campaign trail almost two years; I didn’t go a single place without somebody asking me why it took so long.” 

She also questioned the influence of campaign donations Mr. Corbett received from a charity Mr. Sandusky founded, the Second Mile, whose board members contributed to Mr. Corbett’s run for governor. Investigators at the time suspected Mr. Sandusky of using the foundation, which helped troubled youth, to find victims. Mr. Corbett’s spokesman said he could not have returned the Second Mile contributions because at the time the case was before the grand jury and he was sworn to secrecy. 

Ms. Kane also questioned whether Mr. Corbett devoted enough staff to the investigation and whether agents were trained to pursue child abusers.

We have not yet seen the actual Kane report, but if sources are correct and the report does not fault Corbett for failure to look into TSM it will be a major disappointment.  

It is difficult to understand how Dr. Jack Raykovitz escaped this situation unscathed while Penn State has been so thoroughly damaged. Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz had duties that did not include responsibility for The Second Mile charity beneficiaries. It appears that no good deed went unpunished since they thought they were benefiting the charity by providing facilities for certain events, and believed they were doing the right thing when they informed The Second Mile director of McQueary's unease when he observed Sandusky with a boy at the Lasch facility. It seems quite reasonable for them to believe Raykovitz would be the best person to handle the problem since he would know if the boy was under Sandusky's care. Raykovitz was in the obvious position to evaluate Sandusky's behavior and to know how to find out if the boy needed psychological help. 

But the child psychologist who was a mandated reporter was never seriously confronted or charged concerning his behavior toward Sandusky or his responsibility to protect the children. . The Freeh "investigation" never touched The Second Mile. A football coach was fired and disgraced and the President, Athletic Director, and Vice-President of a major University with no training in the field were indicted. Now it appears that the role of Raykovitz and The Second Mile will never be explored.  

At the heart of Kane v. Corbett, prosecutorial discretion -- a former AG weighs in 

McQueary, Cohen noted, is a 6-foot-4, 240 pound, former Division 1 quarterback who was serving as a graduate assistant to Joe Paterno's football team who testified that he witnessed Sandusky assaulting a young boy in the Penn State showers.

"He comes upon the scene in the locker room with Sandusky and a 10-year-old boy, and what does he do? He walks out, goes home and asks his father what he should do. He doesn't go grab Sandusky off this kid. Why? His defense has been that Sandusky was an icon. He was a legend," Cohen said. 

"Even McQueary, who could have torn Sandusky limb for limb, walks out to avoid dealing with Sandusky because he's an icon."
Cohen said, "Tom Corbett has said something similar. He said you can't take one 10-year-old kid and try to put an icon in prison for life. You need to build a case."

Tom Corbett said he couldn't build a case on an icon based on one crime. Does that mean any icon can get away with one in Tom Corbett's OAG? Odd reasoning I think. But one icon named Joe Paterno saw his reputation destroyed without any crime or case. That pretty much proves Cohen and Corbett wrong. Penn State is also an icon and Corbett & Kelly managed to do great damage to Penn State's reputation by charging three iconic Penn State leaders on the flimsy ever changing statements of Mike McQueary. 

Once again we see the record distorted on what McQueary says he saw and what he said to the people he told. There is no logical reason Tim Curley would not have told Jack Raykovitz what he understood from McQueary's account. Corbett got away with making this case about Penn State instead of his campaign contributors at The Second Mile. 

The night Mike McQueary witnessed Sandusky in the showers with "victim 2" he told his father and Dr. Dranov about the incident. Dr. Dranov claims Mike would only mention the 3 slaps he heard when asked if he had witnessed an assault. Mike eventually told some version of the event to 5 people - and one (Tim Curley) informed jack Raykovitz. But Corbett & Kelly's grand juries chose to write a Presentment that claimed Mike told Tim Curley and Gary Schultz he had witnessed a rape. The Sandusky trial jury didn't believe that. Tim and Gary don't believe that. And Dr Dranov says Mike only referred to 3 slap sounds when asked what he saw. 

In terms of culpability for failure to report the list should be ranked like this:

1) Mike McQueary - The man the Kelly/Corbett Presentment claims saw a rape 
2) Mike's father - the man best able to evaluate the veracity of Mike's rape claim  
3) Dr. Dranov -medical professional & close friend who heard the claim that night. 
4) Dr Raykovitz - Director of TSM responsible for the kids and Sandusky's boss who is also a professional child psychologist. 

If those 4 individuals are not culpable for failure to report how can Graham, Tim, and Gary be culpable? They did not know Mike and had no way to measure his veracity or read into his words or demeanor anything more than his evidently muddled story of 3 slaps and 2 second glances in a 10 min meeting 10 days following the incident. 

So why were Tom Corbett & Linda Kelly so bent on implicating Penn State and leaving The Second Mile out of it?  Raykovitz knew everything that Joe, Tim and Gary knew; and he was the professional who paid Sandsky's salary and worked with those kids. I don't get it.  

Why isn't anyone in the media interested in these questions? 

There is something very wrong about that, and the question still exists:

What did those campaign contributions from The Second Mile do to influence Corbett not to pursue Raykovitz and The Second Mile? 

Kane vs. Fina: Will the excuses for foot-dragging the Sandusky investigation go up in smoke?

The Philadelphia Inquirer's "anonymously sourced" article about AG Kane's shut down of a bribery investigation appeared to be a desperate attempt at a preemptive strike by Frank Fina

By 
Ray Blehar

Last Sunday's Inky article about AG Kane shutting down a bribery (sting) investigation totally backfired on the not so "anonymous" sources who leaked the information.  Within hours of the story being posted, close followers of  the Sandusky Scandal were calling out former OAG Prosecutor, Frank Fina for leaking the information to the paper,  Those in the know understood that this was an attempt to smear Kane before she dropped the hammer on Fina for his role in the botched three-year investigation of Sandusky.

Casablancapa.blogspot.com called it "A PREEMPTIVE STRIKE"

Conversations on twitter echoed that sentiment and also pointed to a Legal Intelligencer article from March 2013 in which "anonymous sources" threatened to "go public" if Kane's investigation of the Sandusky investigation were 'overly critical' of their work on the case.  The LI noted that one of its sources formerly held a leadership post in the OAG.

Irony: PSU BOT Settles With Victims To AVOID BAD PUBLICITY

Up is down and down is up.  The PSU BOT, after accepting a false report from Louis Freeh that PSU officials didn't report Sandusky to "avoid the consequences of bad publicity" decided to settle with Sandusky's victims to avoid prolonged bad publicity. 

by
Ray Blehar 

The PSU BOT has to have set some sort of record for bad decisions by a governing body with it's latest decisions to not only pay victim settlements, but to make sure the settlements are dragged out and highly publicized.

As I wrote just two weeks ago, PSU's public relations after the November 2011 indictment of Sandusky was voted as one of the worst PR disasters of both 2011 and 2012.   However, what is happening with the settlements may be a repeat performance - and the irony is that the PSU BOT claims they are doing this to avoid prolonged bad publicity.

Folks, I have some prime real estate for sale in Florida if you're interested.

Settlements Are A "Set Up"

Anyone who knows anything about PR knows that if you are trying to avoid bad publicity, you would not be issuing updates on the progress of the settlements.  Obviously, those updates are a reminder of the scandal and casts a negative pall on PSU.  

If the goal was to avoid bad publicity - as our trustees explain this exercise is about - then it would WAIT until all of the cases are settled, keep their mouths shut the entire time, and then make the announcement that all the cases were settled on a Friday night when no one is paying attention to the news. 

However, as we all know, PSU isn't doing that.  No, not in the least.  In fact, it's been a constant drip of information about the settlements and the first settlement (to a victim whose abuse story was not believed by a jury) was accompanied by a press statement that stated PSU could have stopped the abuse.  

However, even that statement was highly questionable because of the uncertainty surrounding the date of the crime.  Nevertheless, PSU made this official statement:

"The pivotal issue from the university's perspective in dealing with the victims is where the incident occurred and when it occurred proximate to the 2001 shower incident." 

As John Ziegler opined, this move was clearly done to undermine the cases of Spanier, Curley, and Schultz.  How do they get a fair trial when PSU has publicly admitted culpability for this crime?  Unless the venue of the trial is in Switzerland, it will be difficult to find an impartial, uninfluenced jury in this case.

Moving Forward

PSU hired so-called PR expert, Lanny Davis, to help manage the PR after the crisis.  

I say "so-called" because Lanny just wrote a book and touted his work with Bill Clinton (impeached), Trent Lott (resigned), and Martha Stewart (jailed).  So, he was an obvious choice for our train wreck governing body (known as the BOT) to help them manage the crisis.  

Based on reliable sources, Lanny's recommendation was:  blame it on the dead guy (Joe Paterno) and "move forward" -- the latter is a take off on his "move on" days with the Clintons.

Obviously, the moving on thing hasn't worked so well with the alumni, including PA Senator, John Yudichak, who were not pleased with the campaign and are not going away as long as something called "The Sun" rises and sets.

Howevever, the alumni and Yudichak don't have considerable influence with the media, who are aligned with the interests of Governor Corbett (Patriot News) and the PSU BOT (Centre Daily Times) and are ready to "move on" when given the order.  For the record, some media outlets already have moved on and their reporters have been told not to cover the Sandusky story.

Bad Publicity Will Continue for the BOT

While the some in the media and some football crazed PSU alumni have moved on, those who actually give a damn about PSU didn't.  As a result, the BOT can expect PSU and their lousy decisions to stay in the news for a long time.

The Sandusky appeal is scheduled for September 17th.  It's a good bet that the janitor incident convictions will be overturned.  All Amendola has to do is submit a football media guide into evidence to disprove the dates -  and what Louis Freeh called "the most horrific rapes" of the scandal will be wiped off the slate (make that 40 of 48 counts).  

And then there is that pesky Paterno lawsuit against the NCAA, whose plaintiffs include those recalcitrant trustees (minus one) and rogue faculty members.  The hearing is set for October 29th.  Lots of media coverage for that one.


Next, there is the Federal investigation of The Second Mile that is expected to result in charges of a cover-up of Sandusky's crimes by the charity.

While Charlie Thompson of the Patriot News and other media types say they don't have any information on this investigation, here's the deal...  this subpoena is still valid.  The Feds are still looking for "things" flowing between The Second Mile and Penn State (or perhaps I should say, "The Corporation for Penn State").  It is hard to predict when the Feds will wrap up - white collar crime investigations take time - unless they are getting "help" from someone on the "inside."

Maybe that won't take so long after all.  We'll see.

Newly elected Attorney General Kathleen Kane held on her promise to investigate the Sandusky investigation, so her results will obviously put PSU back in the news -- and that news will not be good if she's using the same evidence I did.  

Kane has set no timetable for the release of her report, so Erickson has a shot at making it to retirement. 

The question is, will he spend it on his farm or a farm that is owned by the Commonwealth?

Lost in the noise: What happens AFTER child abuse is reported.

Much has been made of the alleged failure to report child abuse by PSU officials, however, in Pennsylvania the real problem is what happens AFTER the call to ChildLine

By

Ray Blehar

The PA Task Force on Child Protection, convened in the wake of the Sandusky scandal, made numerous proposals in its with the intent of preventing future child abuse.  Unfortunately, most of the report's improvements focused on changes to the laws in how child abuse was defined, who should be required to report abuse, and stiffer penalties for those who fail to report.  In other words, the changes will increase the number of reports flowing into an already overburdened system.

Amazingly, the task force recognized that more reporting could make the child abuse problem worse.

The Task Force knew that mandating more reporting isn't the answer

Dean Richard Gelles, University of Pennsylvania, said this (on page 274):

"If our goal is to protect children who are in harm’s way, we will be unlikely to achieve that goal by expanding the list of groups and individuals required to make reports. Whatever the advantage of mandatory reporting laws, mandating reporting does not increase services to families or protection to children."

 Robert Schwartz, Executive Director of the Juvenile Law Center said this (on pages 275 and 276):

"Local child protection agencies (here and across the country) have always had difficulty making judgments about child protection. Instead of making it easier for CPS workers to do their jobs, our General Assembly, over many decades, has made it harder. . . . When we increase the number of acts and omissions that we call child abuse, and require more mandatory reporting and mandatory investigations of them, we reduce child safety. This is the paradox of child protection.

Drafters of child protection laws often imagine a call coming into a well-trained, experienced worker who can devote an unlimited amount of time to the call. The worker gets the facts, matches the call to the definitions in the statute, calculates who the perpetrator is, and makes a site visit. There she or he does a careful safety assessment and considers long term risks. The worker matches the child and family to an array of carefully crafted risk-management services, all aimed at promoting child safety and well-being. There is on-going, thoughtful monitoring of the case.

Even if everything went like that, child protection would be difficult, and fraught with misjudgments. But, of course, that’s not the way the system works. There is high turnover in child protective services units. Workers often lack experience. They don’t handle a single case, but many cases. They have fewer risk-management tools than they need. Caseloads are too high for everyone. Legislation that requires sending more and more cases into such a system risks hurting the children who are supposed to be protected by it. When thousands of children who are not at serious risk are referred to child protective services, the losers are the children most at risk."

Thus, even though the task force understood that increased reporting would not help in preventing abuse, the law of unintended consequences prevailed.   Despite considerable study and a 400 plus page report, the task force fell into the trap of reacting to the alleged issue (i.e., failure to report) that was reported to be the cause of the Sandusky scandal.  

In response, they:

-- expanded the legal definition of child abuse;

-- expanded the list of people who would be mandated reporters under the law; and,

-- increased the punishment for failing to report to a misdemeanor offense, rather than a summary offense.

The task force, however, also recommended other improvements to the system that hold promise for improving investigations, but likely did not go far enough.  More on that later.

Penn State didn't/doesn't know more reporting isn't the answer

At the recommendation of Freeh, Sporkin, and Sullivan (FSS),  Penn State implemented procedures to improve child abuse reporting on its campuses.  Policy AD72 was put in place on May 14, 2012 to outline the procedures to be followed in the event that an employee witnessed an act of child abuse.   

PSU hailed this new policy as "part of a focused and concerted effort by the University to become an academic and research leader nationwide in the protection of children." While the incidents of anyone witnessing child abuse on PSU campus have been exceptionally rare -- two known cases, of which one has now been debunked - PSU trained over 10,000 employees about child abuse reporting. 

PSU, also in the aftermath of the Sandusky scandal, provided the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center with a $1.5 million dollar grant to provide assistance back to PSU to develop policies and protocols to prevent sexual violence.  You can read several of their stories on Sandusky scandal here, which point to failure to report (or in their term, "the bystander approach") as the cause.  

Again, the opportunity to make an impact on preventing child abuse was essentially lost by FSS's and PSU's misunderstanding that the failure to report abuse is not causing the problem or preventing further (future) abuse.

The right answers 

The task force did succeed in proposing some very good improvements to the system AFTER a report is received, however they did not go far enough.  While they proposed the establishment of more Children's  Advocacy Centers (CACs) and the use of Multidisciplinary Investigative Teams (MDITs), they did not establish an independent Office of Child Advocate that would serve as an ombudsman to maintain checks and balances on the system.

I referenced the MDIT in Report 3, as its formation is prescribed as a critical step of an investigation by the Department of Justice and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children:  Child Molester's A Behavioral Analysis.   However, what may not be well known to the general public is that the Pennsylvania Child Protective Services Law, as currently written, already requires a multi-disciplinary team.  To wit: 

23 Pa.C.S.A. § 6365.(c) Investigative team.--The county agency and the district attorney shall 

develop a protocol for the convening of investigative teams for any case of child abuse involving crimes against children which are set forth in section 6340(a)(9) and (10) (relating to release of information in confidential reports). The county protocol shall include standards and procedures to be used in receiving and referring reports and coordinating investigations of reported cases of child abuse and a system for sharing the information obtained as a result of any interview. The protocol shall include any other standards and procedures to avoid duplication of fact-finding efforts and interviews to minimize the trauma to the 

child. The district attorney shall convene an investigative team in accordance with the protocol. The investigative team shall consist of those individuals and agencies responsible for investigating the abuse or for providing services to the child and shall at a minimum include a health care provider, county caseworker 

and law enforcement official. 

Based on the history of the Sandusky case, it is clear that a health care provider was not part of the investigative team in 1998 or in 2008.  

MDIT Working Through CACs

Maisto Smith testified to the task force that sex crime investigations and prosecutions are very difficult, even more difficult than those involving homicides. Usually lacking clear evidence, they involve the word of an adult (at times a respected professional) against the word of a troubled child.  Concluding that good forensic interviewing is essential for prosecutions in the criminal justice system, she also emphatically stated her belief that the low number of substantiated cases of child abuse in the child protective services system is directly related to the inability of caseworkers to conduct good investigations.

A MDIT, led by a district attorney and including child protective services staff, police and victims’ services staff (all with expertise in child abuse and child sexual abuse), can collaborate with the CAC’s medical staff as well as the forensic interviewer. Typically, such a team observes the forensic interview of the child victim via closed circuit television.  The MDIT approach ensures that the various disciplines work, pursuant to an agreed-to protocol, from the time of the initial report of abuse to ensure the most effective coordinated response possible for every child victim. 

Obviously, the single CAC forensic interview reduces the potential trauma to children and families while respecting the rights and obligations of each agency to pursue their respective mandates. Children and youth administrators, police, county detectives and district attorneys testified that the gathering of evidence through a CAC is far superior to a scenario where a child protective services caseworker might be the first person to interview the victim as well as potential defendant.

Unfortunately, CACs exist in only 20 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, with variant organizational structure and operations. Some CACs were founded and supported by health care institutions, such as the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, Pinnacle Health’s Children’s Resource Center in Harrisburg and Lancaster General Hospital.  (Note: There was no mention of the use of the CAC in the Sandusky case).  Obviously, taking these specialized forensic interviewers and pediatric medical professionals on the road for extensive periods of time deprives them of the ability to serve and care for additional child victims.

An Independent Office of Child Advocate

One of my recommendations in Report 1 was for the establishment of an independent Office of Child Advocate to oversee child abuse investigations and serve as an ombudsman for those whose issues were not resolved at the state (DPW) or local (CYS) level.

Currently, the only means of reporting concerns about child-welfare complaints exist in the Department of Public Welfare, the county agencies, and their contractors.  This presents an obvious lack of objectivity and, according to social workers and families I have spoken with, a "politicization" of the process.  

Again, the Sandusky scandal provides a good example of the "politicized" process.  Sandusky had a long-term relationship with DPW and CYS as a foster parent and an adoptive parent.  He had undergone reviews for over 20 years and passed every time, thus complaints about Sandusky fell on deaf ears.  The one time that DPW and CYS investigated Sandusky (in 1998), it was a cursory review at best.  

An independent Office of Child Advocate would add the necessary checks and balances on Pennsylvania's child-welfare system.   While this proposal went forward to the task force, it was not recommended for implementation.

The good news is that Kathleen Kane, who specialized in prosecuting Child Sexual Abuse cases, supported the establishment of this office during her run for Attorney General.  It is the hope of many child protection advocates that Ms. Kane will recommend the establishment of this office as one of the improvements resulting from her review of the Sandusky investigation.

For excellent resources on preventing child abuse and needed reforms to Pennsylvania's system,  please visit http://www.protectpachildren.org