Multi-Media: Ray Blehar breaks down Nov 2011 grand jury presentment

Ray Blehar breaks down the November 2011 Grand Jury Presentment at Franco's Town Hall held in Pittsburgh on Saturday, November 10, 2012. 

This event was covered by local media, including the Centre Daily Times and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. 

Matt Morgan, of the CDT, wrote that my presentation focused on Victim 8, which was the first presentation I made that day.  Bill Schnacke, of the PPG, more correctly stated that my presentation focused on the state and local agencies failures in 1998.  Neither paper mentioned the chronology of the crimes or the fact that the OAG masked the associations of the victims. 

Special thanks to Linda Berkland for creating this video:

Franco's Town Hall, Eileen Morgan, Ray Blehar, and Panel Discussion video (1 hr. 56 mins).

Whatever happened with the investigation of the grand jury leaks?

The Pennsylvania Attorney General's office couldn't explain how the Sandusky charges appeared on the judicial system web-site.  They promised an investigation.  We still don't know what happened.

By
Ray Blehar

The butler did it.

On November 4, 2011, the Sandusky court docket somehow found its way onto the Pennsylvania Unified Judicial System website.  It was apparently removed - at least temporarily - while the AG hustled to put Sandusky in shackles and get him away from children.....after a three year long investigation.

Here's Nils Frederickson:

Nils Frederickson

"The moment we had a grand jury presentment in hand, we began making arrangements to take the suspect into custody," Frederiksen said. "Given the serious nature of this offense it was the direction of the Attorney General that he be taken into custody as soon as possible and not comment on the matter until he was physically in custody."

And while the cops went to round up Sandusky, Nils hovered over his computer, banging out the press release that would establish the narrative for the Sandusky scandal. The presentment was linked in the press release.

While Frederiksen never answered how or why the docket was posted early, by Friday night the presentment was available on the AG's web-site.

Even if they hadn't linked the presentment (or if it was kept under seal) Frederickson's false account was being run across the newswires.  Some of the more fictional parts follow.

Central Mountain High School

Frederickson wrote all about how the folks at Central Mountain High School immediately jumped to action upon the second, third, or whatever number report it was of Sandusky's bizarre behavior with students at the school.  

"The quick action by high school staff members in Clinton County in response to reports of a possible sexual assault by Sandusky is in marked contrast to the reaction of top officials at Penn State University, who had actually received a first-hand report of a sexual attack by Sandusky seven years earlier."

Incident in wrestling room - no report.  Taking kids out of classes - no report.  Shouting matches with students - no report.  But when a mother visited the school after her son's breakdown, the officials were Johnny on the spot.  No, not really.

We now know that the Principal, Karen Probst, and Vice-Principal, Steven Turchetta were anything but quick to react and had to be told to ban Sandusky from the school by Mike Gillum.  Gillum was the psychologist who worked for Clinton County CYS who got Aaron Fisher to admit the details of Sandusky's crimes against him.

We also know that Probst called Clinton County CYS after Dawn Daniels, the mother of the victim, told her that she was going directly to CYS -- and wasn't going home to think it over (as Probst urged her to do).   Gillum called Probst's phone call a CYA move.

And when ABC's Chris Cuomo showed up at CMHS with a camera and microphone in hand, we saw just how much Probst and Turchetta wanted to talk about their heroic acts.

McQueary's Report

According to Frederickson's press release, Linda Kelly stated,

 "Despite a powerful eyewitness statement about the sexual assault of a child, this incident was not reported to any law enforcement or child protective agency, as required by Pennsylvania law," Kelly said. "Additionally, there is no indication that anyone from the university ever attempted to learn the identity of the child who was sexually assaulted on their campus or made any follow-up effort to obtain more information from the person who witnessed the attack first-hand."

Powerful alright.  So powerful that McQueary could barely get the words out to Paterno and similarly provided few details to Gary Schultz and Tim Curley.  None of the men recalled McQueary describing the event as a sexual assault, let alone an act of anal intercourse (as written in the presentment).  

So powerful that McQueary was unable to tell his father or Dr. Dranov what he had seen.

So powerful that McQueary changed his story about what he saw inside of two weeks of the presentment being published.

Powerful.

The Three Year Investigation

The coup de gras arrives when Frederickson describes the investigative skills of the Pennsylvania State Police and Office of Attorney General.   This is a real gem:

"Kelly said that despite the false testimony and "uncooperative atmosphere" encompassing some Penn State University and Second Mile officials, investigators from the Attorney General's Office and State Police gradually uncovered a pattern of other potential sexual assaults by Sandusky. 

The grand jury eventually identified a total of eight young men who were the targets of similar sexual advances or assaults by Sandusky, starting in 1994 and continuing through 2009.  All of the victims first encountered Sandusky through Second Mile activities."

Wow.

The police eventually pieced together a pattern that the founder of The Second Mile, who had unfettered access to children, was using The Second Mile to find his victims.

I guess we should erect a statue of Inspector Clouseau in the PA Attorney General's office to honor these police and investigators for their exceptional performance.

The 1998 Investigation

Here is Frederickson's error riddled account of  the 1998 investigation:

During testimony before the grand jury, Schultz acknowledged that he was aware of a 1998 University Police investigation that also involved allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior involving Sandusky and young boys in the football showers, but did not pursue the matter further and did not seek any additional review in light of the new report in 2002.

The grand jury also noted that the 1998 report involving Sandusky and boys in the showers was reviewed by University Police and Child Protective Services, with the blessing of Wendell Courtney, who at the time served as University Counsel and was (and remains) counsel to The Second Mile - though no criminal charges were ever pursued. 

Schultz testified that he vaguely remembered the 1998 case as a matter of inappropriate conduct that was alleged by a mother of a young boy.  However, where is Frederickson coming from with Schultz asking for another review of the 1998 case?  And Frederickson definitely got it wrong about Courtney - on two counts.  1) Courtney was never told about the 1998 case until 2011; and 2) Courtney was not representing The Second Mile in 1998.

Conclusion

It's clear that the Attorney General's Office, with Frederickson as its acting director of communications, wrote the script for the false narrative and everyone else in the media promoted it.

By the time the horrific story had made the papers, all of the reporters were sucked in and never followed up on the reason how the charges were "leaked" in the first place.

Nor did they consider alternative scenarios for a cover-up of Sandusky's crimes.

This is the state of mainstream journalism in America.

And explains why more and more people have turned to the internet and the blogosphere to find the best information.

Correction: Sara Ganim is NOT an investigative journalist

Sara Ganim's Pulitzer Prize was for local reporting, not investigative journalism.  In other words, if a cat was stuck in a tree in Harrisburg, no one could have covered it better than Ganim.

By
Ray Blehar

In Saturday's blog, I was critical of Sara Ganim for not following up on leads that she should have seen when writing her story about the missing psychology reports.   I did so because I presumed Sara was an investigative reporter.

I was wrong.

Sara Ganim's Pulitzer Prize was for "local reporting" and not "investigative journalism."  But the Pulitzer Committee still isn't off the hook for awarding the prize to Ganim.

Here's the citation:

"For a distinguished example of reporting on significant issues of local concern, demonstrating originality and community expertise, using any available journalistic tool, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000)."

Certainly, the Sandusky scandal was a significant issue of local concern, but the rest of the citation is a bit overstated.

Originality -- Is it Memorex or Sara Ganim?

For the most part, and in the article I evaluated, Ganim is simply writing what she was told by a source (Jerry Lauro) who has serious credibility issues.  The police report revealed he was untruthful about his knowledge of the evaluations of Victim 6.  Other articles that I will cover later, reveal a DPW employee who was unaware of the Child Protective Services Laws.

In short, Sara Ganim was little more than a tape recorder --  and then transcriber of information.

Still waiting for that first big scoop from her at CNN....

Originality -- Who was "deep throat?"

Just as in the case of Woodward and Bernstein, it is evident from a review of Ganim's articles that she had a highly placed source who could provide her with information not available to the public.  Among the information the source likely provided was:

- the name of the mother of Victim 6;
- knowledge of the Sandusky investigating grand jury;
- McQueary's handwritten statement to police;
- Dranov's grand jury testimony;
- Information about the police report and psychology reports (pre-publication);
- The name of the DPW investigator, Lauro, and police detective Ronald Schreffler.

It's pretty easy to get scoops when you are being spoon fed the best information.

Community Expertise

If Sara Ganim really had community expertise, she would have broken the story of the investigation long before March 31, 2011.

My sources told me that the Sandusky investigation was the "buzz" at the 2010 Second Mile golf tournament.  In addition, those "in the know" at the tournament stated that Sandusky would not be arrested until after the governor's race was over.

She could have done a lot more digging - as others have - about the failures of CYS and DPW in protecting children over the years.  But instead, her focus was on promoting the false narrative of a cover-up at Penn State.

Bias

As I am reviewing her Pulitzer articles, I note the same biases I pointed out in Saturday's blog.  For example, the November 17, 2011 article written about Second Mile donors spends a lot of print talking about Lloyd and Dottie Huck and Lloyd Huck's association with Merck.  But there's not a single mention of Merck CEO and current BOT member, Kenneth Frazier.

Similarly, much ink is spent on DrueAnne Schreyer, daughter of Paterno friend, Bill Schreyer (the late, former CEO of Merrill Lynch).  Yet, not a word about the donations from US Steel, whose chairman, John Surma is currently on the PSU BOT.

Also, not a word about Ira Lubert, who sat on the Board of The Second Mile from 2005 to 2008 and had donated his Greenhills property in Reading for Sandusky's Second Mile summer camps.

For the most part, the information above can be found by reading The Second Mile Annual Reports.  So, how was it that Ganim wrote of the ties between PSU, the Hucks, and the Schreyers, but not about Surma/US Steel, Frazier/Merck, and Ira Lubert?

Interesting.

Silent No More

Ganim wrote a review of the book, Silent No More, where she stated her reporting on the Sandusky scandal was story was 100% accurate.  As of Saturday, we all know that not to be true.

Also, Silent No More blows apart some of the reports made by Ganim about the 2008 to 2011 investigation of Sandusky, such as the discovery of the 1998 PSU investigation occurring in June 2009 as opposed to Ganim's version of the police file being discovered in early January 2011.

Ganim was critical of author Gillum for stating he didn't know the reason why then Centre County District Attorney Michael Madiera referred the case to the Attorney General's office, citing press reports about Madiera's conflict of interest.

But again, Ganim missed an opportunity to investigate why Madiera sent it to the AG and not back to the Clinton County District Attorney -- which would have been the more logical course of action.  In short, she just went with rationale given by Madiera and apparently didn't think to ask about the alternative.

Additionally, had Ganim reviewed the CPSL, she would have learned that Clinton County CYS should have referred their investigation to the Department of Public Welfare, rather than conducting the investigation themselves (because of Sandusky's association with The Second Mile making him an "agent" of the county).

Missing the bigger stories

Sara Ganim became a media darling, appearing on the Sunday morning talk shows for her coverage of the Sandusky scandal.  In a press account about her winning the Pulitzer Prize, she stated:

"I have a police scanner on my nightstand. I fall to sleep and wake up to the morning news. I work 60-hour weeks digging and investigating, chatting up sources, and peeling back layers until I find amazing stories."

The "amazing" story about her coverage of the Sandusky scandal is how little "digging" she actually did and how many things she got wrong.

In fact, she missed the bigger stories about this scandal or, at best, covered them superficially.

Those stories are about the sad state of child protection in Pennsylvania and the bungled Sandusky investigations in 1998 and 2008 to 2011.

But she and the Patriot News weren't about to write those stories.

You don't want to bite the hand that feeds you.

What's Really At Stake In Tom Corbett's NCAA Lawsuit

Tom Corbett cites the economic costs of the NCAA sanctions as the reason for his anti-trust lawsuit and conveniently forgets the greater cost paid every day by the children of Pennsylvania.

By
Ray Blehar

Governor Tom Corbett has created a controversy among Penn State alumni, friends, and fans over the Commonwealth's lawsuit against the NCAA.   While many do not favor the governor politically or personally, they are willing to saddle up with him for what is "the only game in town" for fighting the NCAA.

What could be more unjust than the sanctions levied on Penn State?

THIS:  Since the time that Mike McQueary witnessed that incident in the showers in 2001, over 400 children have been murdered in child abuse incidents in the Commonwealth. The numbers are actually higher because some of the deaths are included in other crime statistics.

The record is atrocious and there's no plan to change things.

The sad reality is that children don't vote.  They don't have money.

Therefore, they are of little use to the governor and he's willing to take a pass on protecting them in an attempt to win favor with the voters of Pennsylvania -- who have both.

A report from the PA Task Force on Child Protection, recommending needed changes to the system sits on the Governor's desk.  It's been there since November 27th.

He's held no press conference to announce the recommendations that he's chosen to implement.

He hasn't invited abused children or the surviving family members of the children who were murdered to his mansion for dinner.

DPW and CYS's Track Record of Failure

In the wake of the Sandusky Scandal, the state government convened a task force to decide what improvements should be made for protecting children.  Don't you love it when legislators react to the latest news du jour, instead of actually being ahead of things and preventing the next crisis?

The task force went about their business holding hearings through the summer and fall about child abuse.  Many people testified.

At one end of the spectrum was Mike Gillum, the psychologist who worked with Aaron Fisher, and helped bring Sandusky to justice.

At the other end was The Honorable Beverly D. Mackereth, Deputy Secretary, Office of Children,Youth, and Families at the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare.  Most people have no idea who this nameless, faceless bureaucrat is -- but I do.

Ms. Mackereth, as a caseworker in York County in 1982,  was instructed by doctors not to allow little Aleta Bailey, who had been severely beaten by her mother's boyfriend, to be returned to her home and be a subject of future abuse by the boyfriend.  Against the orders,  Mackereth returned the child to the home and within one month, Aleta was beaten to death.

Anyone who has read this blog knows that the DPW and CYS reacted similarly to a recommendation from Dr. Alycia Chambers, who concluded Sandusky was exhibiting grooming behaviors typical of a pedophile.  Like Mackereth, DPW and CYS ignored the Chambers report and stopped investigating Sandusky, letting him roam free to prey on children for 14 years.

If you've followed the news and the Sandusky trial closely, you might know that Clinton County CYS did not require the Second Mile to institute a "safety plan" after Sandusky was "indicated" as a child abuser in 2009.  And if you've really followed things closely, you'd know that Sandusky was likely abusing Victim 9 while the investigation was in its beginning stages.

It is long past time for much needed reforms at CYS and DPW and I think that we, as Penn Staters, should be asking the Governor to put as much emphasis on protecting children as he is on fighting the NCAA.

Are We Who We Say WE ARE?

I never met Joe Paterno, but Joe was and is a great inspiration to me.

I knew about Joe for a long time, growing up in Central Pennsylvania in the 1970's it was hard not to know about him.  But I didn't learn who Joe was until I read Paterno By The Book.  Then I got to understand the depth of Joe Paterno, what he stood for and what he believed in.

There are many quotes of Joe's which are timeless, but at the moment, one quote stands out:

"There's more things in life that are more important than a football game."

I know from reading his books -- and I've read many of them -- and from looking at history, that Joe preached academics and family were ahead of football.   The graduation rates and academic success of Penn State football players was and continues to be magnificent.

It was the Grand Experiment.  Top flight football played by athletes who excelled in the classroom.  What was a small agricultural college, when Joe arrived, transformed into a world class institution.

The time is now that we demand that Governor Corbett takes steps in taking Pennsylvania toward world-class levels of child protection.

This is not an either or decision.  We can do both.

As Joe used to say,

"Let's show them who we are!"