PROSECUTORS - POWER CONFLICT and CORRUPTION with UNLIMITED RESOURCES

FEAR & LOATHING in HAPPY VALLEY
by Barry Bozeman (an homage to Dr. Gonzo, who would have done justice to this story)

Prosecutors are “shepherds of justice.” When a government lawyer, with enormous resources at his or her disposal, abuses power and ignores ethical standards, he or she undermines public trust and inflicts damage beyond calculation to our system of justice. This consequence, alone, compels the responsible and ethical exercise of this power.

CORBETT, KELLY, BEEMER, FINA, BALDWIN, and FREEH

These 5 PROSECUTORS have the wealth and power of the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania at their disposal and, in the case of prosecutor Freeh, 8.2 million Penn State dollars that he used to trash The Penn State Culture. 

CORBETT and BALDWIN both hold or held positions on the Penn State Board of Trustees. 
CORBETT became GOVERNOR.
BALDWIN was the GENERAL COUNSEL for Penn State University.

CORBETT was ATTORNEY GENERAL when the Grand Jury was convened. 
KELLY was CORBETT'S hand picked successor. She did not seek election.
BEEMER was KELLY'S chief of staff. 
FINA was lead prosecutor on the Curley, Schultz, and Spanier cases until he resigned. 
BEEMER took over for FINA.

The SLIME also RISES -- Segments of the following contain language and descriptions Dr. Gonzo might have used were he still with us. Hunter S Thompson (HST) was a master of descriptive hyperbole for effect. Picture: by Ralph Steadman, HST's artist of record.

PROSECUTORS PLAN NOVEMBER 5 PRESS CONFERENCE TO PERSECUTE PENN STATE

Well ... to hell with writing with reserved respect for the subjects of this essay. These malicious mendicants feeding from the public trough don't deserve polite measured consideration. These are bottom-feeding mutants on steroids, unfit for reason or respect. The Commonwealth has had more than its fair share of slimy creatures dredged up from permanently smoldering underground coal pits and fracking contaminated aquifers, particularly the prosecutors and judges who seem to flourish while committing some of the most heinous crimes in memory, crimes against children -- KIDS FOR CASH. 

CORBETT is a real piece of work. You can contemplate his Lebanon Valley BA and St Mary's Law Degree, as the absolute minimum requirement. His stint as counsel for Waste Management is so odorous that he has wiped it from his bio. As a prosecutor, Corbett is ethically unfit by the standards set forth by the American Bar Association: 

“ The duty of a prosecuting attorney is not to persecute, but to prosecute, and that he should endeavor to protect the innocent as well as to prosecute the guilty. He should always be interested in seeing that the truth and the right shall prevail….”

The muddy, blood-spattered path from prosecutor to higher political office is well worn and often traveled. PA politicians have plumbed the furthest depths of this sewer more often than most. It's an obvious route, where vastly superior resources in staff and wealth are pitted against individuals forced to pay hideous amounts of money to well-connected mouthpieces or suffer the consequences of representation by a court-appointed well meaning dullard of less than equal wit with none of the resources. Prosecutors have all the advantage and, too often, pursue publicity or a high conviction rate at the expense of truth or justice. The current reigning champion example of this being The West Memphis Three

Al Clemens Resignation from The Penn State Board of Trustees

March 7, 2014

I have resigned from the Penn State Board of Trustees.

For most of the 18 years I served as a Trustee, I was proud to help Penn State grow and achieve its deserved stature, in both academics and athletics, as one of America’s top-rated public Universities.

On November 9th, 2011, I and my fellow Trustees, voted to fire Joe Paterno in a hastily called meeting. We had little advance notice or opportunity to discuss and consider the complex issues we faced. After 61 years of exemplary service, Coach Paterno was given no chance to respond. That was a mistake. I will always regret that my name is attached to that rush to injustice.

Hiring Louis Freeh and the tacit acceptance of his questionable conclusions, without review, along with his broad criticism of our Penn State culture was yet another mistake. In joining the Paterno family and others in their suit against the NCAA, I have distanced myself from the Board on this issue. I am determined to reverse all of the misguided sanctions which were designed to punish a football program without blemish, and were aimed at student-athletes innocent of any wrong-doing.

Over the past two years, concerned Alumni have spoken clearly and forcefully. They have replaced six incumbents with reform-minded Trustees determined to acknowledge and redress errors of judgment with positive actions. Those who believe we can move on without due process for all who have been damaged by unsupported accusations are not acting in Penn State’s best interest.

While I will continue to advocate for Penn State, I step down from the Board in keeping within the spirit of our vote for 12-year term limits. It is time for new leadership to step forward.

Penn State’s future is bright. Our President, Dr. Barron, brings him a fresh perspective, grounded in first-hand experience of the true culture of Success with Honor. We have the opportunity to move forward united in our commitment to truth.

I urge all who love Penn State’s name to fight on. WE ARE Penn State

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Thank you, Alvin Clemons

The McQueary Evolution

by Barry Bozeman

 In the wake of ESPN's Outside the Lines and ESPN the magazines article "THE WHISTLEBLOWER'S LAST STAND", I am revisiting my thoughts about Mike McQueary and his pivotal role in what became the Penn State Sex Scandal. 

The first comment I ever made on the Penn State/ Second Mile/ Sandusky revelations came the day of Linda Kelly’s Press Conference on Nov. 4 2011. As an active participant on the Tennessee Scout sports forums I injected a comment in a long thread of people literally calling for McQueary’s head on a pike. The anger and hatred of McQueary was visceral. “How could a big strong football coach in good shape fail to step in and kick the crap out of an old man who was raping a 10 year old boy”?

Well I could not wrap my head around it either so I felt there must be something else going on and I knew the true nature of a Grand Jury Presentment. Knowing that presentment was not an unassailable statement of fact I tried to caution my fellow Volunteer fans to reserve judgment until all the facts were in. That seemed to be a big mistake. People were angry. Angry at Penn State, at Joe Paterno, at Tim Curley and Gary Schultz and very angry with Mike McQueary.

If Linda Kelly’s goal was to destroy Penn State and Joe Paterno in the court of public opinion, she succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. If this was the reaction on sports forums for the Tennessee Volunteers it had to be the reaction across the country on similar forums. I’m not sure why I thought there was far more to this story than seemed evident in the PA Attorney Generals presentation but I became intent on finding out. That led to the creation of this weblog and a long history of exploring the case. 

I actually felt sorry for Mike McQueary. I thought he must have been an abused child – possibly abused by Jerry Sandusky. I tried to imagine how shocked I might have been if I had seen what the Presentment claims he saw. But over time I came to a much different conclusion concerning McQueary and his role in this entire affair. There is no question that Mike McQueary was used by the Office of the Attorney General to make The Second Mile Sandusky Scandal into the Penn State Scandal. The only question I want to consider now is whether he was a willing participant, a coerced participant, or and unwitting dupe.

Over time much thought and effort has been focused on attempting to understand what McQueary actually saw. Linda Kelly’s presentment stated this “most credible” witness “SAW a boy being subjected to anal rape” by Jerry Sandusky. McQueary has made it clear that this overstates his observation. This website was the first to obtain and publish pictures of the locker room where this took place. 

What we do know about that night is that McQueary phoned home and then left the Lasch building to meet with his father and family friend Dr. Dranov that night. The following morning he had a 10 minute conversation with Joe Paterno. And several days later he met with Tim Curley and Gary Schultz to tell them what he had observed.

Even if we can accept that McQueary was so freaked out by what he saw or thought he saw at the Lasch building that he could not react in a manner to protect the child that Kelly says he observed being raped, can we accept that condition made it impossible for him to convey the nature of the heinous crime to his own father and long time family friend Dr. Dranov?

McQeary says the child's height in comparison to Sandusky placed his head at the pectoral muscles of Sandusky's chest.

Here is the point where McQueary's description of the end of his observation becomes important. McQueary says he faced the boy and Sandusky standing a couple of feet apart both observing him. He does not say the child showed any discomfort or surprise much less any fear, pain, embarrassment, or horror over whatever had happened. How is it possible that a small child of that size would not be in pain or greatly distressed if those slapping sounds were a big man driving himself into the child? And perhaps more importantly, how could a grown man desert a small child who was fearful or in pain to the person who was responsible for that situation? 

Does 2001 Timeline Reveal DPW/CYS Was Called and Failed to Act?

The delay in PSU officials speaking with Sandusky in 2001 is very similar to the delay in 1998.  Does the delay suggest that DPW/CYS was asked to investigate?

By
Ray Blehar

Some of the most important information in an investigation can be learned from thoroughly examining timelines, dates, and times to determine what exactly happened.

In Report 2, I criticized Louis Freeh's report because it contained only one somewhat comprehensive timeline in the beginning of the report.  As readers of my reports and blogposts know, the specific timelines of various incidents in the Sandusky scandal have revealed some very critical information.

A few examples follow:

-- That Mike McQueary had to tell Joe Paterno that the 2001 incident happened around a corner to enable Curley and Schultz to inform Spanier of the same information;

-- That DPW official, Jerry Lauro, lied to Sara Ganim of the Patriot News regarding his lack of knowledge of the psychology reports in the 1998 case; and,

-- That Ray Gricar did not close the 1998 case on June 1, 1998 because there was no time for him to review the police report, which was completed on June 3, 1998.

1998 - 2001 Timelines

The timelines in the 1998 and 2001 cases have a few things in common that indicate PSU was the more diligent party in terms of investigating Sandusky and that perhaps indicate DPW/CYS intervened in the 2001 case.

First Scheduled Interviews With Sandusky
According  to the 1998 University Park Police Report, ADA Karen Arnold instructed Detective Ronald Schreffler to interview everyone involved as soon as possible (see page 5).  DPW's Jerry Lauro contacted Detective Schreffler and stated that Sandusky was scheduled to be interviewed on the morning of May 7, 1998 (see page 8).  On May 7, 1998, Lauro met with University Park police but there was no interview of Sandusky.  No explanation is available regarding why the interview did not occur.

According to Gary Schultz's handwritten note of 12 February 2001, Tim Curley was supposed to meet with Jerry Sandusky on Friday, February 16.  This interview was also postponed and no one - not even crack investigator Louis Freeh - has provided a reason for the postponement.

Based on the timeline comparison, it is uncanny that both initial meetings with Sandusky were planned for the first week of the investigation, but both were postponed (with no reason given).

Interviews with Sandusky Delayed By Weeks
In both the 1998 and 2001 cases, the interview of Sandusky eventually takes place, but only after several weeks pass.  In 1998, three and a half weeks (25 days) go by before the police and DPW talk to Sandusky.  According the the testimony of former police Chief Tom Harmon, the police had scheduled another interview with Sandusky on May 27, 1998 - only to have CYS call it off because DPW could not attend.

In 2001, Tim Curley eventually met with Sandusky on March 1 or 2 according to the e-mail records and Spanier's notes referencing the case.  Therefore, about three weeks pass (22/23 days)before PSU  speak with Sandusky.  On March 7, 2001, Curley closed the loop with Joan Coble informing her that he informed Gary Schultz he had met with Sandusky/Second Mile.  (Note:  The Freeh Report incorrectly stated that Curley met with Second Mile on March 19, 2001).

The Middle
What happened between the initial scheduling of the Sandusky interview and the actual interview was also somewhat similar.   After May 7, 1998, there was little to no involvement of DPW and CYS in the investigation, aside from bringing in John Seasock to do an evaluation of Victim 6.  Conversely, the University Park police ran two different stings (May 13 and May 19) as well as fielded a call from the Mother of Victim 6 about Sandusky's contact with her son on May 11.

The only activity in the investigation in 2001 was the Schultz/Curley interview of McQueary, occurring on or about February 19, 2001 and the activities on 25 to 27 February to reschedule the interview with Sandusky. So it is interesting that there is some evidence of a possible report, but no specific information on the public record about an investigation.

I submit that the timelines, specifically the delays in interviewing Sandusky, provide an indication that DPW or CYS had  likely been contacted and intervened - at least temporarily - in the 2001 case.  Their intervention delayed PSU's interview with Sandusky.  The timelines also indicate the PSU officials were more diligent about addressing the Sandusky allegations than were state officials.

Penn State Deliberations About Sandusky

The Schultz note of 12 February 2001 reflects a plan that was developed on or about the time PSU would have been required by law to report the incident to DPW/CYS (i.e., 48 hours from first report on the morning of 10 February).  Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense for Schultz to make a plan of contacting DPW outside of the 48 hour window required by law.

So, why the reference to DPW in the note?

Two Issues To Resolve
There are two issues at play in this case, not just one.  One issue is completely within DPW's control, while the other is in PSU's control.

The first issue is that PSU must deal with a report of suspected child abuse.  According to the evidence, research on "suspected child abuse" and conferences with Gary Schultz were conducted between Courtney and Schultz about that issue.  Both men believe the end result was a report to local child welfare authorities.   Also remember there was the slip-up by Agent Sassano stating that a record of the 2002 (sic) report was in the possession of DPW (Sassano has yet to correct the record).

The second issue at play is Sandusky's inappropriate use, as an emeritus faculty member, of PSU's facilities with youths from The Second Mile (TSM).  This issue is such that it could be addressed almost immediately by the PSU administrators.  It is probable that the Schultz note of 12 February 2001 was the plan for dealing with the facilities use issue -- not the plan for dealing with suspected child abuse.

The reference for calling in DPW "as an independent agency concerned with child welfare" is likely a result of Schultz's review of the 1998 case and his discussions with Harmon over the conflicts of interest between TSM and Centre County CYS in 1998.

It is likely that Schultz did not believe that he could go to Centre County CYS if Sandusky and Second Mile "pushed back" on PSU's directive for Sandusky to not use the facilities with TSM youths.  If the "push back" from TSM and Sandusky occurred, Schultz believed he would get a better result if he raised the issue to DPW.

E-mail Authenticity (or lack thereof)
While Freeh, Frazier, the majority of the media point to the e-mail of February 27-28 (Freeh Report, Exhbit 5G) as evidence of Curley, Schultz, and Spanier's decision not to inform DPW, the testimony of Braden Cook proved that this e-mail was not authentic.  According to Cook, his team was provided the Schultz e-mails for a second time on July 2, 2012 (page 70).

The e-mails were first provided in March 2011 (page 69)  on a DVD after it was discovered that the Schultz data was not in their inventory provided to them PSU's John Corro.   John Corro testified to providing three USB keys of data to Cynthia Baldwin.   That means none of the "incriminating" e-mails in this case was pulled from a forensic hard drive or a copy of a forensic drive.  Cook did not say who provided him with the Schultz e-mails in July 2012, however he testified that he was providing e-mail information to Freeh's team and the PSU lawyers for attorney-client privilege review (beginning in late Fall 2011).

Government and private sector document and computer forensics experts who were consulted regarding the authenticity of the e-mails agree that the evidence is suspicious, but that tampering can only be determined through comparison with data from the hard drives. Freeh's history with evidence tampering, as well as Ken Frazier's insistence that the documents in this case provided the information the Board needed to come to make decisions in the case, provide valid reasons to believe the Schultz e-mails may have been altered.

Keep reading and you will discover that the stakes in this case were high enough for Freeh  - who was identified and recommended for the job by Governor Tom Corbett - to make the evidence fit a pre-determined conclusion.

The Inconvenient Truth of the Sandusky Case

The inconvenient truth that the Commonwealth does not want the public to learn, is that DPW and CYS routinely fall short when it comes to protecting children and indicating child abusers.  The grand jury presentment of November 2011 did its best to hide the failures of DPW and CYS to take Sandusky off the streets in 1998.  And I suspect it has done the same in the case of the 2001 incident.

The record of failures of CYS and DPW to properly intervene in child abuse cases and protect PA's children is staggering.  Based on a 2008- Health and Human Services review of DPW, children continue to be harmed in 43% of the cases after abuse is reported.  Mathematically, this computes to an estimated 11,000 abuse cases and approximately 200 deaths since 2002 (the original date of the McQueary report).

Those are just numbers, however.  The stories behind the numbers are quite interesting.

Many of you might recall the story of Aleta Bailey.  Aleta was a little girl in York County who was reported to have been beaten by her mother's live in boy friend, Larry Hake.  The York County caseworker on that case, Beverly Mackereth, requested a police escort for herself because she felt unsafe to investigate the case because of Hake's reputation as a violent man.  After taking Aleta to the hospital to be examined, Mackereth sent the little girl back into that environment - requiring that there be another adult present when Hake was near Aleta.  Five weeks after that order, Aleta was raped, tortured, and murdered by Hake.  The hospital nurses found bruises and swelling on all parts of her body, including her feet.

Most rational people would question how Mackereth retained her employment after this incident, thus it is truly mind blowing that she not only kept her job, but is now the Secretary of DPW.  From 2011 to her promotion in March 2013, she was the Deputy Director of Children and Youth Services -- the agency with the mission to protect children.

In another case I investigated, a child lodged complaints to Clearfield County CYS officials about the abuse suffered at the hands of the parent over and over again.  CYS refused to investigate the case because they had previously investigated and cleared the parent.   The child attempted suicide, but before doing so had vandalized the home.  The child survived, but afterwards was charged with vandalism and had to make restitution. No action was taken against the parent.  The child remains emotionally damaged.

One of the more interesting cases is that of former psychologist Jim Singer, again in Clearfield County.  Dr. Singer saved a young girl's life by reporting her abuse and taking the extra step of hiring his own attorney to approach a judge to get a protective order for the child.  The judge issued the order. A state police investigation of the case revealed that Clearfield County CYS never investigated or even filed a formal report of the abuse incident.  Instead, CYS and other entities retaliated against Singer for reporting the abuse resulting in the loss of his license to practice psychology.  There have been other retaliatory cases in Centre County, though not as extreme as what happened to Jim Singer.

What becomes apparent after studying the issue of child abuse is that the failure to report child abuse is not a problem in Pennsylvania.

The problem is what happens AFTER a report of child abuse is made.  I suspect that the 2001 case is another example of DPW failing to protect Pennsylvania's children.



Coming Soon:  The Failure to Report Child Abuse "Dog and Pony" Shows

1998 Revisited and Other Ponderings

by Wendy Silverwood

A compilation of comments and questions from across the “boards”

The “PSU as villain” script had to be started for a specific reason. It was never supported by the facts, especially with respect to the 1998 incident, in which Centre County Children and Youth Services along with an investigator from PaDPW were involved. Curiously we find Nils Frederickson, PA OAG Acting Director of Communications, banging out the error filled script for the 1998 investigation in his Nov. 5, 2011 press release. Once the decision was made by the PA Office of Attorney General to turn this into PSU as the “bad guy”, everything else simply dropped off the radar.

It was no longer about Sandusky and his horrendous crimes, it was now about a grand PSU “conspiracy” that the Attorney General decided must have happened to “cover up” Sandusky’s activities. Let’s cut across the media roar, turn down the volume and really listen to what actually went on.  

Fundamentally this “cover up” didn’t exist 17 months ago and it still doesn’t exist today.

Perhaps someone wanted or needed or even insisted this come out of the gate as a giant Penn State “cover-up”. It could possibly be viewed as being devised by an individual or a group, e.g. the Surmas, with the goal of bringing PSU to its knees as an institution, settling old scores, wresting control and/or seeing petty vendettas through it.

Sandusky’s own loathsome conduct, especially given his status as an agent of the county and an executive director of a state licensed children’s charity became secondary. So instead of trying a case against a preferential child sexual offender to remedy criminal acts, it’s about bringing down PSU for possible political reasons.

We have $42 million and counting for “public relations” and crisis management, a $60 million hammering by the NCAA, an $8 million sham “investigation”, a banner-toting plane flying over campus for 3 days and enough high-priced consultants, PR hacks, compliance experts and second lawyers for the first lawyers that the issue is not Sandusky who culled his victims from a state licensed entity, but PSU and its “culture problems”. 

This all makes zero sense.  Problem is, nothing’s made sense.

The McQueary testimony makes no sense. The Freeh Report makes no sense. The NCAA sanctions make no sense. The “moral responsibility” statement by Noonan makes no sense. Freeh’s grandstanding press conference makes no sense. None of the facts line up for a “Conspiracy of Silence” to “protect the football program”.  

Looking at this more clearly and focusing on everything from the timeline of the investigation to Seasock’s bizarre conclusions argues that somebody was in a big hurry to get the 1998 investigation over with. 

That in and of itself should give us all cause for alarm.

The use of Counselor John Seasock in 1998 to contradict Dr. Chamber’s findings is puzzling. Seasock knows who involved him, and other than possibly of Sandusky, he is the only one who does. So when he doesn’t make an appearance for the Defense despite the Defense have a written, signed contemporaneous “report” known to have been provided to the Centre County DA, it raises a question. Is there a possibility that there is an individual or individuals in Centre County who has/have the most to lose if it would be publicly revealed who set up the Seasock evaluation and has/have managed somehow to keep it quiet?

Only someone at the county level of government would have had the familiarity with Seasock’s brand of “compliance”, familiarity with Ray Gricar, familiarity with Sandusky and familiarity with The Second Mile.

What is troubling is that whoever was responsible for recruiting and hiring John Seasock to evaluate the victim has received ZERO scrutiny. 

Another troubling aspect.

Why did the PA OAG direct Freeh to stay away from University Park Police Chief Tom Harmon? He was the person most directly at the center of the 1998 investigation. Freeh was tasked with looking into exactly what “went wrong” at PSU and he can’t speak to the one person at the center of everything?  A long-term former head of a large police department cannot be interviewed in an “independent” investigation? 

Does not make sense.

The person who put Freeh in place did so knowing that he would reach the “right”
result, and that Freeh would abide by the Attorney General’s rules and not put anyone in an awkward position by attempting to talk to people with actual knowledge of what they were being asked. So why did Freeh operate in tandem with the AG’s office?

Even Sara Ganim’s headlines’ promoted the prevailing narrative yet demanded corrections when new information surfaced. Those corrections, however, never materialized. 

More questions.

Why is Investigator Jerry Lauro of PaDPW getting a free pass? Clearly CYS and PA DPW are at fault for the 1998 situation. Perhaps because they had such a cushy relationship with The Second Mile they cannot or will not ever admit to their responsibility. Why wasn’t The Second Mile immediately turned upside down by the State? The PA OAG has oversight of non-profits in the Commonwealth; visiting The Second Mile offices did not require a subpoena and could have swiftly been dealt with.  Why hasn’t CYS & DPW been a focal point for the indignation about Sandusky? 

Where is the outrage at these agencies and why are no officials taken to task?

Taking on a hugely popular and politically connected entity like The Second Mile or those politicos that create for-profit juvenile prisons and the ensuing “Kids For Cash” scandal has not particularly been PA DPW’s strong suit. 

What does this tell us about the very systems we have in place to protect our kids?

 

We can only hope that Kathleen Kane’s office goes back to 1998 – and interviews the CYS head; the CYS intermediary; the DPW “supervisor”, who supposedly issued the interview order; Jerry Lauro; Victim Number 6's mom; Victim Number 6, to the extent he has any independent memory of the “incident”; retired Detective Schreffler; Officer Ralston; retired PSU Chief Tom Harmon; John Seasock and Dr. Chambers. 

And then begin to carefully and clearly connect the dots…

The Limits of Memory and Suggestive Memory

The limits of memory and suggestive memory are factors that should not be overlooked in the Sandusky case. 

by
Ray Blehar

After the Ziegler release of the interview of "Victim 2," I got a phone call regarding the statement he made that "incriminated" Curley and Schultz because "V2" said Sandusky told him he'd be getting a call from Tim Curley because McQuery saw them engaged in a sex act. 

In an earlier blog post, I quoted Jim Clemente, who said:  "after ten years or twelve years or thirteen years, you can't remember specific words that you used in a conversation.  And it's irresponsible for somebody to quote somebody ten years or twelve years after the event and say those are the specific words they used in a specific conversation.  That is absolutely not done it's - it's not proper in a criminal investigation at all."

I reminded the caller of Clemente's statement and added that any "quotes" from 2001 can't be considered as an accurate account of what was said based on two things: the ability of memory and suggestive memory. 

Long Term Memory

First, what is retrieved from long term memory is typically part of a schema that your mind has established for retrieving information. For example, I can recall things that I learned from many years ago because my mind has built a system for retrieving it that relies on relationships between the information. New information is added to the schema.  I don't memorize it, rather, I understand how one piece of information relates to the next and my brain has established a schema.  The depth of processing builds the network for recalling it as needed.  

Certainly, there are things retrieved from memory as a matter of rote or repetition.  I like to use the Bill Clinton quote, "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,' as an example.  This was a quote played over and over again in the news cycle, thus I remember it quite well.  It is doubtful that anything said in 2001 was repeated over and over again by any of the parties involved during that timeframe, thus was not committed to memory by rote.

In listening to Ziegler's interview of Sandusky. it appeared as if he could recall the events of that night in the shower with amazing clarity. He may have been able to do this because he was not recalling that particular incident, but the repeated pattern of horseplay he had with all the victims. Victim 4 reported very similar activities. Ziegler's "V2" and Sandusky worked out and showered on several occasions. It is likely the same activities occurred each time, thus March 1, 2002 or the correct date of Feb 9, 2001 are essentially the same occurrence as retrieved from the schema of memory.  

Ziegler's "Victim 2" recalled what happened that night as well, but it was essentially the schema he had built regarding the multiple times that he had horsed around in the shower with Sandusky.  Obviously, not exactly the same events transpired each time, but the mind had formed a lasting impression of the shower activity that was recalled from long term memory.

However, I highly doubt that he had built a schema for remembering the exact words of a phone call from 12 years ago.   The interjection of new information very likely made its way into the recollection of what was said in that phone call.  That was likely a result of suggestive memory.

Suggestive Memory
On November 9, 2011 (the date of the interview), the person claiming to be Victim 2, just like the rest of us were subject to an unrelenting news cycle that repeated the WRONG DATE of the incident (which he repeated) and that McQueary witnessed a sex act/rape in the shower. This information was interjected into his memory of events, so that when he recalled the phone call from Sandusky he added the information that he had been hearing over the days leading up to his interview.(i.e., McQueary was the reporter - unknown to Sandusky until November 2011- and that McQueary believed he witnessed a sex act) 


This article from LiveScience explains it quite well.

Some of this failure of reliability happens at the scene of the crime, said Maria Zaragoza, a psychologist at Kent State University in Ohio. Things happen quickly; the emotional charge of witnessing a crime may keep people from cuing into important details. If there's a weapon, Zaragoza said, people tend to become hyper-focused on it. They pay more attention to a gun than to the face of the person holding it.

Often, "the information getting into the memory system is very limited," Zaragoza told LiveScience.

The next source of memory uncertainty happens during the investigation. Suggestive questioning can distort memories, Zaragoza said. Each time you relive the crime, either out loud to an investigator or in your own head, that distorted memory is strengthened.

In one famous case, 22-year-old college student Jennifer Thompson was raped at knife point by an intruder in her bedroom. Through her terror, Thompson tried to categorize the details of her assailant's face. She went to the police and worked with an artist to draw a composite sketch. In photo, in a lineup and in court, she identified her rapist as Ronald Cotton.

"I was completely confident," Thompson (now Jennifer Thompson-Cannino) wrote in a 2000 editorial in the New York Times. "I was sure."

But 11 years later, new DNA techniques disproved Cotton's guilt. He'd spent more than a decade in prison for a crime committed by another man, Bobby Poole.

It's likely that working on the police sketch altered Thompson's memory of her rapist's face, Zaragoza said. Later, when she'd picked him out of a lineup, her confidence only grew. Cotton's face started haunting her flashbacks. When she met her real rapist in court, she didn't even recognize him.

What happened to Cotton and Thompson, chronicled in the book "Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption" (St. Martin's Press, 2009), wasn't a weakness of Thompson's, Zaragoza said. Anyone's memory can become twisted with time.

Mike McQueary

So, as Mike McQueary glanced into the shower, was his focus on the victim, who was behind Sandusky or was it on Sandusky (the threat)?

And did the questioning by investigators have an effect on McQueary's memory?  Ziegler's "Victim 2" was a 14 year old boy in 2001, yet McQueary identified the boy as being 10 or 11.  Did the investigators suggest that Sandusky had a habit of showering with young boys that influenced McQueary to state the boy was of a younger age than he actually observed?

These are legitimate questions that aren't posed to make the case that Sandusky is innocent.  As a matter of law, every time Sandusky showered with a minor, he was committing two felonies and one misdemeanor.  However, the science suggests that McQueary's memory of the 2001 incident may have distorted the incident over time or that his recollection of the event was influenced by information provided to him by police during the investigation.   This does not mean McQueary is lying because he may indeed believe that his recollection of events is truly what he saw.  

But I would be willing to be any amount of money that Mike McQueary's recollection of offensive formations and offensive football plays is far superior to his recollection of the events of  February 2001 because his brain has established the schema for performing the recall of that information.

Conclusion

The limits of memory regarding an isolated incident preclude one from remembering exact words or exact details of the event.  It is likely that no one involved in the 2001 incident remembers exactly what was said.  Tim Curley, as athletic director, had many other things on this plate that demanded his attention, particularly the expansion of Beaver Stadium in 2001,  that would taken precedence.  Similarly, Gary Schultz, Joe Paterno, and Graham Spanier, would not have focused on this event, given the multitude of issues they faced on a daily basis.

Out of Our Minds- Part 1: Psychological obstacles to changing the narrative in the Sandusky scandal

by  Douglas Hoskins & Jessi Lillo

In this series of articles, we discuss cognitive and social factors that have shaped and perpetuated the general belief that a massive cover-up by Penn State University personnel intent on protecting a football-first culture enabled Jerry Sandusky to molest young boys for fourteen years.  Each of the topics presented are common cognitive errors made in order to deal with the demands of processing information in a complex world.  We approach each topic from the theoretical, explaining how they may have influenced the Sandusky scandal, but we do not offer them as definitive explanations, or excuses for the behavior of any individual or group.

 Anchoring

Cognitive psychologists define anchoring as initially fixating on one specific aspect of a situation or event and basing all decision-making on that aspect regardless of any additional information.  This anchor- a number, phrase, idea, or image- derives its name from the fact that it carries so much weight that an individual is unable to change perspective or consider contradictory information or incentive.  Anchoring has most often been studied in economic decision-making, but is prevalent when forming value judgments of any sort.  An anchor, simply put, is a first impression that just won't go away..  

Visual anchors, have received less attention in the literature than numeric anchors, but they have been shown to have powerful effects on behavior and attitude.  Because visual stimuli activate a variety of brain structures involved in memory formation and retrieval, emotional response and physiological arousal, they can immediately and unconsciously influence human thinking. 

What is anchoring the Sandusky narrative?

The predominant anchor in the Sandusky case is that of the little boy "being subjected to anal intercourse" in the shower at Penn State, as reported in the November, 2011 Grand Jury Presentment.  This mental image is one that is impossible to erase, even for those who have followed the case enough to know a) this was not what McQueary said he witnessed, b)the victim has refuted this account, and c) the attorney general retracted this information when she issued a new GJP a year later.    Unfortunately for Penn State, reports of the boy in the shower that flooded the visual media in November of 2011 were invariably accompanied by photos and videos of Joe Paterno, so that the image of that boy became superimposed mentally with the image of Joe Paterno and Penn State football.  Many people in the general public might not be able to remember the name Sandusky, but they can easily conjure that boy in the shower being raped while Paterno turns his back.  As of November 5, 2011, the Sandusky story was firmly anchored in the Lasch building at Penn State.  Four days later, that anchor was more firmly affixed when the PSU Board of Trustees announced that it had fired Joe Paterno and Graham Spanier, though the Spanier news was a minor detail in every story.  

Did anchoring affect the Board's decision?

For most who have followed the story, the firing of Paterno is viewed as a colossal blunder that represents the point at which there was no chance of changing the narrative.  Some attribute this blunder to personal vendettas, internal power struggles, protecting self-interests, incompetence, or disengagement: and it is quite possible that one or more of these motives was present for any given individual board member and that they knew what effect their actions would have on the story, but that is an idea to be explored in a later issue.  The question here is whether the initial anchor of child rape in a PSU football locker room influenced their decision to fire Paterno.  Studies by German and American psychologists have shown that anchors significantly influence judicial decisions even when the judges and jurors were informed of their purpose and instructed to disregard the anchor.  Similar results have been shown in the fields of stock analysis, real estate, financial negotiations, probability estimates, social judgments, and general knowledge.  Multiple studies have also shown that the effects of an anchor on decision-making are more pronounced under stress, begging the question of whether the Board would have acted differently had they waited.

Could anchoring have affected the SIC investigation?

Richards J. Heuer spent 45 years in the CIA studying the psychology of evidence analysis and has written extensively about cognitive biases in the investigative process.  In his book Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, he states: 
  

The impact of information on the human mind is only imperfectly related to its true value as evidence. Specifically, information that is vivid, concrete, and personal has a greater impact on our thinking than pallid, abstract information that may actually have substantially greater value as evidence...  Impressions tend to persist even after the evidence that created those impressions has been fully discredited (Chapter 10).  

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It has been widely publicized that Louis Freeh had a particular dislike of pedophiles and that he personally directed Kenneth Lanning, Jim Clemente's mentor, to establish the Crimes Against Children unit, and tasked Lanning with ensuring that at least two agents in every field office were properly trained in the area .  Freeh's personal predisposition, coupled with the fact that his client, the Board of Trustees, had abruptly fired Paterno could have led Freeh to develop tunnel vision during the investigation.  Even absent any personal, financial, or political motives, it is possible that Freeh was seeking evidence to fit a conclusion that he was not even aware he had already reached.  Heuer's suggestion for avoiding tunnel vision due to anchoring is to have investigators with varying areas of expertise analyze the same evidence and compare their conclusions. This practice is called Alternative Competing Hypotheses and it is a time-tested technique for eliminating bias from a conclusion.

How were Penn Stater's so resistant to the anchor?

As stated previously, anchor biases are a natural human tendency that are resistant even to conscious attempts to avoid them.  The only technique that has been clinically shown to significantly mitigate an anchor is to have equally strong contrasting anchors and to actively focus on the differences at the outset of the problem.  For Penn State alumni and fans, the image of Joe Paterno had for years signified The Penn State Way; it evoked the athletes, classmates, professors, administrators, activities and experiences that largely defined ourselves and shaped how we thought about the world.  This anchor was so well entrenched in Penn Staters that it served to counteract the merging of Penn State football's image with that of the boy in the shower.  We felt, and still feel, the same visceral reaction to that boy's image; we grieve for the victims as much as everyone else does.  We are neither blindly loyal to an icon (as critics have claimed) nor smarter and more open-minded than others (as some of us would prefer to believe).  We simply started our evaluation from a very different position and were therefore more readily receptive to new evidence as it became known.  

What can be done to remove this obstacle?

The toughest thing about anchors are that they are virtually impossible to remove once they are established.   As events of the last 15 months have shown, the Sandusky story is so well anchored in the sodomy/Penn State football juxtaposition  vast amounts of definitive, compelling contradictory information will be needed to change public opinion.  And even that may not be enough.  In most cases, the anchor can only be broken when incontrovertible evidence is found that proves the original narrative false, as happened in the Duke Lacrosse case, the case of Richard Jewell, and the Dan Rather National Guard document.

In summary, anchoring provides a very plausible explanation for how readily the current narrative of Penn State football culpability was accepted and of how difficult it would be to change that narrative from the outset.  However, anchoring cannot adequately account for the fact that this narrative has remained virtually unchanged for 15 months even as considerable contradictory facts have come to light.  Other cognitive and social factors sustaining the narrative will be discussed in later issues.

Next issue:  Fundamental Attribution Error

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