Toyota Drives Big Hole in Heim's Response To Controversy

Bruce Heim's statements about The Second Mile's role in the Sandusky had holes so big that you could drive a -- TOYOTA -- through them!

By
Ray Blehar

Yesterday, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported Bruce Heim's response to the controversy over his participation in Saturday's coin toss at the Penn State - Army game.  

It comes as no surprise that Heim skirted his charity's culpability in the matter by hanging his hat on the fact the charity has yet to be charged in the Sandusky matter.   However, that by no means is proof the charity did nothing wrong.  

The evidence tells quite a different story than Mr. Heim:

HEIM: “By not going out, I would be admitting that the Second Mile did something wrong and the Second Mile didn’t do anything wrong.   The shame of this whole thing is thousands of kids are embarrassed because they were involved with the Second Mile.”

HEIM: “I was investigated by five different investigative agencies because of my association with the Second Mile. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was investigated for two years, spoke to the grand jury for over two hours. … The Second Mile didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t think Jerry was a pedophile.”

EVIDENCE:  The May 5th, 2015 Sandusky PCRA filing shows that TSM had purchased a Toyota for a former participant for reasons allegedly unknown to the individual.  The individual eventually disclosed he had been one of Sandusky's victims.  

Federal officials referred to evidence like this as TSM's "Cars for Kids Program."

There are a number of criminal counts that could apply to this transaction, including fraud, money laundering, embezzlement, and tax evasion.  All federal matters.  



EVIDENCE: In 2009, after being informed of Sandusky's abuse investigation, the charity failed to put a protection plan in place to prevent him from accessing children.  The charity admitted that they stayed silent about his investigation and did not inform the public. Yesterday's blog post mentioned his contacts with children in 2009 and 2010 and two abuse incidents.  This evidence would support charges of Endangering the Welfare of a Child.

EVIDENCE: In late 2008, Clinton County CYS contacted The Second Mile (TSM) to inform them that Sandusky was under investigation for child abuse.  Katherine Genovese, TSM's Vice President for Development, responded that the charity "had to tell him to back off certain kids before."  



HEIM: “Jerry in my presence, in the presence of coaches, in the presence of the football team on several occasions had gone in and showered with kids,” Mr. Heim said. “I said (sic) every day at the YMCA men shower with kids.”

EVIDENCE:  Only one coach,  Richard Anderson  (a defense witness), admitted that he saw Sandusky showering with a child.  The prosecution did not present any Penn State coaches as witnesses of Sandusky showering with children.  (Source: Sandusky Trial)


EVIDENCE:  There is no evidence to support that Sandusky showered with kids in the presence of the football team.  Had that occurred, there is no doubt it would have been reported in the Freeh Report. (Source: Freeh Report)


HEIM:  “Nobody in the Second Mile had any inkling that he had done anything wrong.  If you don’t believe it, then why hasn’t there been one charge brought against the Second Mile? They have been investigated just as deeply and as vigorously as Penn State was.”


EVIDENCE:  Despite that fact that numerous individuals told investigators about Sandusky's association with TSM and that the first four boys interviewed in 2008 and 2009 all met Sandusky through the charity, the Pennsylvania State Police and Office of Attorney General investigators failed to secure a search warrant or subpoena the charity for information until January 28, 2011. (Source: Moulton Report)



EVIDENCE:  Investigators did not Subpoena participant lists from The Second Mile until March 24, 2011. (Source: Moulton Report)


Special Deputy Attorney General Geoffrey Moulton stated there "were inexplicable delays in bringing a serial child molester to justice."   The failure to promptly investigate TSM was among them.


AG Kathleen Kane, in an interview with the Patriot News, stated her office was not investigating TSM.  As noted above, the possible crimes involved in the case are federal matters for which there are no statutes of limitations.

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.

"Preview" of Moulton's Report on the Sandusky investigation

While Moulton will not produce evidence that the investigation was slowed due to political purposes, there will be ample evidence that the investigation took far too long.

By
Ray Blehar

Last July, I published Report 3, which was my review of the evidence on the public record about the Sandusky investigation.

Tomorrow at 1030AM, AG Kathleen Kane will announce the results of the Moulton investigation.  Press reports to date indicated that the scope of the investigation was very narrow and limited to the 2008 to 2011 Sandusky investigation and did not look at prior investigations in 1998 or the prosecution of Sandusky.

Press reports to date have also indicated that the investigation did not find Corbett delayed it for political purposes.  On that point, I agree.  The timeline in Report 3 indicated that Corbett's motivation was personal, not political.  As the timeline below shows, the investigation continued to lag along after the November 2010 election and didn't take off until after the March 2011 budget battle between Corbett and Spanier.

I don't expect that Moulton will go as far as to assign motive for the delay.

Report 3 referenced Ken Lanning's manual, "Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis" and press reports indicated that Moulton interviewed Ken Lanning as part of the investigation.  As a result, expect the following points to be made regarding failures of the Sandusky investigation.


1) Failure to expeditiously obtain search warrants for Sandusky’s home and business areas.
2) Failure to form a multi-disciplinary task force to conduct the investigation.
3) Use of investigators without requisite background in child abuse investigations.

Report 3 also found the investigation to have faltered in performing routine investigative actions, such as:
1) running identification checks with the department of motor vehicles;
2) running criminal background checks; and
3) promptly following up on leads.

One of the key conclusions of Report 3 was that Sandusky could have been arrested by the end of the Summer of 2009, had the police and investigators followed the leads at their disposal.  In retrospect, I would adjust the date forward to the early summer of 2009, given that the police's first stop (after Sandusky's home) should have been The Second Mile.

Corbett and Fina

While early reports were that the report would be a "complete vindication" of Corbett, I suspect those reports are wrong.  Undoubtedly, Corbett will share some of the blame for the lagging investigation and, in the worst case, be identified as endangering the welfare of Victim 9 -- who was abused during the 2009 investigation.

The media has been silent about Frank Fina.  More importantly, the Fina camp has also been silent.  Given some of the highly unusual circumstances in the Sandusky case - most notably that the two most sensational crimes did not have known victims, one incident was based purely on hearsay, and that the grand jury presentment contained falsehoods -- Fina may be in more trouble than Corbett.

Corbett left the AG's office and accept the role of Governor in January 2011. In his wake, Pennsylvania State Police Chief, and formerly the head of the AG's Criminal Investigations Divsion, Frank Noonan, told the press that he was "involved in every resource decision" in the case and defended assigning just one state trooper to the case.

Similarly, then AG Bureau of Narcotics Supervisor, Randy Feathers, stated, “I was asked weekly if I had enough personnel.” He added, “I never asked for help until 2011 when we had many more subpoenas and more evidence. Then I got eight more troopers and four more agents.”

It appears that Noonan and Feathers took the heat off Corbett for the lack of resources for the Sandusky investigation.

Looking Forward to the Timeline and New Information

Scratching together information on the public record about the case was an interesting endeavor and, as I recently learned, building a completely accurate timeline was nearly impossible.  Court documents were extremely helpful in building the timeline, however, I can't say the same for the coverage by the Patriot News (P-N).

For example, the P-N reported that the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) obtained the 1998 University Park police report around the same time they talked with McQueary.   This would put their recovery of the report in November 2010.  Louis Freeh reported that the PSP recovered the file in January 2011.

Similarly, the P-N reported that Sara Ganim had found the mother of one of the victims while she was working for the Centre Daily Times.  However, later evidence revealed that Ganim found the mother of Victim 6 in January (after she had joined the P-N) and tracked down the mother of Aaron Fisher in February 2011.   (More to come on this in an upcoming report).

Moulton's report will contain an exhaustive timeline of the Sandusky investigation.  It will be very interesting to see who testified at the grand jury and when that testimony occurred.

I don't expect all of the answers tomorrow, but we will get to see and hear some new pieces of the puzzle.

And come a bit closer to finding the truth.

Central Mountain High School Probe Not Just About Aaron Fisher

USAToday's report of the AG's probe at CMHS should do more than re-plow old ground

By
Ray Blehar

An e-mail alerted me to the USAToday story that went to press on October 7th regarding the Pennsylvania Attorney General's probe into the actions of Central Mountain High School in the Sandusky case.

As I read the story, it was surprising to find out that CMHS Principal Karen Probst's call to Clinton County Children and Youth Services was to not just alert officials about an incoming complaint about Sandusky, but an attempt to diminish the credibility of Aaron Fisher and his mother, Dawn Hennessy.

This is the first new information in the case since we heard Frank Fina state there was no evidence to support Joe Paterno's role in a cover-up.  However, the probe at CMHS could reveal more new information than the USAToday article reported.

While the article went on to not only detail the foot-dragging by CMHS regarding Fisher's complaint, it also highlighted some of the other well-known unusual activities of Sandusky that the school ignored, including:

-- Sandusky devoted unusual attention to boys at school who were involved with The Second Mile;
-- Sandusky removed children from class to counsel them;
-- Vice-Principal Turchetta retrieved children from school activities to see Sandusky;
-- Truchetta testified Sandusky acted "clingy and needy" when students broke off relationships with Sandusky and that Sandusky's behavior was suspicious.

The stories of the other children at CMHS may likely provide one of the keys to understanding why the investigation took so long.

Most people familiar with the case are aware of one other boy, F.A., who was referenced in the grand jury presentment as being subject to the unwanted non-sexual touching and tickling by Sandusky.  F.A. reportedly stayed at Sandusky's home one time and at the same time as Fisher.

But who were the other boys that Sandusky took out of class and what happened to them?

The Police Investigation

According to public records, the police investigation into Fisher's complaint was first undertaken by Troopers Cavanaugh and Akers in December 2008.  Neither man testified at the trial nor did their names appear as potential witnesses for the prosecution.   Allegedly, they did not identify any victims from CMHS who knew Aaron Fisher.

In February 2009, Cavanaugh and Akers were replaced by Trooper Lear.  Lear did not testify at the trial nor did his name appear on the list of potential witnesses for the prosecution.  Allegedly, Lear did not identify any victims from CMHS who knew Fisher.

In June 2009, Trooper Scott Rossman replaced Lear.  Rossman testified at the trial and was caught making false statements under oath.  Allegedly, like the other officers who interviewed Aaron Fisher, he did not identify any other victims from CMHS who knew Fisher.

One of the reasons that the police failed to identify possible victims is that they relied on Fisher to point out the other children.  According to Fisher's book, Silent No More, the police did not obtain any records from The Second Mile regarding participants in their program until January 2011 - 25 months into the investigation.

But there is more to the story.

According to Mike Gillum, the state trooper who typically investigated sexual abuse incidents was officer Patterson.  Gillum was surprised when Akers and Cavanaugh showed up to interview Fisher and he suspected something was not quite right about their assignment to the case.  While they may be fine law enforcement officers, it is highly likely that they were not trained to recognize the signs of possible sexual abuse and did not recognize that some of Fisher's friends may have been victims.

Inconsistency of Testimony and Peer Pressure

In 1998, there was as group of about six to eight boys who were frequently seen with Sandusky and five of them testified to varying levels of abuse at the trial.  The inconsistency of testimony is easily explained by the research on compliant victim behavior, which states that compliant victims will deny, downplay, or exaggerate the abuse they suffered, often in an attempt to satisfy the investigator's or evaluator's expectations.   More often that not, however, when a group of children have been abused, the offender uses bonding, competition, and peer pressure from within the group to keep the children from disclosing abuse.  To wit:

The offender may use peer pressure to control his victims, and the children will enforce the rules on each other. No victim wants to be the one to ruin it for anyone  else or embarrass others, and each victim may think he or she is the offender’s “favorite.” All these techniques simply capitalize on the developmental needs of children of different ages. 

I suspect, just as in 1998, there appears to have been a similar group of children/minors at CMHS who were in contact with Sandusky in the 2003 to 2008 time frame.  Sandusky became a volunteer assistant football coach at CMHS in 2003, which was a least a year prior to him meeting Aaron Fisher through The Second Mile camp in 2004.  Fisher also testified that he was with Sandusky and a group of boys at the Blanchard Dam and other places.

Missing the Signs of Child Sexual Abuse

This passage from page 73 of the NCMEC & DOJ Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis provides some valuable insights on child molestation that I suspect were not known to the police investigators:


It is easy to be judgmental toward victims when you look at only the end product of their seduction. 
At the beginning of the relationship the child is looking for friendship, emotional support, a job, or just some fun. The lowering of sexual inhibitions is usually done so gradually and skillfully the victim does not realize he or she is a victim until it is too late. It may begin with simple affection such as a pat, hug, or kiss on the cheek.  In addition to being part of the seduction process, such activity can also be sexual acts themselves. Sexual activity can begin with conversation about sex. This might include “dirty” jokes and encouraging children to share their sexual attitudes and feelings. The activity can progress to fondling while wrestling, playing hide-and seek in the dark, playing strip poker, swimming nude in the pool, drying the child with a towel, massaging an injury, giving a back rub, tickling, playing a physical game, or cuddling in bed. Some offenders may have no interest in progressing beyond such acts. They are not a means to an end, but an end in themselves as their preferred sexual activity.


This passage contained many of the behaviors that the victims of Sandusky testified about at the trial and grand jury.  It cannot be understated that those behaviors were mentioned to trained DPW and CYS caseworkers in the 1998 case and were somehow not considered signs of sexual abuse.  It appears those signs may also have missed with F.A. and possibly others in 2008 and 2009 during the initial stages of the investigation.

There is no question that the Kane/Moulton investigation needs to review the records of the police interviews of the CMHS children (if the records still exist) to determine if signs were missed or if there were simply no disclosures from the children involved.

Finally, the investigation needs to determine if any later abuse could have been prevented.

Fisher, Others Not Protected

The November 2011 grand jury presentment reported that Sandusky had called Fisher 61 times from January 2008 to July 2009.   If there were any calls between January 2009 and July 2009, those calls would provide evidence that the Clinton County CYS was not diligent in ensuring that The Second Mile put a plan in place to prohibit Sandusky from having contact with Fisher and other children.

According to the Public Welfare Code, Pa. 055§ 3490.56 (b) and (e), Clinton County CYS should have required the The Second Mile to put a protection plan in place during the investigation and after Sandusky had been indicated.  This plan should have prevented Sandusky's access to all children, not just Aaron Fisher from November 20, 2008 forward.

Given that Sandusky did not retire officially from The Second Mile until September 2010 - nearly two years after he was indicated for abusing Aaron Fisher, this was a clear violation of the Public Welfare Code and also requires follow-up investigation by the Attorney General.

If there were others abused after November 2008, and it appears that was the case with Victim 9, whose dates of abuse on the original Bill of Particulars were 2005 to 2009 and the amended Bill of Particulars confirm that abuse continued into December 2008, then Clinton County CYS and The Second Mile could be charged with endangering the welfare of children.

.