By SMSS FREEHdom Fighters
As we begin
a new year, the FREEHdom Fighters thought it would be fun to present a bakery
box brimming with some of the most memorable quotes of 2012 surrounding the
Sandusky
scandal.
This “Bakers
Dozen” of Ring Dings, Ho Hos, Devil Dogs, Twinkies, Moon Pies, Yodels and
Krimpets are fun to look at and attractively wrapped, but in essence….stale,
spongy, crème-
filled snacks with no substance or nutritional value.
Pairs nicely
with a glass of Kool-Aid.
 |
NCAA President Mark Emmert
|
The NCAA issued "unprecedented
sanctions" against Penn State in July 2012, slamming the way the school
gave precedence to football success and lost focus on the first priority of any
institution of higher learning: education.
However when Mark Emmert was the
Chancellor of Louisiana State University he certainly espoused a different philosophy of the importance of
football when he fired football coach Gerry DiNardo in November 1999 ...
"The critical role of our football
program is clear: it is of vital importance to the entire community: Our
students, our fans and alumni worldwide and the state of Louisiana. Simply put, success
in LSU football is essential for the success of Louisiana State
University."
What is Emmert's true view
of the first priority of institutions of higher learning?
 |
Randy Feathers, Former Investigator for the PA AG
|
Until January 2011, only one state
police trooper, his supervisor, plus an PA state attorney's agent working under
Randy Feathers were assigned to the Jerry Sandusky case. In addition
to supervising a unit out of Altoona, Randy Feathers also worked on the case
himself.
“I was asked weekly if I had enough
personnel,” Feathers said. “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. If anyone wants to criticize, I’m the one to criticize because I made
that decision weekly."
“I didn’t want a whole lot of
investigators on this case,” he continued. “You don’t want 20 different
investigators going after a bunch of kids. You want to keep it as small as
possible.”
However, psychologist Mike Gillum, who
counseled Aaron Fisher (Victim 1), immediately after he and his mother walked
through the door of Clinton County's Children and Youth Services office in
November 2009, provides a much different account than Feathers'.
Gillum co-authored a book, "Silent
No More: Victim 1's Fight for Justice Against Jerry Sandusky," with Aaron
Fisher (Victim 1) and his mother, Dawn Daniels. In it Gillum gives a detailed chronology of what went on
behind the scenes. Gillum states that he became frustrated as the investigation
slowed and prosecutors
told him many times that an arrest was imminent. He also blamed Governor
Tom Corbett for delaying the investigation when he was the attorney general and
at the same time running for governor.
Randy Feathers is still employed by Tom
Corbett. Corbett named Feathers to the Board of Probation and Parole in
September, 2012.
Why didn’t you ask for more help Randy?
 |
Frank
Noonan - former head of AG criminal
investigations and current Commissioner
of
the Pennsylvania State Police
|
Following
his retirement from the FBI in 1998,
Frank
Noonan was appointed Northeast Regional Director for the Attorney General’s
Bureau of Narcotics investigation. After 11 years as Regional Director, Noonan
was promoted to Chief of Criminal investigation for the PA Office of the
Attorney General in July 2009 under Tom Corbett’s watch. After Tom
Corbett became governor, Frank Noonan was nominated on January 18, 2011, to be
Commissioner of Pennsylvania State Police (PSP)
and
was confirmed by the State Senate on April 12, 2011.
Paterno
may have fulfilled his legal requirement to report suspected abuse by former
assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, state police Commissioner
Frank
Noonan said, "but somebody has to question about what I would consider
the moral requirements for a human being that knows of sexual things that are
taking place with a child." Noonan added: "I think you have the moral
responsibility, anyone. Not whether you're a football coach or a university
president or the guy sweeping the building. I think you have a moral
responsibility to call us."
However,
in December 2012 the Associated Press
released
a story titled,
Pa. troopers’ Asian sex Trips surface in lawsuit.
Records
in a case pending in federal court in Pennsylvania say the three PA state
police lieutenants, Martin Kruse and Lawver, all admitted that they hired
prostitutes in Thailand and Vietnam on trips between 2002 and 2008, according
to a February 2009 general investigative report filed with the state police's Bureau
of Integrity and Professional Standards.
Child prostitution
is a particular problem in Thailand and some other Asian countries.
State police leadership and internal affairs assigned to investigate the sex
trips questioned the ages of the prostitutes repeatedly. The three state
policemen have insisted that none was underage, records show.
"There
was no indication, wherever they went, that there was [sic] any children
involved, which is what our concern was".
"The
age of the prostitutes they were with was not a concern to Lt. Martin (because
according to him, they all looked old enough)."
Internal
PA state police records examined by the Associated Press shows the three
supervisors evaded significant punishment. Additionally, the U.S. attorney's
office in Harrisburg said a federal investigation regarding the Asian sex tourism
trips was closed without charges being filed, and prosecutors declined
further comment.
Why aren’t your colleagues held to the same “moral standards” Frank?
 |
Tom Corbett, Governor of PA and former
PA State Attorney General
|
In May of 2010, while running for Governor, State Attorney
General Tom Corbett subpoenaed Twitter
to appear as a Grand Jury witness to “testify and give evidence regarding
alleged violations of the laws of Pennsylvania”.
The subpoena ordered Twitter to provide “any and all subscriber
information” of the person(s) behind two accounts – @bfbarbie and @CasaBlancaPA – which at the time of
the subpoena had only 68 and 123
followers, respectively— and had been criticizing Corbett in 140 characters or
less on the popular social media site.
It’s interesting that Governor Corbett was so quick to issue the subpoenas of
critics’ Twitter accounts but the Second Mile didn’t receive
subpoenas until January
2011 in the Jerry Sandusky case which the PA AG’s office opened in early
2009. Sandusky’s home wasn’t searched until the summer of 2011 and a second
subpoena for The Second Mile financial records wasn’t delivered until after
Sandusky was charged November 4, 201l. PA Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa of
Allegheny County said, in hindsight, the matter could have been handled
differently.
Tom, why did you subpoena Social Media and not a
Social Menace?
 |
Rodney Erickson – Penn State University President
|
Rodney Erickson told "Outside the Lines" on July
25, 2012 that if Penn State had not accepted the package of NCAA sanctions
announced on July 23, the Nittany Lions faced a historic
death
penalty of four years.
However, in an interview with
Adam Rittenburg of ESPN the same week, Ed Ray, Oregon State president chair the
NCAA's executive committee which sanctioned Penn State and represented the
presidents and chancellors at the NCAA news conference, categorically denied that the suspension of
play was threatened if Penn State did not
agree to the consent decree.
When questioned during an open
Q&A during the September Board of Trustees meeting, Erickson stood
steadfastly behind the account he offered trustees in an August
12, 2012 teleconference, in which he said he was told that an overwhelming majority
of NCAA officials "wanted blood" and the consent decree was "a
take-it-or-leave-it proposition."
"Those are the facts ... I
still believe that was the best course of action given what we were faced
with," Erickson said. "It's a decision that no university president
should ever have to make."
Rodney, will we ever learn the truth?
 |
11.9.11 Penn State Board of Trustees
|
In the November 9, 2011 press conference where
John
Surma announced that … “Joseph Paterno is no longer the football coach --
Effective immediately.”
During the
Q&A portion of the presser, Surma was
asked by a reporter,
“Sir, what was the driving reason of removing
coach Paterno? “ he answered, “In consideration of all the facts and the
difficulties that we are encountering during this time, it was the trustees'
view that it was in the best interest, long-term interests of our university to
make that change.”
Later we find out that Joe was
slipped a note by Fran Ganter which had John Surma's name and cellphone number
scribbled on it. Paterno called Surma from his kitchen phone where Surma informed him that the board of trustees had
"terminated" him as head coach, "effective
immediately." He hung up the phone
and broke the news to his wife of 49 years, Sue.
A moment later a second call was made
to Surma where Sue Paterno said, "After 61 years, he deserved
better." Then she hung up.
In January 2012 the Penn State trustees,
in an attempt to change the public’s perception of how they handled the firing
of Joe Paterno, spoke to the New York Times resulting in an article titled, Penn State’s Trustee Recount Painful
Decision to Fire Paterno . In it they outline their rationale for firing
Joe Paterno: “The trustees also laid out what they said were three key
reasons for firing Paterno: his failure to do more when told about the
suspected sexual assault in 2002; what they regarded as his questioning of the
board’s authority in the days after Sandusky’s arrest; and what they determined
to be his inability to effectively continue coaching in the face of continuing
questions surrounding the program.”
However, the Penn State community was persistent and not
ready to “Move on”. They continued to raise questions as to why Joe Paterno was
fired. Therefore, on
March
12, 2012 the Penn State Board of Trustees board felt obligated to issue
another statement to “state clearly” the reasons for his dismissal: a “f
ailure
of leadership" for his actions following a reported sex assault involving
former assistant Jerry Sandusky. The board found that while Paterno fulfilled a
legal obligation to tell his superiors that an employee claimed Sandusky abused
a young boy in a shower, it said Paterno should have done more. "We
determined that his decision to do his minimum legal duty and not to do more to
follow up constituted a failure of leadership by Coach Paterno," the
trustees wrote.
 |
Letter firing Joe Paterno from Cynthia
Baldwin
Penn State Vice President and General Counsel
|
However, the Board of Trustees neglects
to mention that they had a second chance to speak to Joe on that fateful night
when Sue Paterno called them back. Additionally, none of those plans was
mentioned in the certified letter written by Penn State general counsel, Cynthia
Baldwin and sent to Paterno one week after he was fired. It begins, "Pursuant to your
termination … we are asking you to make the following arrangements.”
By April 4, 2012 Don
Van Natta Jr. writes, “Joe Paterno was not
fired. That’s what the board of trustees now says. He was simply relieved of
his coaching duties but was allowed to continue on as an emeritus professor and
would be paid his full salary under his contract, the trustee said in the weeks
and months since then. In a statement
released on March 12, the trustees said that if Paterno had not hung up the
phone so quickly, Surma had intended to tell him that the board was sorry for
firing him by phone and that it was the board’s intention to fulfill his
employment contract. They also said that it was always their intention to name
Paterno “head coach emeritus,” a title that bestows honor and privileges.”
11.9.11 Penn State Board of Trustees, was Joe
fired or not?
 |
Mark Schwarz – ESPN
Reporter
|
In 2003, Mark Schwartz and his
producer, Arty Berko interviewed repeatedly Bobby Davis, the former Syracuse ball
boy after Davis had contacted ESPN's Outside the Lines with information
alleging that longtime Syracuse associate head basketball coach Bernie Fine had
molested him as a child. At Davis’ request in 2003, Schwarz and Berko also
interviewed Davis’ step-brother, Mike Lang. According to Schwarz, Lang told the
ESPN reporters that "Bernie grabbed my leg a few times but he didn't
really do too much to me and I don't have anything to say to you."
The network ultimately opted not to run
the story because, according to ESPN officials, there were no other victims who
would talk, and no independent evidence to corroborate Bobby Davis’ story.
However, as the Jerry Sandusky
scandal unfolded and was so eerily similar to what Bernie Fine did to Davis,
Davis texted his stepbrother, Mike Lang that he could not deal with it. Lang
felt obligated to help his brother and called Mark Schwarz.
As irony would have it, the call
to Schartz came in on November 11, 2011 just as he was about to leave the ESPN
satellite truck to attend the candlelight vigil and moment of silence held in
support of the alleged victims that evening on the Penn State campus. After reporting
from the vigil, Schwarz called Lang back. The two men spoke for some time and
Schwarz recalls Lang as "frantic, tearful and emotional."
ESPN aired its first
story breaking the Bernie Fine scandal on Nov. 17 in which Davis, now 39,
and Lang, now 45, accused Fine of molesting them, starting in the late 1970s
and continuing into the 1990s. Ten days later, the network ran a second
story with an audio tape, that ESPN had in its possession since 2003,
which recorded a 2002 phone call that Davis recorded with Fine's wife, Laurie. ESPN
stated that it added the audiotape after it hired a voice recognition expert to
confirm that it was Laurie Fine’s voice on the tape.
Many have questioned why ESPN did
not share
the tape with police or administrators at Syracuse, even if the network
believed the unauthenticated tape created a journalistic obstacle to airing the
story. In an interview with Anderson Cooper, Schwarz said that
"journalists are not necessarily required or expected to hand over
evidence that they did not obtain or create themselves to the police."
The Huffington Post reported, Bob
Rucker, interim director of San Jose State University's department of
journalism and mass communications, had this to say about the responsibilities of a journalist
in such a situation when he was interviewed by FOX Sports.
"Since
we are covered by the First Amendment, we don't have to turn over
anything," Rucker told FOX. "Still, it's not always that obvious,
especially when it comes to protecting the interests of children. I know I'd be
hard-pressed not to go to my bosses and tell them I need to talk to the police."
Why did you
hold on to the “Bernie Fine” tape so long Mark?
 |
Kenneth
Frazier - Penn State Trustee
Elected by Business and Industry
|
Ken Frazier, Penn State alum,
Harvard-trained lawyer and current chairman and CEO of the Merck pharmaceutical
company, also headed the Board of Trustees “full and complete” investigation into the Sandusky matter. In late November 2011, Frazier,
announced that it had hired Freeh to look
specifically at how the culture, policies, and practices of the university and
its administration could have allowed the alleged sexual abuse to happen on
campus and go unreported for so long. It will also seek to make recommendations
to the board as to how to prevent similar events from ever occurring again,
Frazier said. "No one is above scrutiny," Frazier said.
Frazier is a man with a track record of
protecting powerful institutions from the consequences of their inaction and is
best known for his phenomenal success in defending a sordid chapter in Merck’s
recent past—its years-long silence about the safety problems of the popular
painkiller Vioxx proving that he is skilled at preparing a no-hold barred
defense that minimizes liabilities to potential plaintiffs. Not only did his
hard-nosed tactics pay off for Merck in 2007 but they paid off personally for
Frazier who became chairman and CEO of Merck in 2011.
This is the same man who had
this to say about Joe Paterno four days before Paterno died on January 22,
2012, “To me, it wasn’t about guilt or innocence in a legal sense,” Frazier
said of Paterno’s decision not to go to police. “It was about these norms
of society that I’m talking about: that every adult has a responsibility for
every other child in our community. And that we have a responsibility not to do
the minimum, the legal requirement. We have a responsibility for ensuring that
we can take every effort that’s within our power not only to prevent further
harm to that child, but to every other child.”
Mr. Frazier, how do you reconcile that statement with your actions in
defending the Vioxx suit at Merck?
However, once the Freeh report was
released and implicated Pennsylvania
State University's board of trustees alongside its top school officials, Frazier
had this to say, "We
failed to ask the right questions, the tough questions, or to take definitive
action, Put simply, we did not force the issue."
So “in hindsight”, Ken, you wish you” had done more”?
When pressed about why the Board of
Trustees did not force the issue with Dr. Graham Spanier, Penn State University
President at the time, Frazier
had this to say, “We were also being told there were
restrictions based on grand-jury secrecy about what could be said at a
particular point in time," he said
So
how does the same legal-eagle, who defended Merck so successfully against the
Vioxx class-action lawsuit, not know enough to push the issue of grand jury
secrecy?
Will the real Kenneth Frazier please stand
up?
 |
| Mark
Dambly – Penn State Trustee |
Critics of the Board of Trustees
handling of the Freeh report have said that Penn State has “accepted” the
findings, but Mark Dambly said that wasn’t the case.
The board said in a statement
after the findings were released July 12 that it accepted full responsibility
for the failures which occurred.
"There have been lots of
suggestions that we accepted all 267 pages (of the report). That's not accurate
at all," Dambly said. "We did not take any
action on the Freeh report. It's open to anybody's interpretation."
Freeh challenged the trustees to
look at the culture of the university. But, Dambly said, "We don't suggest
that the entire culture of the university is flawed. None of us have ever said that.
Unfortunately, it's been construed that way."
What
ARE you trying to say, Mark?
 |
Carl Shaffer – Penn State Trustee
elected by Agriculture Societies
|
In late July 2012, following the release
Freeh report, PA auditor general, Jack
Wagner sent a letter to the PA State Legislature that his
office is working on a comprehensive report on Penn State, which was separate
from the university-sanctioned Freeh report, outlining preliminary
recommendations that Wagner said were necessary to improve the university's
governance in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
As auditor general, Wagner is the
state’s top government watchdog and has
responsibility for
ensuring all state money is spent legally. Because Penn State is a
state-financed university, any change would have to be made by the General
Assembly. After the Wagner letter was received by the State legislature, PA
State Representative Scott Conklin
introduced legislation based
on Auditor General's recommendations to alter the structure and governance of
the Penn State Board of Trustees.
Wagner’s final report was released on November 14,
2012. Some of the main highlights from the report included: removing the
university president from the board of trustees; removing the governor as a
voting member of the board; reducing the board’s size to improve transparency
and accountability; and preventing trustees from becoming high-ranking university
employees, such as when the trustees made fellow trustee David Joyner the
interim athletic director in November 2011.
It didn’t take long to get a reaction
on the proposed reforms from current Penn State trustee, Carl
Shaffer. “This is our university — this
university is unique in a lot of ways from other universities,” said Shaffer
during a committee meeting Thursday on governance issues. “I think it’s up to this board to decide how we’re going to
take this university forward.”
You’re
kidding Carl, aren’t you?
 |
Karen Peetz – Chairman of the
Penn State Board of Trustees
|
Karen Peetz was elected to the Penn State
Board of Trustees in 2010 and was elected Chairman of the Board in 2012. In
December 2012, she was named President of Bank
of New York Mellon. Prior to
this appointment she was a Vice Chairman, with responsibility for the Financial
Markets & Treasury Services (FMTS) group within BNY Mellon, which is the
corporate brand of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation. The businesses that
make up the FMTS group – treasury services, corporate trust, depositary
receipts, clearing services (Pershing), broker-dealer clearing, collateral
management and alternative investment services – represent more than 40 percent
of the company’s revenue. Each of these businesses commands a leading global
market position and ranks among the company’s most visible and best-performing
franchises. Karen is a member of BNY Mellon’s Executive Committee, the
organization’s most senior management body, which oversees the firm’s
day-to-day operations.
As Chairman of the Penn State Board
of Trustees, Peetz was more than willing to comment on the Freeh report after
it was released in July, 2012 when she spoke to Jeff Brady of NPR News. Brady asked
Peetz if the report would change how the university honors Paterno. Peetz’s response, “I think our reaction is that
the clarity that's come out of the report would show that 61 years of excellent
service that Joe gave to the university is now marred. And we have to step back
and say, what does that mean?”
In November 2012, a BNY Mellon subsidiary, Ivy Asset
Management, agreed to a $210 million settlement for advising clients to invest with Bernard
L. Madoff, whose multibillion-dollar fraud landed him in
federal prison, New York’s attorney general, Eric T.
Schneiderman. “Ivy Asset Management violated its fundamental responsibility as
an investment adviser by putting its own pecuniary interests ahead of the
interests of its clients,” Mr. Schneiderman said. “Ivy deliberately concealed negative facts it
uncovered in its due diligence of Madoff in order to keep earning millions of
dollars in fees. As a result, its clients suffered massive and
avoidable losses.”
BNY Mellon did not immediately reply to
requests for comment.
Why No Comment, BYN Mellon President Peetz?
 |
Cynthia Baldwin – former Penn
State
Vice President and General Counsel
|
|
Cynthia Baldwin,
a former Pennsylvania state Supreme Court justice and past chair of the Penn
State Board of Trustees, served as Penn State University's general counsel during
the grand jury investigation of Jerry Sandusky before she stepped down in
January 2012. Baldwin was repeatedly
cited in the Freeh report for possible missteps in her handling
of the matter.
"Baldwin
told the Special Investigative Counsel that she went to the
grand jury appearances as the attorney for Penn State, and that she told both
Curley and Schultz that she represented the university and that they could hire
their own counsel if they wished."
"You
have counsel with you?" the prosecutor asked Mr. Curley.
"Yes,
I do," he answered.
"Would
you introduce her, please?" the prosecutor continued.
"My
counsel is Cynthia Baldwin."
Mr.
Schultz said the same when he was questioned.
"You
are accompanied today by counsel, Cynthia Baldwin, is that correct?" the
prosecutor asked.
"That
is correct," Mr. Schultz answered.
Since Penn State was not a party to the
criminal investigation, legal experts question Ms. Baldwin's presence in the
grand jury room. If she was a
representative of the university, she had no business at the grand jury.
"The most significant matter in
terms of ethics is what happened in the grand jury room," Mr.
Ledewitz said. "The first thing you learn in legal ethics is to know
who the client is."
Even though Baldwin has insisted that
she was not representing Spanier, Curley and Shultz, when they testified before
a grand jury investigating Sandusky's crimes, prosecutors
now say the record shows she was.
Cynthia, who were you representing and where
were your legal ethics?
