Frazier, Tomalis Received Updates About OAG Investigation of Spanier, Curley, and Schultz

Email reveals that Frazier and Tomalis were privy to PA OAG's "flip" strategy for Curley, Schultz, and Spanier.

By
Ray Blehar

In a document dated 31 January 2012, which was obtained via my investigation in November 2012, lead prosecutor Frank Fina had informed PSU officials that he "expected C & S to flip."  As my blog post on 18 August revealed, the Sandusky trial transcripts indicated that the ultimate target of the OAG was Graham Spanier.

E-mails obtained by Ryan Bagwell through his RTKL efforts, provide more evidence that members of the PSU Board of Trustees -- and specifically Special Investigations Task Force Co-chairs -- Kenneth Frazier and Ronald Tomalis were included in the group who were being updated by the OAG.   E-mails also reveal that the Freeh group received an update on the OAG's impending announcement of the Spanier charges.

The June 3, 2012 e-mail below indicates that Schultz had decided not to "cooperate."  In other words, he had turned down a deal to "flip" on Spanier.

While some may argue that this email is discussing participation in the Freeh (fake) investigation, logic and evidence proves that was not the case.  With Curley and Schultz facing charges, it was well established that they could not speak about anything pertaining to the case, thus wouldn't be considered as individuals to be interviewed by the Freeh group.  Spanier, on the other hand, had reached out to the Freeh group at the beginning of the "investigation" and offered to meet with them several times.

From ESPN:

"Since November of last year, when he resigned his presidency, he has wanted the Freeh Group to create an accurate report and has been determined to assist in any way he can," said the statement from Spanier's lawyers. They ended their four-paragraph statement by saying they remained "hopeful that truth and reason prevail."

This email erases any thought that the investigation conducted at Penn State was conducted "independently" and "in parallel" to the OAG's.  Clearly, the SITF co-chairs were being kept informed of the progress of the OAG investigation.

But what about the Freeh group?  Were they too being kept abreast of the OAG investigation's progress?

Freeh Group Informed of Pending Spanier Charges

On October 31, 2012, the day before the Conspiracy of Silence presentment was released, Frank Fina called Greg Paw of the Freeh group to inform him of the pending charges.  Paw emailed Fina back and asked if it could wait until the next day (Thursday, November 1st) or Friday?

Obviously, it couldn't wait because by the next day, the information that Fina was going to tell Paw would have been all over the news.  Thus, Fina requested that he "call quick now?"

The Conspiracy of Silence presentment is referred to as the Freeh Report-Lite in some circles because it appears to utilize much of the same language and content from the Freeh Report. Other emails after the Sandusky conviction and the release of the Freeh Report revealed the cooperation between the Freeh group and the OAG (reported here by Ryan Bagwell).  There is little doubt that the November 1st report was a collaborative effort by the Freeh team and the OAG.

The October 31st email revealed that the OAG maintained contact with the Freeh Group at least until Spanier was charged and additional charges were filed against Curley and Schultz.  Fina's rather urgent message to Paw, as well as the other Bagwell emails,  reveal that the two entities had formed a bond of sorts during their work together.

This email also raises the possibility that the Freeh group was billing Penn State for work outside the scope of the contract.  While the final cost of the Freeh "investigation" and report was a little over $8.1 million, additional billings were received from Freeh, Sporkin, and Sullivan (FSS) after the completion of the "investigation."  One has to wonder what exactly were the nature of these billings.

Perhaps someone on the BOT might request an audit?

Emails Prove Freeh Caught In Another Lie

The evidence reveals that Louis Freeh has been caught in another lie regarding the independence of his "investigation" at Penn State.

From his press conference transcript:

While independent, our work was done in parallel with several other active investigations by agencies and governmental authorities, including the Pennsylvania Attorney General, Pennsylvania State Police, United States Attorney, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. Department of Education. We continuously interfaced and cooperated with those agencies and authorities. We also received assistance from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). As promised, we immediately turned over any relevant evidence we found to these authorities, such as the critical February 27, 2001 emails between Messrs. Spanier, Schultz and Curley. 

Previously, evidence from the Moulton report and judicial proceedings revealed he lied about his team's "independent discovery" of the email evidence.  Moulton's report (page 158) revealed the emails were turned over to the Pennsylvania State Police on July 7, 2011.   Thus, the situation was the exact opposite of the situation stated by Freeh -- he didn't turn over evidence to the authorities; the OAG turned evidence over to him (or used the PSU legal counsel and/or the SITF as an intermediary).

Conclusion

Louis Freeh and FSS did not conduct a full, fair, and independent "investigation" of Sandusky's crimes occurring at Penn State.  The evidence uncovered so far indicates that Freeh investigation was little more than a public relations ploy to provide the appearance of an "independent" investigation.

The majority of people, especially the media, were taken in by the ruse.  However, at least one media member was not.   Snigdha Prakash, wrote in Slate magazine, that the selection of Frazier to lead the SITF would result in a cover-up.

Prakash was right about a cover-up, but missed on figuring out what would be covered up.  It was not PSU's role in the Sandusky scandal, but rather the Commonwealth's failure to take Sandusky off the streets in 1998.

Freeh's team was complicit in that cover-up.

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Patriot News: Part 3 of 9: Chapter 7, The "Corbett" Cover-Up

The Patriot News deleted information and published known falsehoods to ensure that the public didn't learn about the botched Sandusky investigation and prosecution.

By

Ray Blehar

After the news of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse charges broke in November 2011, questions quickly surfaced as to why police took so long to arrest Sandusky after sex abuse allegations were made against him in November 2008.

Was the investigation dragged out by then AG Tom Corbett because he didn’t want to upset Penn State alumni voters during his gubernatorial campaign?  Could Corbett have charged Sandusky sooner (based on Aaron Fisher’s charges) and then built the case as other victims came forward?  Were children harmed as a result of the prolonged investigation?

A November 13^th column titled “Inside the Jerry Sandusky investigation. Why did it take so long,” provided contradictory information about the AG’s supervision of the case.  At first, Sara Ganim correctly stated the case was transferred to Corbett in March 2009, but later in the column falsely reported that the AG began supervising the case in the fall of 2010.   She also reported that the case took off in January 2011 – after Police Chief Frank Noonan added additional state troopers. 

A check of Noonan’s biography revealed that he was promoted to the Chief of the Criminal Prosecution Division of the Attorney General’s office in July 2009, thus had responsibility for the Sandusky case prior to becoming State Police Commissioner.  Moreover, Noonan was not confirmed as State Police Commissioner until April 2011 (after being nominated on January 18, 2011).  But the recent Moulton investigation concluded that the additional resources were not a critical factor in identifying the victims.

On December 10, 2011, the P-N made a half-hearted attempt to address questions about the drawn-out investigation, but defended the probe by relying on the same falsehoods from the November 13^th column.  Then in early January 2012, Sara Ganim (perhaps unwittingly) published potentially damaging information that revealed Sandusky could have been charged earlier. 

She reported that the police[1] had informed the mother of Victim 6 (in January 2011) that they had 400 counts against Sandusky and told her that they “had less evidence in murder cases.”  At that time, the public had been told there were only two victims, Aaron Fisher and the unknown Victim #2.   Ganim, via the mother of Victim 6, had revealed that there may have been other victims found earlier in the investigation.  However, at some point, the editorial board or Ganim scrubbed that information out of the free, on-line column.

Note: Full article can be obtained either by search of archive.org/web or by paying for archived version on PennLive.

Cover Up of Child Abuse During the Sandusky Investigation

The Sandusky trial revealed that one of the Victims was abused while Corbett was leading the investigation.  On June 14^th, Matt Miller reported the testimony of Victim 9, who stated he was abused through his 16^th birthday (in July 2009).   Columns published by the P-N on June 23^rd, 2012 and on November 21, 2013 changed the end date of Victim 9’s abuse to 2008.  Similarly, Sara Ganim at CNN also wrote a column in November 2013 and she too changed the end date of Victim 9’s abuse to 2008.  On May 30, 2014, they again truncated the end date of the crimes to 2008.  Finally, after the Moulton Report was released the P-N wrote a column stating that there was no evidence on the public record that showed Victim 9 was abused during the Sandusky investigation.  It was a bald-faced lie, considering that the P-N had reported that fact in its post-trial coverage.

The Cover Up of Perjury and Questionable Testimony

One of Corbett’s standard defenses of his lengthy investigation has hung on the prosecution’s success -- Sandusky was convicted on 45 of 48 counts.   In other words, the ends justified the means. Apparently the P-N also ascribed to this theory when it obfuscated the fact that two policemen had lied under oath at the trial regarding their contamination of the investigation. 

In addition, right before the Sandusky trial, the P-N had learned that the OAG had obtained the 2001 emails of Schultz.  Obviously, the emails provided the evidence to change the date of the incident witnessed by McQueary from 2002 to 2001.  However, the P-N ignored the obvious and never questioned the testimony of Agent Sassano, who claimed to set the new date using TV Guides.  Even after Louis Freeh claimed his email discovery reset the date of the incident, the P-N never challenged the story of Sassano. 

Similarly, the P-N never questioned Sassano’s testimony about finding leads for Victims 9 and 10 in July 2011 and April 2011, respectively.   Both victims came forward after November 2011.

The instances of the P-N turning a blind eye to inconvenient facts in the Sandusky case were quite numerous – and they appeared to be intentional.

Full report (28 pages) at http://www.march4truth.com/ray-blehar.html

Next: Chapter 6: The Spickler Cover-Up

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[1] Pennsylvania State Police did not participate in Geoffrey Moulton’s review of the Sandusky case, thus the information about the 400 counts was not confirmed by Cpl. Joseph Leiter.