Patriot News, Part 7 of 9, Chapter 3, The Second Mile Cover-Up

DELETED: "We've had to tell him to back off certain kids before."
                                                                                                    -- Katherine Genovese, Nov. 2008

By
Ray Blehar


The Patriot News used the same tactics to cover up The Second Mile's failures as it did for covering up the failures of CYS, DPW, and the PA Attorney General's office.  Massive deletions of text, obfuscation of the facts, and failure to provide the proper context of TSM's actions kept the public in the dark about what was happening at the charity over the last decade and a half.

Deleting text - "We've had to tell him to back off certain kids before."

In August 2012, well after the narrative of a PSU cover-up had been firmly entrenched by the media and allegedly confirmed by the Freeh Report and NCAA Consent Decree, the P-N ran a five part special report about TSM's handling of the Sandusky abuse allegations.  While the series revealed that the charity had purposely decided to keep Sandusky's abuse finding from the public, it also revealed other damaging information about the charity's mismanagement and connections to Governor Tom Corbett.  

Katherine Genovese

Other media outlets had reported that information back in November 2011, however the P-N held out until August before it finally published the information.  

Among the key issues discussed was that TSM had prior knowledge of Sandusky's inappropriate behavior with children and that their solution was to simply tell him to back off that child (and  move him onto the next child).  The fact that all of Sandusky's victims were participants in TSM, confirms that this practice of moving Sandusky to the next child was how charity officials responded to reports of abuse.  Eventually, the quote from Genovese about telling Sandusky "to back off certain kids" was deleted from the free, on-line column, along with a lot of other potentially damaging information.

Deleted Text - Mismanagement of the charity & Corbett connections

The original column also discussed the non-transparent manner in which the charity operated with Raykovitz and Genovese as it leaders.  There were some board members of the charity who didn't know the couple was married.  In addition, Raykovitz and Genovese commanded generous salaries that also were not approved by the full board.  One board member resigned from the charity upon learning how much the couple made.

The column also revealed the charities ties to Governor Corbett via campaign donations and that Corbett had approved a $3M grant for the construction of TSM's Center for Excellence.   It also noted that Corbett knew Sandusky continued to raise funds for the charity while he was under investigation for child abuse.

Finally, allegations of a possible pedophile ring operating from the charity was also mentioned as well as allegations from Greg Bucceroni that Sandusky had propositioned him for sex in the 1970s.  

All of this information was scrubbed from the column at some point after November 15, 2012.

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

Failure to Corroborate Charity's Claims about Protecting Children

The P-N published multiple op-eds from TSM’s Executive Director, Dr. Jack Raykovitz in March and April 2011 and then a statement from the charity on November 4, 2011 when the arrest was announced.   All of them had the same theme -- that there had been no reports of abuse and protection systems were in place.  The P-N never sought to verify that statement.  If it had, it would have found (like KDKA and NBC) that Sandusky was allowed continued access to children after his abuse finding.  He attended the Summer Challenge camp in 2010 and had attended at least one banquet in 2009.  However, the proof that Sandusky continued to access was that he was convicted of abusing Victim 9 into the summer or early fall of 2009.

Failure to Provide Context of The Charity's Actions

Dr. Jack Raykovitz

Ganim's and the P-N's reports about TSM's actions in response to child abuse allegations (to borrow a quote from Poynter's Kelly McBride) failed to show "the appropriate morale outrage" and was "tone deaf."  For example, when it discussed Tim Curley's conversation with TSM Executive Director, Jack Raykovitz, the context was that Raykovitz  --  a mandated reporter under the statute and a licensed psychologist who worked in a child development practice -- should not have been alarmed by a report of Sandusky showering with children.  Any legitimate news organization would have recognized the report of the charity's founder and "face" showering with a child was the equivalent of a five-alarm fire. And, when it was reported that Raykovitz's solution was to tell Sandusky to wear swimming trunks when showering with the children, the P-N did not even blink.  Tone deaf?  You bet.

Similarly, the P-N expressed no concerns over the fact that Sandusky continued to have unfettered one-on-one access to children after the incident in 2001.  Sandusky broke practically every rule in the book concerning appropriate conduct with children involved in youth programs, but the P-N never mentioned that such rules even existed.

Hiding the Significant Relationships Between PSU and TSM

Robert Poole

While the P-N made much of Sandusky's role as a former football coach and the fact that former PSU football players and athletes in general helped out with TSM, the most significant relationships between PSU and the charity were never discussed.  The P-N's November 17 Pultizer prize winning report excluded identifying most of the individuals in positions of power and influence who were associated with the charity.   In addition, its five part series in August 2012 never once mentioned the name of the TSM Chairman of the Board, Robert Poole, who was a major TSM and PSU donor and had a significant number of construction contracts with PSU.   Poole was also selected to be the contractor for TSM's Center for Excellence, which was funded in part with grants from the PA and Centre County governments.

Ric Struthers

Similarly, it failed to mention board member, Ric Struthers, who was also a key donor to both organizations and had a major business deal with PSU to provide the official Alumni Association credit card.  According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the deal was worth $30 million to PSU.   Struthers had an additional deal that paid PSU $0.5M annually not to make deals with other credit card companies.  Struthers, his family foundation, and the MBNA/BoA foundations routinely donated to TSM.

Senator Jake Corman, and Corbett's newly appointed PSU BOT member, Cliff Benson, were among other TSM Board members that the P-N made false statements about to shield them from potential liability in the Sandusky scandal.  

Conclusion
The P-N bent over backwards for nearly a year to shield TSM from negative publicity resulting from the Sandusky scandal.  When it finally decided to write about the potential wrong-doing at the charity, it didn't tell the full story -- and ended up deleting some of the most potentially damaging information about the charity.

Read the full report here (29 pages).     http://www.march4truth.com/ray-blehar.html



Next: Chapter 2, Sara Ganim 

Freeh's Fake Investigation Covered Up the Ties Between The PSU BOT and The Second Mile

Freeh covered-up the financial relationships between The Second Mile and PSU and focused his reporting to railroad Paterno and the three administrators, while protecting his client, the BOT 

By
Ray Blehar

The Engagement Letter between Freeh, Sporkin, and Sullivan (FSS) and its client, the PSU Board of Trustees Special Investigations Task Force, required FSS to "perform and independent, full and complete investigation" of the Sandusky scandal.   Additionally, FSS was provided guidance to complete the investigation in parallel to, but independent of other ongoing investigations within or outside PSU (e.g. The Second Mile).

On the latter point, FSS's fake investigation clearly satisfied its client, as it covered-up  the financial relationships between key members of The Second Mile Board of Directors and Penn State.  This was very similar in approach to the omissions FSS made about the failures of DPW in the 1998 case, which I exposed in Report 1.

Not only did it omit the financial dealings of the TSM Board Members, but it also failed to identify PSU Board of Trustees and/or their companies who donated to the charity.  This information was readily available for the years 2005 through 2010 on the publicly available Annual Reports of the charity.  Moreover, the IRS 990 forms for the charity were also available for review by FSS, yet none of these documents are referenced anywhere in Chapter 7 (titled "Sandusky's Post-Retirement Interactions With the University").

Instead, FSS relied on a few newspaper articles and some alleged interviews with a program director and a counselor of TSM for the information.  I suspect the interviews are "alleged" because it appears that the  information on page 109 regarding the Friend Program may have come from a passage in the 1998 police report.

 FSS used a similar tactic when it regurgitated the grand jury report of the janitor  (see page 73 of linked report), called it his trial testimony, then said it was obtained through an interview of the janitor immediately after the trial.   And there are other examples of this in Chapter 7, where Freeh references an interview but the information appears to be taken from (erroneous) press reports.

Chapter 7 provides ample evidence that FSS conducted a fake investigation that resulted in a pre-determined outcome (blaming Paterno and the administrators for Sandusky's crimes) and attempted to spare its client (the PSU BOT) from being exposed as having financial incentives to cover-up for TSM.

The Nonsensical "Facilities As An Enabler" Ruse 

Part II of Chapter 7, Sandusky's Post-Retirement Involvement in Second Mile Activities provided a high level summary of PSU's support of Sandusky's activities with the charity that was mostly lies and  innuendo about the use of facilities enabling Sandusky's crimes.   The chapter leads off with the a few paragraphs about how Sandusky's access - and therefore people who approved his retirement package, sans Erickson -  put children in danger.

As I pointed out in this blogpost, there was not a single sign  ("red flag")  or complaint of child sexual abuse at Sandusky's privately held camps or at the camps on PSU's campus after his retirement from PSU.

Let that sink in for a moment.  There was not a single complaint emanating from any of the camps run by Sandusky from 2001 forward, yet PSU was castigated by Freeh for allowing Sandusky to use PSU facilities.  In fact, there is no evidence that Sandusky ever met a child during these camps that he groomed or attempted to groom for child abuse.

That is an amazing fact to consider.  Apparently, the environment and surroundings at the sports camps held on PSU property were not as conducive to Sandusky's abusive behavior as his "hunting ground" at TSM, yet TSM has escaped this scandal without being criminally charged.

However, there is another side to the facilities coin in this mess, and it appears that Freeh's whitewashing of the BOT's relationships with TSM and Sandusky is revealed in this passage if you know the background information on TSM:

The other non-University location was the Greenhills facility outside Reading, Pennsylvania.  It was owned by PSU BOT member Ira Lubert, who was also on the Board of the SouthEast Region of TSM for a period of years in the mid-2000s.   Therefore, if this was a "fair" investigation, the report should have made mention that Lubert also was putting children in danger by letting Sandusky use his facilities.

Those facts make all of Freeh's "reasonable conclusions" about the use of facilities granted through Sandusky's emeritus status quite meaningless and exposes the bias in his reporting.

Let's face it, if the key enabler for child sexual abuse was access to facilities, wouldn't the prime suspects in those types of crimes always be....janitors?

Freeh Report Hides Financial Connections Between PSU and TSM

While FSS was railroading Paterno, Spanier, Curley, and Schultz as the enablers of Sandusky's abuse, it did an even better job in ensuring that nothing would raise the public's suspicions regarding the PSU BOT's relationships with TSM's board members.

As noted earlier, there was ample information on the public record that any legitimate investigator would have utilized in conducting this part of the investigation.  But as we have learned, Louis Freeh is not a legitimate investigator -- he is a "hack" who runs a phony investigation racket.

The 2005 to 2010 Annual Reports of TSM revealed that many of the leaders of the 2011 PSU BOT and/or their companies were donors to the charity (see list below).

As you can see, US Steel, the company of the "hatchet man" (Surma) who fired Paterno, donated to the charity every year, but dropped its donations and the Sandusky investigation got underway in 2009.  Similarly, Merck, the company of the co-chair (Frazier) of the group that hired FSS, also was a donor up through 2009, but mysteriously stopped in 2010.   Coincidences?  Doubtful.

Linda Strumpf, who is on PSU's investment council may have believed TSM was a great "investment" in 2010 and chipped in between $5,000 and $9,999.  Strumpf is the retired chief investment officer of the Helmsley Charitable Trust -- yes, Leona Helmsley's charity.

Lloyd Huck, an emeritus trustee in 2011, and his wife Dottie, donated over $40 million dollars to PSU and was also a contributor to the charity.

However, where things get really interesting is when you examine the business relationships of Board of Directors of TSM and some of the prominent roles they play at Penn State.

First, the Chairman of the Board of TSM, Robert E. Poole, is a distinguished alumni of Penn State and sits on the Executive Committee of  Penn State's Campaign for the Future, along side PSU BOT members John Surma, James Broadhurst, Ed Hintz, and Karen Peetz (plus emeritus trustee Ted Junker).  Not so ironically, these PSU trustees on the Executive Committee for the Campaign for the Future were also on the 11-9-11 PSU BOT Executive Committee.

Poole is the major gifts chairman for the Campaign, which is expected to raise $2 billion for PSU by 2014.

However, Poole's relationship with PSU is not just as a fundraiser.  A visit to the website of his company, Poole Anderson construction, reveals that he has done a lot of big jobs (a spreadsheet has been reproduced below) for PSU over the last decade.  Isn't it amazing that the former-FBI Director and alleged top notch investigator, Louis Freeh, didn't report these facts after his fake investigation?  Note: This information was reported by Deadspin.com in November of 2011, yet the Freeh group didn't report it.

Another important TSM Board Member is Richard (Ric) K. Struthers, who is also a distinguished alumni and also is an at-large member of the Campaign for the Future.  As reported by blogger Marc Rubin shortly after the Sandusky scandal broke, Struthers was also on the MBNA team at the same time Louis Freeh was its General Counsel.

Struthers' MBNA/Bank of America credit card deal with PSU involved paying $30 million dollars to the University for exclusive use of its alumni lists for sales and marketing from 1994 to 2010.

Struthers donated at least $50,000 per year to TSM in 2005, 2006, and 2007.   He donated at lower levels in 2008 through 2010.  His family foundation donated $250,000 to the Building Fund for the PSU Smeal College of Business in 2010.

Finally, Linda Gall was also a member of the Board of Directors for The Second Mile, who also sits on the Executive Committee for the Campaign for the Future.  She is the chair of the Stewardship Committee for the campaign. Linda's husband, Blake, is the Founder and President of Micro Plus Plus Investments and is a member of Penn State's Investment Council.

Are we to believe that the former FBI-director and his team were not able to find this information that was not only on the public record, but in some cases already reported in the press?

At the July 12, 2012 press conference, where Freeh was asked about his investigation of the Second Mile by PSU alumnae Wendy Silverwood, he responded:

"Well, I think you need to direct your question there.  We did as much as we could in that regard, relevant to our mandate.  Many of the people there would not speak to us. We didn't have access to their records.  We didn't have subpoena power as you know. But you raise a good question."

Doing the Math for Good Governance

As alumni voice concerns as Penn State's bill for the Sandusky scandal will easily clear $100 million, one can easily see that $100 million is chump change compared to the $2 billion the University plans to raise through its Campaign for the Future.   As a result, the PSU BOT members (Hintz, Peetz, Surma, Broadhurst, etc) may have had an incentive to ensure Freeh's fake investigation kept the stink of the Sandusky Scandal off of their cohorts on the fund raising campaign.  Note:  Corbett's investigation appeared to keep the stink off of TSM for financial reasons as well.

Today the legislature will propose structural changes to the PSU BOT, but subtracting a member here and there and reducing the size of the Board will not get to the root of the problems in governing PSU and serve the University's best interest.

As we have known since the release of the Freeh Report, the Boards foot-dragging on the implementation of recommendation 3.2.2 - full and public disclosure of the Board's financial relationships - is key to fixing the governance problems at PSU.