Media: Penn Live's David Jones, Others, Duped by Rumors, Dubious Reports

On Sunday, January 4th, 2013, David Jones hinted at structural changes that could be forthcoming in the football program.  The source of his information -- football message boards via Facebook.  Other journalists guilty of using rumors as facts.

By
Ray Blehar

On the night of January 3rd, I had a discussion with a person who is a substantial donor to Penn State athletics.  The donor told me that they had heard O'Brien was staying but, despite the good news,  they were shutting off their donations to PSU Athletics until Dave Joyner was removed as AD. 

Then the donor wished that someone would make Joyner's life miserable, just like he was doing to the fine people who worked for him on the AD staff.

I was still on the phone with the donor and said, "You're not going to believe this, but a rumor about Joyner leaving is already on the message boards.  Someone just posted a link on Facebook  to a post on BWI and I checked it out.  There is a lot of chatter and a lot of people happy about the prospect of Joyner no longer being AD."

The donor laughed and said, "Good, I hope the rumor comes true."

O'Brien Staying

At 9:55PM, the Patriot News' David Jones had released an article about O'Brien being retained as PSU's coach (see below)

Bill O'Brien tells PennLive he is staying at Penn State

By David Jones | djones@pennlive.com The Patriot-News
on January 03, 2013 at 9:55 PM, updated January 04, 2013 at 8:45 AM

Penn State's long holiday nightmare is over. Bill O'Brien is staying at Penn State.
In an exclusive conversation, the second-year head coach confirmed that he was contacted by and entertained overtures from multiple NFL clubs through his agent Joe Linta. But he has decided to remain at PSU for at least the 2013 season.

Numerous media were on the story of O'Brien after Jones....

• Dan Wetzel, at Yahoo sports at 10:28 PM
• The Pittsburgh Post Gazette chimed in at 11:13 PM
• Statecollege.com followed at 2:09AM on the 4th, linking to Jones' article

Structural Changes

However, it wasn't until the Sunday morning update that came out that Jones reported about "structural changes" in the Athletic Department.....

In addition to a clear testing of the pro head coaching waters, this was a strategic mission of sorts by O'Brien. By having Linta throw his name open to NFL openings and having the agent field offers, he was able to gain additional leverage that allowed him a chance to accomplish structural and personnel changes in the Penn State athletic department that may be forthcoming. O'Brien declined to be specific about those changes when asked but he did not deny those aims.

Jones' column on Sunday morning lead to more writers picking up the structural change idea....specifically, that there was a strained relationship between Joyner and O'Brien.

• The Post Gazette mentioned that "Joyner and O'Brien's relationship was called into question." 
• The Collegian questioned Joyner about the relationship.
• PennLive's Audrey Snyder also pushed Joyner about the relationship (there was a survey attached about Joyner's performance - the vote was 80% no confidence)
• Mark Brennan of Scout.com questioned Joyner about the relationship.  

To Brennan's credit he mentioned that rumors were rampant, but most others didn't mention where they heard of this "relationship" issue.

Most of us have been disgusted by the media's performance in the Sandusky scandal.  It's a fact that the media will jump onto a story with no factual basis and repeat it over and  over again.

Facts Don't Matter When You Have Rumors

However, when it came to tearing down a icon like Paterno, the media used a dubious account to paint Paterno as a liar just a week before the release of the Freeh Report.

Many stories  ran on July 6th, trumpeting the headlines "Joe Paterno used e-mail."  The real story was that Joe's assistant, Sandy Segursky, typed out the e-mail on Joe's behalf in 2007 - after the Meridian fight.  But the article reads:

 "Paterno wrote to Spanier and Curley using an email account used by the coach’s assistant, Sandi Segursky."

The assumption made was absolutely ludicrous.  Joe Paterno, who doesn't want people to know that he uses e-mail, typed an e-mail on his assistant's computer?    

The source of this trash was Vicky Triponey, who also accused Paterno of sending text messages.  Septaugenerian Paterno texting?  As Joe once said, "I can't download a jar of peanut butter."

At one point, Triponey says, witnesses—most of whom were footballers—were ordered to appear at a judicial hearing, as was school policy. But Paterno sent a text message to the whole team, saying, “If you show up for this, you’re off.”

However, as crazy as these allegations were, the media had a new heroine in Vicky Triponey.  

Did Tripony ever produce this text message?  Not that I've ever seen.

But she was lauded in the press as the woman who exposed Joe Paterno as a fraud.  And although not named in the Freeh Report, there is little doubt that she was the source for the unsubstantiated finding of "a culture of reverence to the football program" at Penn State.

Repeating A Story Appears to Make It True

Apparently, using message boards to get the latest news is standard practice among today's "journalists."

Here's Glamour magazine on Sara Ganim:

Ganim, a Penn State grad and a football fan herself, knew her way around the university's online message boards. There she quickly found gossip about Sandusky getting too friendly with young boys. So she started asking around. "I'd say, 'Hey, have you heard anything strange about Jerry Sandusky?'" And though people knew about the rumors, Ganim says, "almost no one believed they were true."

Here's The New York Times' Jo Becker:

Wild rumors, of course, get thrown around on college sports message boards all the time. (We would know; we’re on them constantly. We can’t get enough of them.) More often than not, there’s nothing to them. Clearly, though, that wasn’t the case this time. And while we would stop short of saying this is an endorsement for throwing every crazy thing you’ve heard up on the internet and seeing if it leads anywhere, when something of this magnitude turns out to be on point…well, it goes a long way toward justifying the sea of inanity.

Of course, that a message board "tip" or anonymous e-mail tip helped break the Sandusky case is anything but a fact.  Like many of the so-called facts in the case, it provides an explanation of how something might have occurred, but for all we know, it too could be a fabrication to cover up how the McQueary incident was really discovered. 

It very well could be that at an early stage of the investigation, the OAG investigators asked CYS to check their logs and they found the PSU complaint.  Rather than admitting that CYS had this complaint in its records, the AG simply concocted a story that they knew an uniformed hoard would buy.  

And in the Sandusky case, the public and the media bought into every story that Nils Frederickson threw out there.  

• That McQueary witnessed a rape and told PSU officials all the details.
• That Ray Gricar and the police let Sandusky off the hook in 1998 (hardly a mention of the CYS/DPW investigation)
• That Central Mountain HS did everything right in reporting Sandusky (it was Mike Gillum at Clinton County CYS that told the school they had to ban Sandusky)
• That the investigators, despite obstruction by PSU officials, linked the abuse to Sandusky's relationship to The Second Mile (I'm speechless) 

Once these fabrications were made public, the story was seemingly set.  The phenomenon is called "anchoring" in psychological terms (some SSMSS contributors will write more about this soon).  Once people's beliefs are anchored, it's very difficult to change their minds, no matter how much evidence is presented that refutes the story.

We saw this with the Duke Lacrossse Case (privileged white students raped a black woman), the Exxon Valdez (the captain was drunk), George W. Bush National Guard service (Bush was AWOL), and with the Olympic Park bombing (Richard Jewell was the bomber - according to then FBI Director Freeh and the media).

Unchaining the Anchor

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to "unchain the anchor."  In the cases above, all were eventually refuted when new facts surfaced.

• Duke Lacrosse - the DA Nifong hid exculpatory DNA evidence
• Exxon Valdez - the NTSB found it was faulty navigation equipment
• Bush - the Thornburg Commission confirmed CBS was overzealous 
• Jewell - Eric Robert Rudolph was the bomber

And so, it will be the same in the Sandusky case and the alleged cover-up by PSU officials.  

New evidence will surface that will prove that the entire narrative of a PSU cover-up was false.  Whether that comes from information surfacing from AG Kane's investigation or other sources remains to be seen.

But it's coming. 

And that's not a rumor.

Correction: Sara Ganim is NOT an investigative journalist

Sara Ganim's Pulitzer Prize was for local reporting, not investigative journalism.  In other words, if a cat was stuck in a tree in Harrisburg, no one could have covered it better than Ganim.

By
Ray Blehar

In Saturday's blog, I was critical of Sara Ganim for not following up on leads that she should have seen when writing her story about the missing psychology reports.   I did so because I presumed Sara was an investigative reporter.

I was wrong.

Sara Ganim's Pulitzer Prize was for "local reporting" and not "investigative journalism."  But the Pulitzer Committee still isn't off the hook for awarding the prize to Ganim.

Here's the citation:

"For a distinguished example of reporting on significant issues of local concern, demonstrating originality and community expertise, using any available journalistic tool, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000)."

Certainly, the Sandusky scandal was a significant issue of local concern, but the rest of the citation is a bit overstated.

Originality -- Is it Memorex or Sara Ganim?

For the most part, and in the article I evaluated, Ganim is simply writing what she was told by a source (Jerry Lauro) who has serious credibility issues.  The police report revealed he was untruthful about his knowledge of the evaluations of Victim 6.  Other articles that I will cover later, reveal a DPW employee who was unaware of the Child Protective Services Laws.

In short, Sara Ganim was little more than a tape recorder --  and then transcriber of information.

Still waiting for that first big scoop from her at CNN....

Originality -- Who was "deep throat?"

Just as in the case of Woodward and Bernstein, it is evident from a review of Ganim's articles that she had a highly placed source who could provide her with information not available to the public.  Among the information the source likely provided was:

- the name of the mother of Victim 6;
- knowledge of the Sandusky investigating grand jury;
- McQueary's handwritten statement to police;
- Dranov's grand jury testimony;
- Information about the police report and psychology reports (pre-publication);
- The name of the DPW investigator, Lauro, and police detective Ronald Schreffler.

It's pretty easy to get scoops when you are being spoon fed the best information.

Community Expertise

If Sara Ganim really had community expertise, she would have broken the story of the investigation long before March 31, 2011.

My sources told me that the Sandusky investigation was the "buzz" at the 2010 Second Mile golf tournament.  In addition, those "in the know" at the tournament stated that Sandusky would not be arrested until after the governor's race was over.

She could have done a lot more digging - as others have - about the failures of CYS and DPW in protecting children over the years.  But instead, her focus was on promoting the false narrative of a cover-up at Penn State.

Bias

As I am reviewing her Pulitzer articles, I note the same biases I pointed out in Saturday's blog.  For example, the November 17, 2011 article written about Second Mile donors spends a lot of print talking about Lloyd and Dottie Huck and Lloyd Huck's association with Merck.  But there's not a single mention of Merck CEO and current BOT member, Kenneth Frazier.

Similarly, much ink is spent on DrueAnne Schreyer, daughter of Paterno friend, Bill Schreyer (the late, former CEO of Merrill Lynch).  Yet, not a word about the donations from US Steel, whose chairman, John Surma is currently on the PSU BOT.

Also, not a word about Ira Lubert, who sat on the Board of The Second Mile from 2005 to 2008 and had donated his Greenhills property in Reading for Sandusky's Second Mile summer camps.

For the most part, the information above can be found by reading The Second Mile Annual Reports.  So, how was it that Ganim wrote of the ties between PSU, the Hucks, and the Schreyers, but not about Surma/US Steel, Frazier/Merck, and Ira Lubert?

Interesting.

Silent No More

Ganim wrote a review of the book, Silent No More, where she stated her reporting on the Sandusky scandal was story was 100% accurate.  As of Saturday, we all know that not to be true.

Also, Silent No More blows apart some of the reports made by Ganim about the 2008 to 2011 investigation of Sandusky, such as the discovery of the 1998 PSU investigation occurring in June 2009 as opposed to Ganim's version of the police file being discovered in early January 2011.

Ganim was critical of author Gillum for stating he didn't know the reason why then Centre County District Attorney Michael Madiera referred the case to the Attorney General's office, citing press reports about Madiera's conflict of interest.

But again, Ganim missed an opportunity to investigate why Madiera sent it to the AG and not back to the Clinton County District Attorney -- which would have been the more logical course of action.  In short, she just went with rationale given by Madiera and apparently didn't think to ask about the alternative.

Additionally, had Ganim reviewed the CPSL, she would have learned that Clinton County CYS should have referred their investigation to the Department of Public Welfare, rather than conducting the investigation themselves (because of Sandusky's association with The Second Mile making him an "agent" of the county).

Missing the bigger stories

Sara Ganim became a media darling, appearing on the Sunday morning talk shows for her coverage of the Sandusky scandal.  In a press account about her winning the Pulitzer Prize, she stated:

"I have a police scanner on my nightstand. I fall to sleep and wake up to the morning news. I work 60-hour weeks digging and investigating, chatting up sources, and peeling back layers until I find amazing stories."

The "amazing" story about her coverage of the Sandusky scandal is how little "digging" she actually did and how many things she got wrong.

In fact, she missed the bigger stories about this scandal or, at best, covered them superficially.

Those stories are about the sad state of child protection in Pennsylvania and the bungled Sandusky investigations in 1998 and 2008 to 2011.

But she and the Patriot News weren't about to write those stories.

You don't want to bite the hand that feeds you.

Ganim Preview: Article on Psych Reports Required Corrections

Sara Ganim's story on Jerry Lauro was pre-mature and demanded corrections when new information surfaced.  Those corrections never materialized.

by

Ray Blehar 

First off, I don't know Sara Ganim.  I've never met her or spoke to her.  I am not in the business of making personal attacks on people and I urge anyone who reads this blog not to engage in such behavior.  It is hurtful and non-productive.

After reading many of her columns, I was struck by the number of factual errors I found that could have been prevented had Sara simply done an internet search or two on her computer.  

Another important issue is "never rely on a single source" which in my employment as an analyst is rule number one.  In other words, instead of running with a story based on a single source, it may have better served Sara to wait a day until she could review the facts herself or confirm it with other sources.

Finally, there is the issue of slanting a story a certain way before the facts are known or to build on the narrative that existed at the time.  We all know the prevailing narrative was a cover up at Penn State.  However, had Ms. Ganim waited a day to review the evidence, she may have uncovered a new, completely different narrative.

The following story is one of her articles that would have been well served by all the above.

Patriot-News Special Report: 1998 Jerry Sandusky investigator would have pursued dropped case if he had seen hidden Penn State police report

1.  Headline promotes the prevailing narrrative -- PSU was covering up Sandusky's crimes.

Published: Thursday, March 22, 2012, 6:00 AM     Updated: Thursday, March 22, 2012, 12:23 PM

2.  Published one day before the public release of the 1998 PSU police report, the Chambers report, and the Seasock report.

By SARA GANIM, The Patriot-News The Patriot-News

The state Department of Public Welfare investigator who closed a child sexual abuse investigation against Jerry Sandusky in 1998 said he likely would not have closed it had he seen reports from two psychologists who interviewed the young accuser.

3.  Only one psychologist (Chambers) interviewed Victim 6.  The other report was that of an unlicensed counselor (Seasock).

4.  The investigation involved two boys, not one.  This should have raised questions, such as, were there evaluations done on the second boy and if not, why not?   

"The course of history could have been changed,” Lauro said.

Jerry Lauro, brought in to investigate the child abuse claims against Sandusky, said Wednesday that Penn State police never shared those conflicting reports with him before he closed the case. Lauro said he closed the case because he did not believe there was enough evidence based solely on interviews.

5.  Lauro was completely aware of the second evaluation and he instructed CYS to arrange it, according to the 1998 police report. This interview took place on May 8th.  The investigation did not close until June 1st.  So, Lauro knew of the interview and had access to it.  

6. The first psychologic evaluation, conducted by Alycia Chambers, was released to DPW  on or about May 7th.   DPW had the report in its possession for nearly a month.  The Chambers report was also released to CYS (according to my discussion with her on October 12, 2012).  Therefore, DPW could have gotten access to Chambers report through CYS.

Lauro was interviewed by the state grand jury that recently brought 52 child sex abuse charges involving 10 boys against Sandusky, but he said he did not even know that psychologists had evaluated the boy, then 11, until a reporter who acquired the 100-page report approached Lauro and showed him the reports.

7.  Again, Lauro arranged the second evaluation of the child, so he definitely knew of the evaluation conducted by John Seasock.  Ganim would have learned this on March 23rd -- if she read the police report.

Penn State “Detective [Ron] Schreffler never shared any of these with me,” Lauro said, referring to reports from psychologist John Seasock and a female psychologist. Seasock concluded that the boy was not sexually abused two days before the case was closed. The report of the female psychologist who evaluated the boy right after the incident found Sandusky was exhibiting signs of grooming a victim for sexual abuse.

8.  Lauro may have been honest about Schreffler not sharing the reports with him, but that doesn't explain how Lauro didn't see either report -- especially the one that he arranged. 

“The conclusions she had drawn in her report were pretty damaging,” Lauro said. “I would have made a different decision. ... It’s unbelievable, and it gets my blood pressure going when I think about it.”

Schreffler, when reached by phone, declined comment. “My report speaks for itself,” he said before hanging up.

9.  Shreffler did not decline comment.  He provided a very strong statement about the facts of the case (i.e., "My report speaks for itself.")  Schreffler couldn't have been more right.  His report - even just the 13 or so page version that is publicly available - is a treasure trove of information.

Information about the two psychological reports surfaced last week when Sandusky’s attorney, Joe Amendola, made a formal request for copies of them in preparation for trial. Judge John Cleland ruled that Amendola can read them but can’t use them in court without getting his permission.

A source who reviewed the documents told The Patriot-News that he believed Seasock’s report that the boy was not abused was the reason that former and missing District Attorney Ray Gricar never pursued charges against Sandusky in 1998.

Gricar’s role has become the subject of much fodder and conjecture for two reasons: The case is the only other known time that police knew of allegations against Sandusky. And Gricar vanished in 2005. He was declared dead last summer but his case still stumps investigators, who say they have no evidence that his disappearance is linked to the Sandusky case.

When child abuse is reported, police and county Children and Youth Services typically conduct separate investigations. They work together but can have different conclusions.

In this case, since Centre County CYS worked closely with Sandusky’s charity, The Second Mile, Lauro was brought in from the state Department of Public Welfare to do the child abuse investigation.

10.  A search of the PA Child Protective Services Laws would have revealed that DPW was required to investigate ANY CASE involving an incident where the subject was an employee of a child welfare organization of Centre County, whether CYS had a close working relationship with that organization or not.

Schreffler and Penn State police closed the criminal investigation at Gricar’s request. But Lauro still could have decided to pursue the case within child protective services.

11. According to the police report, the investigation was concluded immediately after Schreffler and Lauro interviewed Sandusky on June 1, 1998.  Nothing in the report mentions that Gricar directed the case to be closed. 

That doesn’t mean Sandusky would have been charged. But it means the finding could have gone into the child abuse registry and The Second Mile might have been notified.

12.  A search of the laws  (Pa. 055  § 3490.91. and Pa. 055  § 3490.56.) would have revealed that  Centre County CYS was required, within 24 hours of receiving the report of suspected abuse,  to inform The Second Mile that Sandusky was under investigation and that CYS was required to notify The Second Mile at the end of the investigation, regardless of whether there was a finding of abuse.  

Lauro has said Schreffler also never told him the details of a meeting set up by police between Sandusky and the boy’s mother, in which police were listening secretly from another room. Prosecutors say Sandusky admitted to the mother that he touched her son and said, “I wish I were dead.”

“I remember my last conversation with [Schreffler] concerning him hiding in that room,” Lauro said last year. “He didn’t tell me details. All he said was, ‘There’s nothing to it — we’re going to close our case.’ And I said, ‘That’s fine, I’m going to close my case, too.’ “

13.  As an investigative reporter, how could Ganim not be suspicious or skeptical about Lauro's statement regarding not knowing the details of what transpired in that sting?  

The mother of Victim Six says that she had believed Seasock was a paid consultant for CYS when she took her son to see him.

14. An internet search would have revealed that Seasock was employed by Renaissance Psychological Associates.  A day later, Ganim had access to the police report and Seasock's report that clarified the relationship between Seasock and CYS.

The other psychologist, whom the mother had contacted as soon as her son came home and told her that Sandusky had forced him to take a shared shower, saw her son over a longer period of time, she said.

15. The mother called the psychologist the next morning not that night.  Ganim would have learned this the day after this article was written.

“And that psychologist concluded that this incident ... was a classic example of how a sexual abuser grooms his victim,” said a source who saw the report.

<end of article>

March 23, 2012:  1998 Police Report, Seasock Report, and Chambers Report

The day after the publishing of the above article, the 1998 Police Report, the Seasock Report, and the Chambers report were released to the public.

The 1998 police report blows quite a few holes in Lauro's version of the 1998 investigation and what he knew or didn't know.  It strains credulity that Lauro could have set up the second evaluation and then never asked or sought out the report before closing his case.

The Chambers report provides information to correct the date and time that the mother of Victim 6 called the psychologist.

The Seasock report states for whom he was employed and the police report shows that he was brought into the investigation by CYS -- at the request of DPW and, most significantly, against the orders of Assistant District Attorney Karen Arnold.

The latter is quite a development and would seem rather newsworthy, but the Patriot News did not report those facts in the days following the release of the three reports (or ever, based on searches of their web-site).

The Lauro narrative became the accepted version of events -- that somehow the Chambers report "got lost" and that Seascock mysteriously appeared and provided the fateful evaluation that cleared Sandusky.

Many of us have known for some time that Lauro's narrative was questionable, if not false. 

REPEAT:  Please refrain from any personal attacks on Ms. Ganim or anyone else associated with the Patriot News.  

Where are they now? Jerry Lauro, DPW Investigator

One of the individuals who definitely "should have done more" about Jerry Sandusky was Jerry Lauro, the DPW investigator who determined there wasn't enough evidence to "indicate" a finding of abuse.  Where is he now and what is he doing?

By
Ray Blehar

At the outset of the Sandusky Scandal, the public's attention was diverted away from the role of Pennsylvania's child protective services in letting Sandusky roam free for 14 years.  The Department of Public Welfare (DPW) employee at the center of the storm was Jerry Lauro, a Special Program Representative who took the lead on the 1998 investigation.  

Local legend has it that Lauro was brought in because of a conflict of interest between Second Mile and Centre County Children and Youth Services.  That, and that he was assigned to abuse cases involving "high profile" individuals.

After reading what follows, all the "high profile" abusers should sleep well at night.

Lauro and the 1998 Sandusky Investigation

The 1998 University Park Police Report detailed the actions taken by Lauro in the 1998 investigation.

May 5, 1998   1:55PM          J. Lauro, DPW, informed police he was assigned to case.

                                             Lauro stated Sandusky will be interviewed on 7 May.

May 7, 1998  11:00AM        Lauro met with police.        

                                             Lauro rec’d transcribed interviews of V6 & B.K.

                                             Lauro reviewed case file of J. Miller (CYS).

May 7, 1998 11:15AM         Lauro and police went to residence of Victim 6.

                                             Lauro interviewed mother of Victim 6.

                                             Lauro obtained clothing given to Victim 6 by Sandusky.

May 8, 1998 11:55AM        Lauro informed police that DPW was going forward with evaluation 
                                            of V6 (over objections of police and ADA Karen Arnold)

June 1, 1998 11:00AM           Schreffler and Lauro interviewed Sandusky.  Determined no sexual

                                               assault occurred.

Based on the police report, it appears that Lauro did about as little as a caseworker investigating a child abuse case could do.  Lauro claimed he never discussed the details of the case with Detective Schreffler.  Lauro looked at the file, then talked to the mom, then arranged a sham evaluation of the child.   After that, it appears he waited around to be told to do a "pro forma" interview with Sandusky so that DPW could close the case.

Lauro's Side of the Story

In a December 2011 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, Lauro stated the incident  "didn't meet the criteria," and "If I really thought there were any child abuse ... I definitely would have indicated it."

It appears that once Lauro learned (from Sara Ganim) the psychology reports were about to become public knowledge the next day (March 23, 2012), he changed his tune and shifted the blame on the PSU police for "hiding" the reports from him.

A March 22, 2012, Patriot News article reported that “Lauro was interviewed by the state grand jury that recently brought 52 child sex abuse charges involving 10 boys against Sandusky, but he said he did not even know psychologists had evaluated the boy then 11, until a reporter who acquired the 100-page report approached Lauro and showed him the reports." 

Later in the same article, Lauro said this about the two psychology reports:  “Detective Schreffler never shared any of these with me,” and about Chambers’ report:  “The conclusions she had drawn in her report were pretty damaging,” Lauro said. “I would have made a different decision. … It’s unbelievable, and it gets my blood pressure going when I think about it.” 

The man who set up the second evaluation never knew the psychologists had interviewed the boy?  And, let's not forget that Dr. Chambers submitted her evaluation to ChildLine in early May.  So, Lauro had access to it as well.

Pulitzer Prize winner,  Sara Ganim reported it just like Lauro told her...

Was it a coincidence that Sara Ganim was interviewing Jerry Lauro about the psychology reports one day before the reports were made public?   And after the reports became public, Sara Ganim never wrote a follow-up to correct the record about what Lauro knew (or as Louis Freeh famously said "should have known").  

The public (and Louis Freeh) went on believing that Lauro never saw Chambers' report.

Lauro Didn't Know The Law Then or Now 

In a July 16, 2012 interview with the Patriot News about the 1998 investigation, Jerry Lauro stated:

"If there was a need to have a safety plan, I would have had one there. I’m really not sure if I did," Lauro said.

Lauro got it wrong on two counts:
1.   A safety plan is required every time -- in accordance with Pa. 055 § 3490.56 (b)
2.  The county agency is responsible for working with the family or, in the 1998 case, the charity to ensure a safety plan is in place.  Under the law, although DPW is running the investigation, all other activities are the responsibility of CYS.

Lauro didn't know his job or the law in 1998 and it appears he still didn't know either in 2012.

Where Is Jerry Lauro Now?

In October, 2006, Jerry retired from the state Department of Public Welfare (DPW) as an Office of Children Youth and Families Regional Supervisor. He had 31 years of service with the department.

During approximately 15 years of his tenure with The Department, Jerry conducted and/or supervised numerous allegations of child abuse. In total, Jerry worked for almost 20 total years in children and youth programs. 

Today, he trains various caseworker/supervisor and foster parent curriculum.  Here are a couple courses he will be teaching this year.

Title:

110: Module 7: The Court Process

Presenter:Jerry Lauro

Participants:Newly hired caseworkers

Date:March 28, 2013

Time:9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Location:The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Resource Center

Title:

110: Module 1: Introduction to Pennsylvania's

Child Welfare System

Presenter:Jerry Lauro

Participants:Newly hired caseworkers

Date:April 23, 2013

Time:9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Location:The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Resource Center

If I were a parent in Pennsylvania, I would not be sleeping well knowing who is training new caseworkers about protecting children.