Penn Live continued to
carry water for Governor Corbett in their recent articles about President
Barron and Cliff Benson
By
Ray Blehar
If there was ever any doubt that PennLive was carrying water for Govenor Corbett, it was erased this week. First,
they used the selection of President Barron to get in some swipes against
Graham Spanier and the football program -- and also worked overtime in the
comment section to censor any comments that put them in the cross-hairs over
the Sandusky grand jury leaks.
On Friday, PennLive wrote a
factually challenged puff piece on why Corbett's new nominee to the PSU BOT,
Cliff Benson, shouldn't be held to account for anything that happened at
Sandusky's charity, The Second Mile.
Barron Selection Used to Deride Spanier, PSU Football
In a February 17th article penned by the PennLive Editorial
Board, it repeated, as facts, the yet to be proven allegations of a football
culture problem and that Spanier and others had mishandled the Sandusky matter.
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| President Barron (Flanked by Keith Masser) |
From the article:
So Barron has a very good idea of the challenges that face
the president of Penn State: keep football in proper perspective and
continue to build on the school’s well-deserved reputation as a first-class
institution of higher learning.
The
Sandusky affair shattered Penn State’s reputation as a football program
that kept football in proper perspective. Barron’s many challenges include
restoring that reputation.
As most people know, football was kept in proper perspective
by none other than Joe Paterno, who demanded his players go to class, graduate,
and get the full college experience. Prior to the scandal, NCAA President
Mark Emmert called Paterno
“the
definitive role model of what it means to be a college coach." However, PL has
been pushing the football culture narrative since the days right after the
Sandusky grand jury presentment was leaked and they seem hell bent on not
stopping any time soon.
In this passage, the Editorial Board must
have forgotten all about journalistic standards when they made a declarative
statement on Spanier's handling of the scandal.
Barron’s
leadership style appears to be a good fit for Penn State. He portrays himself
as the kind of leader who is not afraid to hear people out, seek advice of
others and then make decisions. That would be a welcome change from the
arrogant, high-control attitude that Penn State displayed under
President Graham Spanier's leadership, when it grossly mishandled
reports about Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse.
This appears to be chapter and verse taken
from the now thoroughly discredited Freeh Report, which alleged that Spanier
was not inclusive in decision making, kept the BOT in the dark about Sandusky,
and that Spanier made a fully informed decision not to report an incident of
sexual abuse. Most of us who have followed the case know that Freeh's assertions
were not supported by the evidence, yet PennLive continues to
turn a blind eye to the facts of the case as they are revealed with each
judicial proceeding.
One might argue that PennLive just
left out the words alleged or somehow forgot about the criminal,
beyond-a-reasonable doubt standard with regard to the PSU administrators' role
in the Sandusky scandal, however those arguments are null and void based on
this passage:
Earlier this winter, Barron had to deal with
an explosive accusation of sexual assault in Florida State’s
football’s program. A woman said she was raped a year earlier
by the star quarterback who eventually led Florida State to this year’s
national championship, Jameis Winston.
Prosecutors declined to press charges against
Winston. The accuser’s recollection was compromised by heavy consumption of
alcohol, making it hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was
in fact rape, not consensual sex.
As much as I hate to replow the ground
about the 2001 incident, one of the few things that is certain about that
incident is that it didn't meet a beyond a reasonable doubt standard for a rape conviction.
The other certainty is that Mike McQueary changed his recollection of the
incident each time he was questioned about it. To say that PSU mishandled
a report of "sexual abuse" assumes facts not in evidence.
Censorship at PennLive
PennLive's actions in response to reader comments on
this article also said a lot for the ethics of the Editorial Board. When people
began commenting on the unfairness of this article and pointed out to PennLive that
they had a few skeletons in their closet regarding being the recipient of grand
jury leaks (and that one of their former
employees was almost held in contempt of court), those comments
were deleted almost as fast as they were posted in the comment section.
Several posters were banned from commenting on the story. It was an
astonishing display of censorship.
Penn Live Continues Corbett Cover Up
On Friday, February 21st, Charles Thompson wrote a puff
piece about Governor Corbett's nominee to the PSU BOT, Cliff Benson.
While he treated Benson with kid gloves -- by relying on
information he got in an e-mail from embattled Second Mile President, David
Woodle -- Thompson's obfuscation of the facts in the Sandusky case appears
clearly to be protecting Governor Corbett and his botched, three-year
investigation.
Sandusky
was arrested in November 2011, about two-and-a-half years after allegations
against him were first transferred to the state Attorney General's office -
then headed by Corbett. (There are no signs that any additional children
were molested by Sandusky after 2009, however.)
PennLive has
continually made this statement, in fact, going further to say that Second Mile
banned Sandusky from all activities involving children when they learned of his
investigation in 2008.
Those statements are absolutely false.
It is a FACT that Victim 9 (born July 29, 1993) testified to
being molested up through his sixteenth birthday. This would place crimes
well after the investigation had hit Corbett's desk in the AG's office.
That fact provides evidence that Corbett's slow walked investigation
resulted in the endangerment and abuse of at least one child.
Additionally, Sandusky's continued interaction with children
after 2008 is well documented. In a
KDKA Pittsburgh article, a mother complained
that Sandusky was interacting with children at the 2010 Summer Challenge camp.
Sandusky attended other Second Mile banquets and events involving
children as participants, after he lost his clearance to work with children.
He was still very active in fundraising and promoting the charity well
into 2011.
All of this while Cliff Benson was a TSM Board Member.
Benson: Part of Sandusky Cover-up?
Thompson makes the inference that Benson would not have
known much about the Sandusky investigation because he joined the Board in
2009.
According the the
Second Mile 2009 Annual Report (for year
ending August 31, 2009), Benson was listed as a director on the "State
Board of Directors." According to at least two members of the
charity's board, Sandusky announced his resignation in the fall of 2009.
PennLive reported that at about the same meeting
Sandusky resigned, TSM hired the PR firm Burson-Marsteller to assist in
communication with the impending crisis.
The board's decision was to stay silent and continue to use
Sandusky for fund raising and in a public relations role. David Woodle
recalled the Board sent out a letter to its donors that made no mention of the
child abuse controversy. This cover-up continued even after Sandusky
formally announced his
retirement in 2010.
Benson was a board member the entire time this charade about
Sandusky was going on.
Benson: Financial Oversight Questionable?
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| Cliff Benson |
Thompson may
have unwittingly damaged Benson when he accepted this statement from Woodle
about the new nominee's role at the charity.
"Mr. Benson was a
volunteer member of the State Board of Directors in the same role as all other
directors," Woodle wrote in an email.
As a member of the
finance committee, Woodle wrote, Benson "had general oversight review of
the organizational finances... That would include tasks such as finance
statement review and coordination with outside audit firms."
SMSS's review of the charity's IRS 990
forms, Annual Reports, and donor lists revealed material differences in the
recording and computations of
revenues. While we did not have access to their general ledger or receipts,
the analysis of
expenses (based on Annual Reports and IRS forms) also raised several red flags.
The internal
control environment at the charity was extremely poor. Executive
Director, Dr. Jack Raykovitz held the books and the bank accounts for the
charity, while his wife, Katherine Genovese was the Vice President of
Development (i.e., fund raising). Their salaries also began
increasing year to year after the first Sandusky investigation in 1998.
Additionally,
information on the public record reveals
that The Second Mile did not have independent audits of its financial
statements performed from 2004 to 2010. A review of their IRS 990 forms
(and attachments) revealed that from the period from 2000 to 2012, only three
independent audits were performed. Deloitte and Touche performed an audit
on November 28, 2000, Parente Randolph performed on October 19, 2004, and
Parente Beard perform the last audit on January 6, 2012.
The evidence reveals that Benson was
apparently asleep at the wheel as a member of the finance committee when he
served on it in 2009 and 2010 and it also appears he has much more knowledge of
the Sandusky investigation than PennLive would lead you to
believe.
More obfuscation
While it appears that Thompson is
simply spouting the company line, as requested by the governor's office, the
unwillingness to honestly put Benson under scrutiny is troubling.
Thompson's statement about Benson's past employment (although he did
mention ties to the natural gas industry) doesn't tell the full story of his
relationships.
According to Benson's
biography on
the Buffalo Sabres web-site, he served as the lead client service partner for
the worldwide services provided to the
United States Steel Corporation and
H.J. Heinz. Other clients served over his long career at Deloitte include
Armco, Bayer Corporation,
Marathon Oil, PPG Industries, Rockwell
International, the Pittsburgh Penguins and East Resources.
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| Benson: Previous ties to Surma |
As many Penn Staters know, former PSU
BOT chairman
John Surma was the CEO of US Steel.
Prior to that role, he was he head of finance and accounting at Marathon
Oil starting in 1997. Surma would later be named President of Marathon
Ashland Petroleum, before eventually moving to U.S. Steel.
Who knows what other relationships we
might find by digging into Benson's past?
One thing that is certain: PennLive won't
be doing any digging.
