Corbett's Grand Jury Lie, Part 2

If Corbett's assertion that the AG needed a grand jury to prove a cover-up was true, then the outcome for the former one-term governor is even worse

By
Ray Blehar

For Corbett, if his statement was true
then he confessed to foot-dragging.

While the official facts in evidence refute former Pennsylvania Attorney General (AG) and former Governor Tom Corbett's statement about needing a grand jury to coerce testimony and prove a cover-up, the irony is that if his statement was true, it is an admission of not investigating a cover up and/or foot-dragging on the investigation for political reasons.


As noted here, the facts in evidence were that the AG's office didn't find another victim to corroborate Aaron Fisher allegations until January 2011. 

If there wasn't evidence of more than one victim --and that Fisher reported Sandusky to the authorities -- then there was no evidence that supported a cover-up.

But what if Corbett was telling the truth?  In this case, the truth is worse than a lie.

Under one of the "truth" scenarios, the AG's office may have had a hunch that the reason the other young men that were interviewed didn't disclose abuse was because some person or persons had provided them with some material incentive not to talk.  

While it is possible that victims may have been physically threatened,  the only known victim, Fisher, came forward without fear of physical harm in November 2008.   And, like the other eventual victims, Fisher received gifts from Sandusky, such as new clothes, computers, and sports equipment.   

In short, the most likely suspect in a cover-up scenario would have been none other than the perpetrator, Jerry Sandusky.  

The Jerry Sandusky Non-Investigation

According to the Moulton Report, there is no evidence that the investigation searched Sandusky's personal records to verify purchases or to check for cash (ATM) withdrawals -- his bank account and credit card records were not subpoenaed.  

Fisher also stated he attended sporting events, such as Eagles and Browns National Football League (NFL) games with Sandusky, sometimes in the company of other children.  

Here's where the story gets interesting. 

In late 2009, Dawn Daniels claimed that she was offered free Philadelphia Eagles box seat season tickets.  In the book, Silent No More (p. 117), Mike Gillum noted that a man named "John" from the Eagles, who knew that Aaron had attended games and had set the tickets aside for them. 

At the time of the alleged offer, Sandusky's adopted son, Jon, worked for the Eagles.  He would later get a job with the Browns.

The AG "investigated" the Eagles ticket allegation and took the word of the Eagles -- that the family misunderstood and were being asked to purchase tickets.  Right -- because the Eagles routinely phone housing projects in search of prospective season ticket purchasers.  

In the one instance where a possible cover-up/payoff scenario was alleged, it appeared to be investigated pro forma and dismissed.  The "John" - "Jon" connection wasn't made.

If Sandusky was the prime suspect, then the first information subpoenaed about him were his employment records -- requested on January 7, 2010. That was almost seven months into the investigation and employment records would not provide evidence  of a cover-up.  

In fact, in the inexplicable Sandusky investigation, the evidence apparently reveals that the AG didn't consider Sandusky could have been a suspect for covering up his own crimes! 

But don't expect Bumsted or the rest of the media to figure this stuff out.

News reporters, most without any knowledge of the case, might propose that Corbett and the AG suspected that officials at Central Mountain High School (CMHS) or from The Second Mile (TSM) were behind the alleged cover-up.

Under those scenarios, there is also a dearth of evidence of even a half-hearted cover-up investigation.


CMHS Non-Investigation
According to the Moulton Report, the only CMHS individual interviewed by the police -- prior to July 28, 2011 -- was assistant principal and head football coach, Steven Turchetta.   Again, Corbett said he needed the grand jury to coerce testimony.  

Who was being coerced?  Turchetta was a cooperating witness.

Certainly, there is no evidence on the record supporting a cover-up investigation of CMHS.

The Non-Investigation of The Second Mile
Geoffrey Moulton used the word "inexplicable" to explain the delays in getting warrants for Sandusky's home and making an arrest.   However, that same word applies to the Pennsylvania State Police's (PSP) failure to interview individuals and gather evidence from The Second Mile (TSM) as a means of identifying potential victims.

Moreover, if there was an organization that should have been suspected of covering up Sandusky's crimes, TSM should have been at the top of the list.  Sandusky was the organizations founder, face, and top fundraiser. 

As history shows, without Sandusky, TSM could not exist.  

Even if the PSP didn't understand the financial incentive for a TSM cover-up, they had plenty of leads that should have caused them to visit the charity early in the investigation.   The first seven people interviewed by the PSP all mentioned Sandusky's association with TSM and his work in mentoring young men.  

The PSP continued to investigate the case when it was ensconced  in the grand jury.  

In August 2009, F.A., a former CMHS student, testified to the grand jury about being a TSM participant and being in the car with Fisher and Sandusky.   Following F.A.'s testimony, Agent Anthony Sassano drafted a list of investigative steps that excluded contacting anyone associated with the charity.  In reading the email below, the incompetency of Sassano is evident -- and likely explains why he was assigned to the case.

Even if Sassano was incompetent, he was being overseen by a seasoned prosecutor, Jonelle Eshbach, who had prosecuted many sexual abuse cases.  Eshbach should have been the "backstop" that made sure investigators didn't miss anything.

Instead, it appeared that Eshbach was equally avoiding investigating TSM, as this request for subpoena reveals the gymnastics that had to be undertaken to not request records from the charity, but justify a request to Penn State.

It is notable that Eshbach and the AG had "some suspicion" -- based on no evidence on the official record -- that PSU had knowledge of Sandusky's inappropriate behavior with children. 

More on that in a second.

In summary, the evidence shows that if Corbett and the AG suspected a cover-up, then it failed to investigate any of the most probable suspects until 2011.  Based on the official record of evidence, the Sandusky grand jury was not investigating a cover-up or coercing any witness testimony.

Suppressed Evidence Equals Electoral Foot-Dragging or Worse
Eshbach's subpoena request is among the earliest official records indicating the AG may have obtained information about the PSU incidents earlier than November 2010.

The unofficial record may help fill in the blanks.

Mike Gillum, in Silent No More (p. 120), stated that on June 16, 2009,  Eshbach and Trooper Scott Rossman "indicated there was some other evidence they weren't at liberty to share with me.  It was something that happened in 1998."

While the official record states the 1998 University Park police report was not obtained until January 3, 2011, Gillum's account reveals that the AG got its hands on the 1998 report much earlier -- in fact, it appears that they possessed it around the time of the grand jury began.

If that was really the case, then Corbett might have been telling the truth about using the grand jury to prove a cover-up.  Except there's a problem with the 1998 police report.

It doesn't provide evidence or suspicion of a cover-up by PSU.

In fact, it shows the opposite because PSU immediately reached out to the DA's office and Centre County CYS to assist with the 1998 investigation.

That leads to the highly probable scenario that if Corbett suspected a PSU cover-up, then he had knowledge of the 2001 incident when the grand jury was convened.

The fact that the anonymous email tip on the incident showed up the day after Corbett was elected governor provides additional evidence that he was sitting on that evidence until after the election.

In summary, the circumstantial evidence in the case indicates that foot-dragging on the Sandusky case was politically motivated.  It also indicates that the AG could have found victims and made Sandusky's arrest much sooner. 

But arresting Sandusky wasn't part of the original plan -- and that's really why the foot-dragging occurred.  

The Sandusky investigation was supposed to die a slow, secret death in the grand jury.

Next: Corbett's Grand Jury Lie, Part 3

Corbett's Grand Jury Lie

Former AG Tom Corbett's rationale for the inpaneling of the Sandusky grand jury in 2009 doesn't square with the facts in evidence

By

Ray Blehar

As I was reading Brad Bumsted's "Keystone Corruption, A Pennsylvania Insiders Guide to a State Gone Wrong" last week, I  came across an interesting statement attributed to Tom Corbett on page 196 about his reasoning behind using use of a grand jury in the Sandusky case.

Corbett's grand jury rationale
doesn't square with the facts.

"Corbett said the grand jury was needed to compel testimony and because of the complexity of proving a cover-up."

That statement doesn't square with the facts.

On May 1st 2009, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General submitted the Sandusky investigation to the Thirtieth Statewide Investigating Grand Jury.  On May 5th, the case was accepted.

According to evidence, Aaron Fisher was the only known victim until the eventual Victim 6 was identified in January 2011.  Moreover, according to the Moulton Report (page 148), in August 2010, Corbett agreed with other prosecutors that the case shouldn't be charged due to the lack of victims.

Early August 2010. Fina, Sheetz, and Ryan meet with Corbett to discuss the status of the Sandusky investigation. Corbett affirms their recommendation that the case should not then be charged and that the search for other victims should continue. 

Corbett's response to the Moulton Report, filed by his attorney Mark Zimmer on June 11, 2014, did not provide a reason for using a grand jury, other than it was a choice made by "career prosecutors."  

More importantly, however,  the response stated that the Commonwealth did not have sufficient evidence to justify a search warrant for Sandusky's home until police interviewed Victim 7 (February 2011) and Victim 4 (April 2011) -- who provided the "fresh evidence" to justify a search warrant.

There are several credibility issues associated with the Corbett response.   Notably, the "fresh evidence" obtained in 2011 pertained incidents that occurred in Sandusky's home from 1996 through 2000, thus were of incidents five to thirteen years earlier than those reported by Fisher.   

Next, if this "fresh evidence" of "use of his residence for pedophilia" provided the basis for an airtight search warrant, then why did it take until June 20, 2011 to request it?

Finally, and most importantly, if there was not sufficient evidence to justify a search warrant of Sandusky's home until the spring of 2011, then Corbett's assertion that the Sandusky grand jury was inpaneled to prove a cover-up was a lie.

But don't expect an "insider" and ace reporter like Brad Bumsted to ever figure that out.

"Freeh source materials" confirm the Curley File

Freeh Report source materials already in the public domain, combined with other evidence, confirm that Tim Curley had a file on Sandusky -- and its contents found their way into the so-called Schultz "secret file"

By

Ray Blehar 

Even though the alumni-elected members of the Penn State University (PSU) Board of Trustees (BOT) have succeeded in gaining access to the Freeh source materials, the court sided with Old Main to keep the information from being publicly disclosed.

Regardless of that ruling, and likely unknown to the public, some of the Freeh source materials  are already in the public domain - and they prove that evidence was manipulated and/or tampered with in order to railroad PSU officials (i.e., Curley, Schultz, and Spanier).

However, when the source materials are combined with other existing evidence, the totality of the evidence confirms that former PSU Athletic Director (AD) Tim Curley had information related to the Sandusky matter -- and that information was illegally placed into the so-called "secret file" of former PSU VP for Finance and Business, Gary Schultz.

The Key Evidence?

What appears to be a seemingly insignificant document -- a February 11, 2001 computer printout that lists the names of the Board of Directors of The Second Mile (TSM) and its date/time stamp -- turns out to be a very key piece of evidence.

According to the Freeh Report (at 71), on "February 12, 2001, at about 11:10 AM, Schultz researched the internet about the Board members of The Second Mile, the charitable organization Sandusky founded."

The passage is referenced to End Note #303: Schultz confidential file notes (5-1-12), however this printout -- that was printed at the exact same time "Schultz researched the internet" -- was not included in the Freeh Report.  Had it been included, most reasonable people (not Sally Jenkins) would have concluded that Freeh was making quite an evidentiary leap to tie an unlabeled computer printout to a specific individual.  In short, Freeh excluded the print out as a matter of maintaining his (alleged) credibility.

The document wasn't introduced as evidence in any legal proceeding to date -- for a very good reason.

The timeline of evidence does not support Gary Schultz searching for the names of members of the TSM Board on February 12, 2001.

Curley, Not Schultz, Concerned About TSM

Freeh Report Exhibit 5C, the February 12, 2001 "Confidential" hand-written note of Gary Schultz outlined an early plan for addressing the 2001 incident.  Schultz made no mention of  TSM in that plan.

According to the grand jury testimony of Curley (at 181 and 188), he originated the plan to inform TSM about the 2001 incident  and proposed it during the February 25, 2001 meeting with former PSU President Graham Spanier and Schultz.

Freeh Report Exhibit 5G, Schultz's February 28, 2001  email  also confirms Curley proposed informing TSM: "we will inform his organization, with or without his cooperation (I think that's what Tim proposed)."

Schultz also memorialized Curley's plan, which included discussions with TSM, on February 25th and 26th, in handwriting (Exhibit 5G) and by email (Exhibit 5F), respectively.

Finally, Freeh Report Exhibit 2J, the notes of Graham Spanier, also confirm that Curley was very concerned about his impending interaction with TSM.

In summary, this evidence reveals that Curley came up with the plan to talk to TSM and had concerns about the charity's reaction.  Given the evidence, it was Curley - not Schultz -- who printed out the names of the TSM board members on February 12th.

While the printout turns out to be a very significant document in the grand scheme of things, it's not the only "source" document that provides evidence of manipulation and/or tampering.

March 7, 2001 Email Manipulation/Bias

A March 7, 2001 email allegedly obtained from the so-called "secret file" of Gary Schultz, memorialized a discussion between  Curley and Schultz's former administrative assistant Joan Coble, regarding Curley's follow up on the plan to address the incident.

Freeh Report's Exhibit 5I of the email is on the left, while the source document (introduced as Commonwealth's Exhibit 18 at the July 2013 preliminary hearing) is on the right.

The evidence shows that the Freeh Report exhibit was printed from an email file and was not the full email discussion between Coble and Curley.  The Freeh Report excluded any mention of Curley's affirmative response that he had followed through on the plan by March 7th.  Note that March 7th is the circled date at top of the full email.

This is significant because the Freeh Report stated, without equivocation, that Curley met with TSM on March 19, 2001.  However, the Freeh Report's March 19, 2001 date is based on a hearsay statement from an unnamed legal representative for TSM.

The Freeh Report's conclusion of the March 19th meeting between Curley and TSM was also refuted by Spanier's notes (Freeh Exhibit 2J).  Spanier wrote that he met with Curley shortly after their late February meeting that the former AD had followed through on the plan to speak with TSM.

The Freeh Report made several inferences that Spanier had been less than honest with the Freeh investigators, thus excluding the critical evidence of the March 7th date was two fold:  to support the Freeh Report conclusion of a March 19th meeting and to undermine the credibility of Spanier.

As shown in email obtained by PSU alumnus, Ryan Bagwell, Freeh made it a point to alert personnel conducting Spanier's background investigation for a security clearance about evidence found during the (criminal) investigation.  Spanier would eventually lose his clearance as a result of the charges against him.

The evidence manipulation to persecute PSU officials certainly was more widespread than those documents.  Over 80 documents cited as sources in the Freeh Report were excluded, and most importantly, some of the most critical missing evidence is tied to the Curley/Schultz files.

Curley's Notes Turned Over In February 2011

The grand jury questioning by Frank Fina revealed he was not yet aware that Tim Curley possessed any information about Sandusky.  Fina didn't ask a single question whether Tim had taken notes during any of the meetings about the 2001 incident.  In fact, Fina didn't even ask Curley (or anyone else) if they had searched for documents responsive to Subpoena 1179.  Clearly, Fina knew that Baldwin didn't tell these men to search for documents.

According to the Freeh Report (at 84), on February 15, 2011, Baldwin met with members of the football coaching staff to discuss their knowledge of Sandusky.  The next day, OAG investigators were present and conducted more interviews.  It is likely that the search for documents from the football coaches and AD officials occurred then or very shortly thereafter.

OAG special agent, Anthony Sassano later testified that the legal team of Duane Morris delivered boxes of information (he presumed was from Schultz's office)  that contained Sandusky's retirement paperwork.  Duane Morris was the former employer of Cynthia Baldwin -- and she brought in members of that firm in to assist her.  According to a notation on one of the retirement papers (Freeh Report Exhibit 3H), it was received (by someone, but certainly not Louis Freeh) on February 28, 2011 at 6:28 pm.

While the public has been led to believe that the retirement paperwork came from the Schultz file, it is clear that Curley had a copy of it.  As noted on the letter, Sandusky was instructed to return his signed copy to Curley (see below).  This indeed confirms that Curley and/or the AD's office had information related to Sandusky in its possession.

But that's not the only significant issue regarding the Curley file.


More Tampering?
According to the testimony of Joan Coble, she had no specific knowledge of anything in the bottom drawer of Schultz's filing cabinet.  She testified she never looked in the drawer.  As such, Coble's testimony provided no legitimate information regarding the contents of the Schultz file.

Based on the evidence cited previously, by the time Kimberly Belcher removed the file from Schultz's bottom drawer in November 2011, it had been touched by so many hands that the authenticity/integrity of the contents would be compromised.

It also appears that one of the "hands" involved may have tampered with the retirement letter.

Under magnification, it appears that Schultz's signature has been overlaid on a previous signature block. Note that the words "BY UNIVERSITY OFFICER: and "for Finance" do not have shadowing or aliasing around them.

















For the purpose of comparison, here is top of page two at similar magnification, showing the clear, bolder, non-shadowed type as the authentic typeface.

It is highly probable that those who tampered with the evidence did so thinking that Freeh's impeccable reputation would prevent anyone from questioning the authenticity of the evidence and that they could get away with railroading the PSU 3.

Under the patently ridiculous narrative of the Freeh Report, it was the lure of the Penn State football facilities that provided the "very currency" that Sandusky used to attract his victims. With Schultz's signature affixed to the document, each of the PSU 3 (and Paterno) would be tried in the court of public opinon for enabling Sandusky's sexual abuse.

Freeh publicly smeared PSU officials for allowing Sandusky to be on campus after there were no charges or findings against him in 1998.  Moreover, Freeh ignored the evidence that no crimes occurred on campus after 2001, instead stating that abuse continued on the PSU campus through 2009.

As has been demonstrated repeatedly, evidence timelines or chain of custody of evidence can be counted on to undo the false narratives of the cases prosecuted by the PA Corruption Network.

The Chain of Custody of the Schultz Files

According to OAG officials, the notes of Schultz were not provided to them until April 2012 -- by Schultz and his former administrative assistant, Kimberly Belcher.

Louis Freeh claimed, during his highly publicized press conference, that "we found them in conjunction with the Attorney General."  The Freeh Report notes the date of discovery as May 1, 2012.

However, both of those claims are refuted by the notebook of former PSU President Rodney Erickson.  On 31 January 2012, which was three months before the Schultz notes were either turned over to the OAG or "found" by Freeh, Erickson wrote that he was to get copies of the notes of Curley and Schultz.

PSU alumnae Eileen Morgan's excellent analysis of the evidence surrounding the grand jury questioning of Curley, Schultz, and the late former PSU football Coach, Joe Paterno almost certainly proves that Frank Fina received the Schultz file from PSU (i.e., Baldwin) prior to the January 12, 2011 proceeding.

While Erickson's notebook confirms that he knew that Freeh's alleged discovery of the Schultz file and the OAG's pretense that the files were not turned over until April 2012 were both shams, it also confirmed that he was aware of Fina's strategy to get Curley and Schultz to flip.

Based on the analysis of the evidence, it is highly probable that Fina, et al, decided to throw the whole kitchen sink of evidence at Schultz, rather than Curley, in an effort to produce the flip.

The Truth

PSU, under Erickson and new puppet President Eric Barron have paid out untold millions to keep various litigants, including some of its own trustees,  from accessing the Freeh source materials.

In doing so, Old Main and the Old Guard utilized specious arguments or protecting employee confidentiality and that the Freeh Report didn't impact University decisions as a means to keep the alumni trustees from finding out the truth.

The reality of the matter is that Erickson, Baldwin, and others know that it is only a matter of time before the Freeh source materials expose the truth about the Sandusky matter.

And the only thing Erickson, Baldwin, Harmon, Fina and numerous others fear more than the truth is what the truth will eventually do to them.

Wendy Silverwood: 2/26/2016 Public Comment to BOT

At the core of any community is its values -- the shared ideals about how people should act toward one another, the standards to which we hold ourselves, and those beliefs we find important.

I wanted to address two of these Penn State core values out of the six that are published.

INTEGRITY: We act with integrity and honesty in accordance with the highest academic, professional, and ETHICAL standards.

Conversely the integrity, professional and ethical standards of individuals within our former Office of Attorney General ran counter to those of the University.

Frank Fina was the star prosecutor in that office — the guy who made Governor Corbett’s career.

Fina, along with other officials including those involved with the Sandusky case are caught up in what we now know as ‪#‎PornGate‬ and ‪#‎HateGate‬.

Among the hard core pornography Fina circulated from his office, much of it included images of women engaged in anal sex, oral sex and group sex.

Images of women being VIOLATED with various objects.

Recall that prosecutor Fina supervised that inflammatory grand jury presentment indicting Tim Curley and Gary Schultz with failing to report a crime of violation.

A crime acoustically and physically impossible as described, and later born out as untrue by evidence and testimony to a jury in the courtroom.

Yet nevertheless the media has repeated this singular lie as if it were the unassailable truth.

Prosecutors have a license to lie. It is not a stretch to see who was behind that lie.

Not once has Penn State ever paused to reflect on the established ethics, honesty and integrity of Tim, Gary, Graham & Joe – instead you chose to question and disbelieve.

Perhaps you should seriously question the ethics, honesty and integrity of Frank Fina.

RESPECT: We respect and honor the dignity of each person and embrace civil discourse.

Civil discourse ceased the moment John Surma stepped over Steve Garban’s body to ax Joe in an ill-timed, late night press conference carrying out a personal vendetta.

Civil discourse was replaced by verbal and physical harassment, death threats, vandalism and horribly flawed, sensationalist reporting in a media stampede.

Respecting the honor and dignity of Joe, Tim, Gary, Graham, the Lettermen, the student/athletes and the Penn State community at large, vaporized when a former prosecutor with a License To Lie indicted and smeared us all on July 12th, 2012.

Fina and Freeh chose to dishonor by selectively leaking to the media, even including a few Board members to carry out their deeds.

I ask that you respect and restore that honor to these people and their families and you insist on civil discourse by the media and the public.

Frank Fina and his fellow gunslingers in the Office of Attorney General reigned with fear & intimidation. It meant there were no holds barred on anybody who worked there.

These same prosecutorial bullying tactics were used to silence and discredit Tim Curley and Gary Schultz – suppressing evidence, falsely charging them and corruptly cooking up a scheme to charge Graham Spanier.

Appallingly, your own General Counsel helped with the deception.

Frank Fina’s email scandal of #hategate and #porngate has ripped open a constitutional crisis in our commonwealth.

It has exposed a network that ascribes to core values of Intimidation, Misconduct, Malfeasance, Dishonesty & Deceit.

A set of values that are antithetical to the values of Penn State.

Values that have destroyed lives, livelihoods and reputations, and shaken the very core of the community.

Is this our new standard?

Bethel's "Unverified" is a must see

Bradley Bethel's "Unverified" documents  another case of media sensationalism leading to innocent people being scapegoated -- while UNC puts political correctness and expediency above common decency.

By
Ray Blehar

The media soundbites and headlines said....."fraudulent paper classes"...."no show classes"...."no show classes for athletes"....."an iconic program gone bad"....and the "longest running cheating scandal in NCAA history"

What went on at the University of North Carolina (UNC)- Chapel Hill -- in terms of media sensationalism -- was on par with the inappropriately labeled, Penn State sex scandal.

And that is why Unverified is a must see for all Penn Staters.

Bradley Bethel, a former academic counselor at UNC, adeptly lays out how the media sensationalized a false story, resulting in a so-called independent investigation with a pre-determined outcome. In the end, innocent people were scapegoated so that the school could put the scandal behind them.

Sound familiar?  

At UNC, the administration came down hard on lowly academic counselors, firing those who were actually helping the athletes with their studies.  It also fired two other administrators, but certainly put no blame on those who created the problem.


No Show Classes
"No show classes," CBS's Scott Pelley sternly stated as he stared into the camera.

Yes, no show classes, Scott.  Welcome to the world of on-line education.  


On-line courses, while not requiring attendance at a "brick and mortar" building, do require considerable work.  PSU has a World Campus full of "no show classes" offering a variety of degrees.  Some of the classes are quite difficult.  There are Universities, such as the University of Phoenix, who specialize in "no show" classes (a.k.a, on-line learning).  


Most of the UNC athletes enrolled in the "no show" classes did required reading, took on-line quizzes, and wrote papers.  The UNC athletic counselors helped students, but didn't do work for them. 

However,  the media covering wasn't interested in finding out the facts...  

Ganim's reporting on the UNC and PSU cases were based on unreliable, biased sources.

...they had a source named Mary Willingham.  And as we saw in the Penn State case, it was a source whose story was too good to check.

UNVERIFIED  

A January 2014 CNN report by Ganim relied extensively on Mary Willingham's  "research" which allegedly found 183 athletes reading between the 4th and 8th grade level.   Willingham, adding fuel to the fire, claimed she turned a blind eye to cheating and NCAA violations.

But, Willingham's study was not peer reviewed.  

Her allegations of cheating and NCAA violations were unchecked.

In a word, Willingham's work was UNVERIFIED.

Ganim and the rest of the media didn't let facts stand in the way of a good story.

McDonald's and Swahili

The stories -- and that's what they mostly were -- of student athletes abusing the system were sensationalized.

As one UNC professor put it, "it was not a time for compassion."

ESPN painted Deaunte Williams as a "fast food worker" who was exploited by North Carolina's paper class curriculum when the real story was he took out a loan and built his own restaurant and employs people.  

He is, to quote, "a job giver" and "not a poor black kid who works at McDonald's."

Amazingly, just one year earlier, ESPN did a feature on Williams, that showed he was a successful entrepreneur, homeowner, and volunteer football coach.

Joe Nocera of the New York Times wrote, Football and Swahili, in which he took shots at the idea that football players were taking Swahili.  In the article, he misquoted Williams, alleging that the former football player said 100% of freshman football players took Swahili.

Williams actually took Portuguese -- and flat out said he was misquoted.  

Nocera wouldn't entertain a discussion the misquote. 

Similary, Bernard Goldberg, looked down his nose at a former UNC athlete who took Swahili, asking him how often he used it.  The athlete responded never, to which Goldberg reacted with disgust.

Of course, no one cared about "the other side" of the story.

When the African American (AFAM) curriculum was developed the proponents of it believed native African languages should be used rather than other foreign languages, like Spanish or French. It made sense then and it makes sense now.  That was the reason why football players enrolled in AFAM were taking Swahili.

But it's too much to expect the media to figure it out.  

And that's another reason why Bradley Bethel's Unverified is a must see.

Political Correctness Run Amok

Imagine the blow back from the politically correct  if UNC eliminated Swahili because it's not particularly useful to know.

That gets us to the bottom of the so-called UNC Cheating Scandal.

Former Governor Jim Martin investigated the UNC paper classes back in 2012 and correctly found that the problem was a lack of oversight of the AFAM department by the academic side of the school.  Many of the classes were "aberrant" or "irregularly taught" from 2007 to 2011.

"The athletic department, coaches and players did not create this," Martin told the board of trustees. "It was not in their jurisdiction, it was the academic side."

Chancellor James Moeser said that UNC felt that they were helping minority students who were not quite as adept academically to get through their studies and graduate.

When the media began fanning the flames about a cheating scandal in 2013,  the administrators claimed no knowledge of what was happening in AFAM and pulled out the "corporate crisis playbook."

Wainstein Report

UNC hired a high profile lawyer, Kenneth Wainstein, to perform an independent investigation.

Wainstein Report's had a pre-determined outcome that would begin the public cleansing.

Much like the Freeh Report, Wainstein's Report would form the basis for the public cleansing.  There would be a few sacrificial lambs -- academic counselors Beth Bridger and Jaimie Lee, among others --  but those who caused the problem were not be held accountable.

It was a big time athletics problem. Everyone knew it. 

The media didn't need to read the Wainstein Report -- they wrote it.

Fired coach Butch Davis quite aptly summed up the Wainstein Report:  "tie it up and put a bow on it, blame him, kick football to the curb and move on."    

Sound familiar?

A Voice of Reason

Once again, ESPN's Jay Bilas was a voice of reason.  He properly assessed the problem was academics, not athletics.   He pointed out  that no coach can establish a class and a coach assumes if a class is offered, it's legitimate.  

If this went on for 20 years -- and the majority taking classes were not athletes --  then where were the checks and balances on the academic side?

Should athletics role to be to question the academics of an institution?  

Cue Joe Paterno, circa 1983!

Truth, Healing, and Hope

Bethel finally got a chance to interview one of the high ranking adminstrators, Chancellor James Moeser.

Moeser admitted that a "case can be made" that media pressure caused the University not to exercise "appropriate due process" and "rush to judgment."

Individuals were "harshly judged without all the evidence, without due process."

Those admissions of truth that can bring about the healing needed when a false narrative rips away at the fabric of an institution.


John Blanchard, UNC's senior associate athletic director, fired in the scandal's wake provides an uplifting -- and somewhat familiar message -- near the end of Bethel's film. 

"Don't drop out of the story and be bitter and resentful.  Keep going.  Enjoy life.  Remember the best days are ahead when we will be able to help others."  

But it was Blanchard's other message that resonated most with me.

"Have faith in the end of the story, even if you don't know what that story is going to be."

The film is a must see...and Bethel hopes to bring Unverified to State College.

Wendy Silverwood Files Complaint Aganst Fina

To file a complaint with the PA Disciplinary Board - visit this link: http://www.padisciplinaryboard.org/...

Larry Schultz: Chronicle commentary

Trust is reciprocal. I can love you, but that does not mean you will love me. You might hate me, but that does not necessarily mean I will hate you.

But if you do not trust me, I am very unlikely to trust you. If you ask me to make a list of all the people I do not trust, I would begin by making a list of those who do not trust me. Masser publicly speaks the language of distrust about his fellow trustees. In the Chronicle, no less.

If the PSU BoT is riven by distrust, then it is the job of leadership to rebuild the broken trust. Given an opportunity to reach out, in even a tiny way, to the other side, in a publication devoted to Higher Ed topics, so that plenty of people who work in universities all over the country can read it, Masser punts. He believes that the way I will begin to trust him is by getting over it, by "moving on," by ignoring the massive failures of leadership he and his friends enacted, like he does.

That is not going to work for me, for thousands of other Penn Staters, for the Alumni Trustees he despises so much, or for the good of PSU. The Board Mr. Masser runs is now made up of people who ignored the blooming Jerry Sandusky matter until it blew up in their faces. Some of them left over the last few years, but were replaced by virtual clones, selected by organizations which know for a fact that running PSU in secret, with hidden agendas instead of transparency, is best for them.

Mr. Eckel seems to think the bottom line reason why we got caught flatfooted in the Sandusky case is because we did not have enough committees. "If anything, he says, the Sandusky scandal demonstrated that Penn State needed more committees, including audit and risk, and people of diverse experience were required to lead them." I guess the idea is that if we had more committees maybe someone would have passed the word when we had a warning a week or ten days before the indictments were handed down that it was coming. Maybe had a meeting to talk about it. You know, rather than Garban and Surma and Broadhurst simply sitting on it.

Having never publicly admitted that there was any problem with the failure to act, there is zero likelihood that in the over 100 Freeh recommendations they claim to have implemented there is anything that solves that problem. If anything, the instincts of the Board are worse, more closed off, more akin to a dictatorship than ever before. Which means this could happen to PSU again tomorrow.

When a person assumes fiduciary duties s/he undertakes to do whatever is necessary within the law to protect the beneficiary (in this case, PSU). Suppose you sit on a board in 2010 and you find out that in the 1990s some contracts were let to the relatives of a Board member without competitive bidding, and you hear an allegation that there were kickbacks to a Board member. You do not have to call a press conference, but you have to find out if it is true and determine whether it is still going on. It is the basic and prudent thing to do to protect PSU.

Today the Alumni Trustees need to know whether the University spent $8+ million on a report that is untrue. We need to know because based upon that report, with little review and no vote of the board membership, the University torched its own reputation. You cannot pretend that did not happen. The Alumni Trustees have a clear fiduciary duty to investigate this fateful waste of the University's assets. To deny them the records of the Freeh Report is to deny them the tools to do the job the law requires them to do. To make them pay their own lawyers to find out the truth in the service of their fiduciary duty is likely an untenable position for the University.

"Where’s the decision that we’re going to make that’s based on the Freeh report?" asks Mr. Barron, Penn State’s president. "It’s hard to see that there is one."

How about a decision regarding whether we wasted $8+ million on a report full of falsehoods which injured the University? How about an after-action report regarding the sloppy, slow, ad hoc nature of the entire response to Sandusky? Those seem like worthwhile endeavors to me. Of course, the construction of Barron's question is interesting. Of course there is no decision anyone is going to base on the Freeh Report, because everyone knows it is a bad report, even those who studiously ignore that fact. That is why we have to study it--so there can no longer be any question about what a colossal tragedy it is.

The central thesis of the Chronicle article is that there is no trust on the PSU Board. Masser's and Eckel's comments show that to be undeniable. The rather simple fix is to build trust, but their comments rule that out. 

The decision we are going to make based on the Freeh Report, Dr. Barron, is whether and how the University might have done a better job of confronting this disaster. More committees? In a word, no. We are not going to have a quarter billion dollars to waste on this stuff every couple of years. Perhaps seeing how we made these mistakes will cause us not to repeat them. The only thing stopping us from repeating them right now is there is (apparently) no Jerry Sandusky operating in our midst. Of course, that is what we thought when there was a Jerry Sandusky operating in our midst.

Larry Schultz is a candidate for the Penn State Board of Trustees