Posted on 02/13/2013 9:59:29 AM PST by privatedrive
This excerpt from the Clemente Report is very disturbing. For anyone who refuses to believe that Joe didn't know - I think this story will change their minds. Would anyone blame this Mom, like they blame Joe? Would she be fired? Would she be cast as a horrible, evil person? Should all of her life's good work be erased because of this episode? Was she demonized like Joe has been? And this molestation happened literally right in front of her eyes.
Please watch the video, read the Clemente report, THEN please post your comments and let us know what you think.
Excerpt from Clemente Report:
"One of the many potential victims whom I interviewed during the investigation had a very interesting story to tell. First, I spoke with the boy’s mother. She assured me that she had already asked her approximately 6-year-old son whether Taus had molested him. He said no, so she believed there was no reason for me to talk to her son. I told her I would just like to ask a few questions and it would not take long. She reluctantly agreed. I interviewed the boy while he sat beside his mother and asked the boy a number of questions before I inquired whether Taus played any games with him. He answered that yes, they played the tickle game. I asked how the game was played. At that point, I recall the boy turning to his mother and saying, “You remember Mom, when I was sitting on his lap last time he was here talking to you. He had his hand up my shorts tickling my privates. He tickles me and I have to try not to laugh.” I looked at the mother and all the color had drained from her face. She could not believe that Taus had molested her son right in front of her very eyes and she had no idea that it had happened. She trusted Taus so much based on his profession, his reputation, and her repeated positive interactions with him that she never even questioned the fact that he liked to have her son sit on his lap."
ALL OF YOU PEOPLE, PARTICULARLY ESPN TALKING HEADS, NEED TO SHOW SOME REAL COURAGE AND ADMIT THAT YOU WERE WRONG. IT COULD HAVE JUST AS EASILY BEEN YOU INSTEAD OF JOE. OR THAT POOR MOM. CMON PEOPLE - HAVE SOME MORAL COURAGE AND ADMIT YOUR MISTAKE, AND HELP THESE GOOD PEOPLE RESTORE THE LEGACY OF ONE OF THE TRULY GREAT MEN IN THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL.
You’re right, I should be ashamed, unlike the late coach who never should have felt shame.
Clear conflict of interest.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/harvey-authors-run-reverse-fail-attempt-defend-paterno-article-1.1260527
There is a saying among the criminal bar that the presumption of innocence begins with the payment of a lawyer’s retainer.
Even worse, I’ve heard an attorney tell a judge that he is waiting until a client’s cousin, Mr. Green (meaning money), arrives prior to officially appearing on behalf of the defendant.
Jim Clemente, one of the main authors of the just-released Paterno family report and a heretofore-respected retired FBI agent, suggested that Louis Freeh, the former federal judge and director of the FBI, produced a flawed report on the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State child molestation tragedy. Specifically, Clemente and former U.S. attorney general Richard Thornburgh challenge every conclusion made by Freeh, whose July report concluded that Joe Paterno assisted in covering up the horrific child sex abuse acts perpetrated by Sandusky over Sandusky’s many years as a Penn State assistant football coach and athletic department member, a man whose office was literally steps away from Paterno’s.
Indeed, Clemente was on national television Sunday repeating his mantra that Freeh’s report was incomplete, that Freeh failed to point out that Sandusky was a “skillful manipulator” who was able to hide his crimes, and that Paterno cannot be held accountable for the way he handled the information about Sandusky abusing a young boy in the Penn State football locker room.
Clemente, however, failed to mention in “The Rush To Injustice Regarding Joe Paterno,” or in his news interviews Sunday that as an FBI agent he worked closely with Stop It Now, an organization intent on preventing sexual abuse of children. Or that a month after the report was issued last summer he was helpful in passing along Stop It Now members’ messages of thanks and appreciation to Freeh for his groundbreaking report on the Penn State scandal. The messages passed on to Freeh spoke of the Freeh report being a “tipping point” in changing the way organizations and leaders deal with red flags involving possible child molestation. These folks wanted to commend Freeh for pointing out that too often adults are loyal to other adults and that it is important to put children’s safety above everything else. It i
s difficult to believe Clemente wouldn’t have read the messages being sent to his former boss, yet he never said anything about Freeh’s report being inaccurate or unfair at the time he forwarded words of thanks and appreciation from people who devote their lives to preventing child abuse. (He now says the difference is that he’s had time to read and dissect the report.) Clemente went on television Sunday to tell us that his investigation revealed Sandusky to be a “groomer,” a child molester who was in the top 1% of his field and someone who was great at hiding his behavior and grooming children to become victims. In addition, Clemente submits that Paterno was never told specifics about Sandusky’s acts.
Yet Clemente failed to acknowledge the simple reality that Sandusky didn’t hide what he was doing. No one denies that Sandusky molested a young teenager on the Penn State campus in the football locker room, which was witnessed by an assistant football coach, or that Paterno was told about it and took virtually no action. In his own words, under oath, Paterno said Mike McQueary, a graduate assistant, came over to the Paterno house and said he witnessed Sandusky “fondling, whatever you might call it — I’m not sure what the term would be — a young boy.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/harvey-authors-run-reverse-fail-attempt-defend-paterno-article-1.1260527#ixzz2KoKAqSeU
Let them have their Paterno statue so they’ll have something to pray to.
I don’t really know the facts in the case, but what happened to Joe Paterno broke my heart. My wife’s family is from western Pennsylvania, and she grew up in Attleboro near Providence and Brown where Paterno played quarterback and cornerback. She was a Brown fan and Huge Paterno fan. She turned on him, like a lot of other people. I always admired Paterno, he seemed to play the game the right way. I hate to believe the worst about him.
Sandusky should rot in Hell. Tomorrow, if not today.
Yep, it makes the entire site look bad.
RC - I have read and admired your posts over the years, and I’d like to try to convince you to take a step back.
It’s not about the legacy, it’s just about the Freeh report. The biggest issue with the Freeh report is the wild conclusions and accusations made on an incomplete investigation. Paterno dedicated his life to helping others, to trying to make young men into exceptional human beings, teaching life lessons that would last long past the football field. And make no mistake, he wanted to win as many football games while doing so and was very driving and demanding in the pursuit of all of these goals tied together.
However, this does not mean he had no faults. He was the all-time most winning coach in college football. However, there were many times that his team was stopped on fourth down. Many times he ran when he should have thrown, kicked when he should have gone for it, etc. And just like the rest of us, he made mistakes off the field as well.
The Freeh report comes to the wild conclusion that Paterno and Penn State knowingly harbored a child predator and did so to benefit a football program. I am not here to try and convince you that Joe Paterno, or Penn State, handled the situation exactly as it should have been handled. But we sit here ten years later and are able to analyze this situation with the benefit of hindsight, and we are able to see what a monster, what a manipulator Jerry Sandusky was. Paterno did not have that knowledge. In his last days, he admitted that with the benefit of hindsight, he wished he had done more. But at that time, neither Paterno nor anyone else involved in the situation knew the severity of what a monster Sandusky was. We can argue back and forth whether he and other Penn State officials should have better recognized the severity of the situation and thus handled things in a different manner. The misunderstanding of how serious this situation was resulted in grave and significant consequences. And to that, Paterno admitted that is one of his life’s greatest regrets. But that is a fair cry from the wild accusations in the Freeh report, that these individuals, including Paterno, who dedicated his life to helping young people, knowingly covered up the actions of a child predator.
I do not believe for one instant that none of them knew.
If they did not know, they are non-educable retards who would not be able to learn how to read or drive a car.
They just covered for him. And maybe some were participants.
I know. See post 70 above.
A concise and poignant rebuttal, unlike some of the replies and emotions other thread conjure up. I will always lean to the side that he knew something, but I also like to remind myself “but for the grace of God go I...”.I have the luxury of saying I would have acted on it, but arm chairing is easy. I have confidence that he did wish he had done things differently.
I think he should have been quietly retired and barred from Penn State activities but removing his statue and the calls for him to be imprisoned were a bit aggressive.
Joe Paterno family tries to remake his image in wake of Sandusky cover-up, and fails
The 238-page Paterno family response to the Freeh Report (available at www.paterno.com) is a public relations initiative that enlisted such long-time Paterno friends as former Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh and the Paterno family's attorney, Wick Sollers. It lacks the autonomous nature of the Freeh Report.
Thanks RC.
I doubt many think ahead but the fact about the site is 100% correct.
What does that make the local and state agencies that vetted js for SIX adoptions and numerous Foster children?
A Louis Freeh fan I take it.
Don’t read what sports reporters say, read the report!
March 2, 2002, Mike McQueary told Paterno what he had witnessed in the shower the day before—Sandusky raping a young boy. At least from that point on Paterno knew that Sandusky should not be allowed on campus and should be under a criminal investigation.
Please look up the definition of autonomous. Freeh has never done an autonomous review be it 9/11, Ruby Ridge or Paterno
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