Free Republic

CHAPTER TEN: CONCLUSIONS One year after the release of the Freeh Report, this is what seems to be reality of the aftermath of the Sandusky scandal and its impact on the State College community: Joe Paterno’s reputation and legacy have been completely destroyed, the Penn State football program has been crippled, and the university’s reputation has been badly besmirched. Many lives have been greatly damaged, money has been lost, friendships have been severed, and wonderful memories have been painfully erased. The public battle to tell the real truth of what happened here has been badly lost and, thanks to the...

Three former Penn State administrators accused of helping cover up the crimes of Jerry Sandusky will stand trial for their charges, Judge William Wenner ordered Tuesday. Wenner ruled at the end of a two-day preliminary hearing that state prosecutors had presented enough evidence to warrant a full criminal trial for former Penn State president Graham Spanier, former vice president Gary Schultz and former athletic director Tim Curley. All three men had previously filed appeals to have their charges dismissed. All three men are charged with perjury, obstruction, endangering the welfare of children, failure to properly report suspected abuse and conspiracy....

After two days of testimony, we’re officially going to trial. Judge William Wenner ruled instantly after closing arguments this afternoon that all charges against Gary Schultz, Tim Curley, and Graham Spanier will stick. A trial date has not been set yet but is anticipated for the spring. Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel reports that legal experts think the contentious trial could last up to two months. “It’s a tragic day for Penn State University for sure,” Judge Wenner said while making his ruling. AG Investigator Anthony Sassano was the last witness to testify. He was one of the first investigators to interview...

Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz’s assistant testified that she delivered her boss confidential documents about Jerry Sandusky after becoming aware that the former football coach was charged with sexually abusing young boys. At this point in November 2011, she also knew about the investigation surrounding Schultz but “just wanted to help him out.” To receive Kimberly Belcher’s cooperation, the prosecution granted her immunity for removing documents and tampering with evidence. Belcher replaced Joan Coble in 2007 as Schultz’s top administrative assistant. Dauphin County Judge Todd Hoover approved the move. She had worked in the vice president’s...

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - A judge on Monday will start hearing evidence against three former Penn State officials accused of covering up an early report that coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abused a child, allowing him to molest boys for years........... The three university officials are Graham Spanier, 65, who was fired as president amid the scandal that rocked the high-stakes world of college football; Athletic Director Tim Curley, 59, who was placed on administrative leave, and retired Senior Vice President Gary Schultz, 63. At the hearing in Dauphin County Court, both sides will argue their case stemming from a November...

Ray Blehar earned a mid-life master's degree from Penn State. That gave him a reason to pay closer attention to the fallout of the Jerry Sandusky saga. He also has 28 years of experience as a government analyst. He's written business reviews, evaluated reports and became used to "telling (people) stuff they don't want to hear" as an inspector general. All of that helped drive him on a quest the past two years. Blehar has devoted much of his free time to researching and analyzing documents and reports related to Sandusky and Penn State, including the grand jury presentment, the...

In a dramatic show of support for their old coach, more than 300 former Penn State football players are now publicly backing the Paterno family's lawsuit against the NCAA. Former Nittany Lion Brian Masella released a letter on Monday demanding due process and the truth. "We're glad we're able to show these guys – the Penn State alumni, the student and the trustees willing to step forward that we're behind them 100 percent," Masella tells Statecollege.com. "We want to show them they're not standing there alone, all by themselves, on a cliff." On May 29, the Paterno family, along with...

The lawyer for the family of the late Joe Paterno announced Wednesday that he plans on suing the NCAA, its president Mark Emmert and its executive committee chairman, Ed Ray. The decision is no surprise – it's been anticipated long before it was announced on Wednesday's edition of "Costas Tonight." The suit's goal is "to redress the NCAA's 100-percent adoption of the Freeh report and the imposition of a binding-consent decree," Wick Sollers, the Paterno family attorney, said on the NBC Sports Network show. In layman's terms, the Paternos aren't pleased that Penn State hired former FBI head Louis Freeh...

From page 6: We are left with unprecedented penalties based on disputed facts. The Penn State sanctions are based upon a Consent Decree that is disputed by the accused individuals. The three key administrators are facing criminal charges and have not had an opportunity to fully respond to the Freeh Report that serves as the basis for the penalty. The full account of what occurred at Penn State University has not been told and the sanctions seem premature. As such, NCAA sanctions currently levied against Penn State should be suspended until the perjury and child endangerment cases have been completed....

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When thousands of Penn State alumni members woke up Wednesday morning, they would have found an email directing them to vote in the alumni trustee election. They will find, if they missed the billboards, election signs or ads, they can select up to three candidates from a crowded field of 39. Among them: lawyers, accountants, a few of the twentysomething crowd, a bunch who ran last year and some newcomers this year. Wednesday started the first day for voting in the highly competitive and much-anticipated race, and alumni can vote as late as the morning of May 2. Voting is...

Three former Penn State administrators accused of covering up complaints about Jerry Sandusky lost a set of rulings Tuesday, allowing their criminal cases to move forward. Judge Barry Feudale denied an attempt to throw out the grand jury report backing up the accusations and ruled against two other defense requests. As the judge who oversaw the grand jury, Feudale said he no longer has jurisdiction. Feudale said he would not have granted the defendants' request that the charges be thrown out and emphasized that the case was out of his hands once the grand jury issued its report. But the...

The Nevin Shapiro-Miami-NCAA controversy has created a new storyline in the NCAA sanctions of Penn State, with a fired NCAA investigator proclaiming the NCAA didn't impose anything against the university and that Penn State president Rodney Erickson "sold the school down the river." Earlier today, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel posted information about several emails between former NCAA investigator Ameen Najjar and Shapiro included in the bankruptcy case of Shapiro, the man imprisoned for a Ponzi scheme and charged by the NCAA with providing illicit benefits to University of Miami athletes. Amongst details about the NCAA's investigation of Shapiro was one...

After 14 months of focusing on Joe Paterno and PSU's alleged failures, when Ziegler attempts to finally defend Paterno, the media shifts their focus to the real culprit of the scandal -- Jerry Sandusky. Also, not testifying at trial is the new standard of guilt in America. If you had any false hopes that the media would be willing to give Joe Paterno and PSU a fair hearing about the Sandusky Scandal, yesterday should have crushed those hopes. John Ziegler appeared on The Today Show and on CNN's Piers Morgan. He also did several radio and phone interviews, of which...

Jerry Sandusky says that if Penn State coach Joe Paterno "absolutely thought" he was a pedophile, he would not have let him coach. "If he had a suspicion, I don't know the answer to that," he says. He made the statement in the course of 3.5 hours of telephone interviews with filmmaker John Ziegler, who is making a documentary in defense of Paterno; it's the first interview Sandusky has given since he began serving his sentence, and portions of the conversation aired on the Today show this morning. More:   On witness and former assistant coach Mike McQueary: "I don't...

<p>Some vocal alumni had called on university leadership to release itemized costs, in part to promote transparency....</p> <p>Those critics had also asked the university to release the letter of agreement, or "engagement letter" with Freeh, that outlined the scope and responsibilities of the former FBI director in leading the internal investigation into the scandal....</p>

STATE COLLEGE — Penn State trustee Paul Suhey admits relieving Joe Paterno of his head coaching duties in November 2011 over a late-night phone call was not the right tact. Stephanie Deviney, another trustee, is certain the whole board feels that way. “We apologize, we screwed it up as far as how we delivered the message,” Suhey said Friday in an interview. “Our decision, we’re not going to go back on. But we messed that up big time. “People are still so hurt by that, and you know, damn it, we screwed it up.” The Paterno decision will go down...

Burn Penn State to the ground. Salt the earth. Dig up Joe and burn HIM. This is the weekend where you can say anything about Penn State and it won't bother me. But do me two favors. Watch the documentary (or at least the promo) linked, and donate to Thon - OR YOUR local pediatric cancer charity. Since 1977, THON has donated over $89 Million to it's sole beneficiary - the Four Diamonds Fund/Hershey Medical Center. Over 96% of the take actually goes For The Kids. It is the largest student run philanthropy in the world. Why We Dance -...

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...

A report commissioned by Joe Paterno's family calls the July 2012 Freeh report that was accepted by Penn State trustees before unprecedented sanctions were levied by the NCAA against the school's football program a "total failure" that is "full of fallacies, unsupported personal opinions, false allegations and biased assertions." The Paterno family report, which targets nearly every conclusion and assertion the Freeh report made about Paterno in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, states that while former FBI director Louis J. Freeh has had an honorable past and good reputation, his investigation -- especially as it...