by Mike Agovino Executive Producer
Mike gave me this summary of “With the Benefit of Hindsight” to prepare for the show. With so much information to cover, Mike was okay with this being shared. – Jim
I had been a fan of John Ziegler from his work on The John and Ken Show at KFI Radio years ago. I had wondered what had happened to Ziegler since I hadn’t heard him on-air for a number of years. I remembered Ziegler as this fearless reporter who would do anything to get the story. He was tough, he was brash, he was antagonizing, he was rude and at times inappropriate, but his reporting was outstanding.
I walked into this meeting knowing only that Ziegler claimed to have proof that Jerry Sandusky, the convicted pedophile from Penn State, was an innocent man and that he wanted to tell his story as a podcast. I sat for three hours listening to John share his experiences and the evidence gathered during his eight-year investigation into the case and his conviction could not have been stronger. As I took in everything I became convinced that he was convinced. My sales mentor Bob McCurdy used to tell me that, “A prospects conviction will match your conviction”, by the end of the meeting I knew John believed very deeply in what he was telling me. I needed time to do some of my own digging.
I took the time to read, listen and watch much of the original coverage of the case. I read Ziegler’s blog posts, watched his mini-documentary, The Framing of Joe Paterno and read the book, The Most Hated Man In America by Mark Pendergrast. I also watched the HBO film Paterno and a documentary called Happy Valley.
Being a podcast junkie I was impressed to learn that prolific journalist and podcaster Malcolm Gladwell had devoted a chapter of his latest book, Talking to Strangers, to the Penn State story focusing heavily on Ziegler’s work. I know how meticulous Gladwell is and his validation of Ziegler’s investigative work carried a lot of weight with me.
I met up with John again and this time I was prepared to ask him some specific questions…
Why would Penn State fire Joe Paterno, their beloved coach of nearly 50 years, if they weren’t certain this was all true?
Why would Penn State pay settlements to such a large number of victims if their stories were untrue?
How could there be this many accusers and it not be true?
…John’s answers to these questions and numerous others convinced me that his story needed to be told.
This story can’t be told in eight one-hour episodes like so many true crime series. This story is far more complex and the burden of proof is much, much higher. Therefore, we didn’t want to leave anything for chance so we are leaving nothing out. We take you on a journey that begins day one through the first person account of John Ziegler, a man who has lived it every day for nearly a decade.
Ziegler and his family have endured much pain and ridicule throughout his quest for answers. John is a rare breed of journalist by today’s standards. He steadfastly refuses to go along to get along and refuses to accept his role as anything other than truth seeker. This approach can threaten people with things to hide and his persistence has cost him his career.
Joe Paterno famously said, “With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.” Many news accounts of what Joe said left out the first piece and merely repeated the latter, “I wish I had done more”, declaring it a confession of sorts. We don’t believe that was Joe’s intent at all so we’ve adopted the former piece of his statement, “with the benefit of hindsight”, as the title of our podcast series. This is particularly apropos because we’ve had the benefit of nearly a decade worth of hindsight to review the evidence, investigate the accuser stories, build an understanding of who Jerry Sandusky is and analyze the motivations of Penn State’s Board of Trustees, state prosecutors, the police, lawyers, therapists, accusers and the media.
This will sound as crazy to you as it did to me the first time I heard it but Jerry Sandusky never abused any child and Joe Paterno and the Penn State administrators never covered up any crimes. The entire case is an egregiously frightening example of what can happen when we are stripped of our due process rights. There is an enormous delta between a doctrine that says, “Take all allegations seriously” and one that says, “Believe all accusers.”
Journalism has been reduced to polar narratives and the media are required to shape stories to conform to the narrative pole of their affiliated outlet. It’s a competition for audience not a quest for truth. The Penn State scandal was one of the first major stories contorted to fit this new paradigm. The media instantly went for the clicks generated from a juicy narrative like this one; the fall from grace of a legendary coach and the corruption of an elite athletic program that would cover up the crimes of a serial pedophile to protect its prized reputation. The waters of public opinion were polluted by a relentless media onslaught and a moral panic ensued that capsized and drowned the truth.
We have resuscitated the truth and are proud to bring it to you in 2021. Here’s a summary of what you can expect to learn from With the Benefit of Hindsight.
With The Benefit Of Hindsight: Summary
On November 5, 2011 Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly made a stunning announcement. Former Penn State defensive coach Jerry Sandusky (retired 1999) had been indicted on child sexual abuse charges. A university, a city, a state and a nation collectively gasped when she read this passage from the grand jury presentment referring to the eyewitness testimony of a graduate assistant,
“He saw a naked boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky. The next morning, a Saturday, the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno and went to Paterno’s home where he reported what he had seen”.
The Paterno to which the Attorney General referred was legendary Penn State coach Joe Paterno. Joe Paterno lead Penn State’s football team for nearly half a century accumulating an NCAA record for victories, five undefeated seasons and two national championships along the way. Beyond these tremendous on-field accomplishments, Paterno was perhaps best known as a “throw back”, an old time disciplinarian who had done it the right way. He graduated 95% of his players and the program was one of only two NCAA Division I schools without an NCAA violation. In fact, Paterno’s “classroom first” mentality often put him at odds with NCAA officials.
Paterno was from a different era, an era where players couldn’t earn millions of dollars playing in the NFL. His focus was on developing his players as men and preparing them for the real world. One of his greatest players, NFL Hall of Famer Franco Harris, appreciates most what Joe did to prepare him to earn a living and function honorably off the gridiron. “Joe always reminded me, ‘you represent Penn State, no matter where you go or what you do you represent Penn State’. The responsibility I carry to represent my university with honor and integrity has stayed with me my entire life.”
The Presentment alleged that Sandusky committed various acts of abuse on at least 8 victims and that key Penn State Administrators were aware of Sandusky’s crimes and intentionally covered them up for more than a decade. The supposed intent of the cover up was to avoid negative publicity that could damage the football program and the university.
Avoiding negative publicity had never part of Joe’s mode of operation. Just a year earlier Paterno had created an avalanche of negative publicity by defending one of his players, Quarterback Rashard Casey who had been accused of an assault on an off-duty police officer. In the end no charges were filed against Casey and Paterno was vindicated for taking a stand on his behalf. Ironically, Penn State President Graham Spanier said at the time, “Joe Paterno has always stood for integrity in intercollegiate athletics and I know this will always be the case.”
Paterno released his own statement shortly after the presentment was read stating, “he (referring to the graduate assistant) at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the Grand Jury report”.
President Spanier held a press conference strongly supporting his administration and cautioning both the media and the public to please suspend judgment until all the facts of the case were available. None of that would matter.
A few days later the national media and the public would be asking why Paterno hadn’t done more to stop Sandusky. The media drove the message and the messaging created a moral panic. Within just a few days not only was Jerry Sandusky convicted in the court of public opinion but so too were Paterno, Spanier, Vice President Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Tim Curley.
This case was not unlike some we’ve witnessed in more recent years. Allegations are made, the media moves quickly to confirm the story of the accuser(s) and a narrative is born. The news cycle is then flooded with anecdotes, biased accounts and unsubstantiated source material collectively cementing the public perception. All this occurs without any semblance of due process provided to the accused. The Duke University lacrosse team scandal and the McMartin Pre-school cases come immediately to mind.
Today, whether you work for a legacy newspaper, an online publisher, a TV network, cable news channel or most any source of news content your job is to deliver ratings because ratings equal revenue. The more listens, views, downloads, streams, clicks, shares, likes, re-tweets etc. your story delivers the more money you and your employer rake in. The fall from grace of the iconic Paterno, a “fraud that enabled a serial child predator for years”, was a juicy narrative that drove the news cycle for months.
With this kind of public panic speed wins and accuracy loses. Advertisers don’t ask CNN or Fox what percentage of their stories are accurate, they ask how many people viewed them and they compensate based upon those numbers. The Penn State Scandal may well be the most powerful example ever of media manipulation.
The scandal became public when the results of a three-year grand jury investigation produced an indictment against Penn State’s former defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky had grown up in Pennsylvania, played football at Penn State and become a coach later on. He coached for more than twenty years with Joe Paterno and while they enjoyed much success, including two national championships, they were not close friends. It was a coaching marriage but the marriage had its issues.
The discord between Paterno and Sandusky primarily had to do with Sandusky’s dedication to his charity, The Second Mile. Paterno believed Sandusky spent too much time with The Second Mile and not enough on his coaching responsibilities. Paterno’s ire toward Sandusky grew to the point that coach informed Sandusky in early 1998 that he would not be Joe’s choice to replace him when he retired.
Jerry Sandusky founded the Second Mile in 1979. It was a tribute to Jerry’s father Art Sandusky. Art, the son of polish immigrants who’d settled in Washington, Pennsylvania, made his living as a trolley conductor. However, when the town’s recreation center was burnt down he was asked if he’d like to rebuild it and take residence in it. Art rebuilt Brownson House and Jerry grew up in the rec center spending his days playing sports and coaching younger kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. Jerry vowed to continue Art’s legacy of working with underprivileged kids.
For nearly 20 years there had not been a single complaint of any kind lodged against Sandusky or The Second Mile. The Second Mile had actually been one of George H.W. Bush’s “thousand points of light” during his presidential run. By the late 90’s The Second Mile was supporting tens of thousands of underprivileged Pennsylvania kids annually through its various sports camps and other activities.
Bruce Heim is a successful real estate developer from the area. Bruce was a major financial sponsor of The Second Mile. In a recent interview with us Bruce shared that “Jerry’s love and care for kids was very real” and “The Second Mile operated under very specific protocols, for instance, none of the adults ever travelled with kids one on one and background checks were conducted on each staff member annually.” TSM was, in fact, investigated by five separate government agencies in the wake of the scandal and not a single act of malfeasance was identified by any of them.
Astonishingly, for nearly twenty years and tens of thousands of kids that had come through only two complaints had ever been filed against Jerry Sandusky. It’s even more astonishing when you consider that both of those complaints, which came ten years apart from one another, were actually filed by mothers without any corroboration from their kids.
The initial complaints against Sandusky came from two mothers not the boys who were allegedly abused. In fact, each of the boys told investigators at the time that nothing had happened. The first complaint was filed back in 1998 and the other in 2008.
In the ‘98 case a boy named Zach Konstas came home with wet hair following a workout with Sandusky. Zach explained to his mother that his hair was wet because he had showered up with Sandusky after the workout. Nothing sexual had happened but the mother was concerned that Sandusky had lifted the boy up to the shower to rinse his hair. Debra McCord went to Penn State Police and eventually Child Youth Services with her concerns. An investigation was conducted and a few weeks later the case was ruled “unfounded” meaning the DA found there was no evidence to support charging Sandusky with a crime. State law called for the record to be “expunged” within the next year meaning any record on file would be destroyed. Not long after the “unfounded” ruling McCord approved the resumption of normal activities for Zach with The Second Mile. She and Zach resumed a relationship with Sandusky that continued for years with no signs of any ongoing concern.
The 2008 case involved a troubled youth with a long history of behavioral problems named Aaron Fisher. Sandusky had seen tremendous athletic talent in Fisher who was both a track and wrestling standout. He had taken Fisher under his wing with the goal of improving his schoolwork and behavior so that he might parlay his athletic skills into a college scholarship. Fisher had been a part of TSM for several years when he began to rebel against Jerry’s involvement. He was 14 now and decided he preferred girls, parties and alcohol to the kinds of activities that went on at The Second Mile. He was pulling away from Sandusky.
The genesis of the Fisher complaint was a particular weekend in 2008. Aaron was scheduled to attend TSM with Jerry but Aaron preferred to stay home and be with his friends. In an effort to get out of going he told his mother that Jerry made him “feel weird”.
When pressed for details Aaron explained that Jerry made him “uncomfortable”, he would grab Aaron’s knee when they were in the car together and put his arm around Aaron’s shoulder when they walked together.
The next-door neighbor, Josh Fravel, witnessed this exchange between Aaron and his mother, Dawn Daniels play out in front of their townhome. They both went inside where the discussion intensified and Dawn emerged twenty minutes or so later, approached Fravel and told him, “I’m going own that mother fucker’s house,” referring to Sandusky.
Jerry had been holding Aaron accountable for a recent drop off in the quality of his schoolwork and challenging him to keep his priorities in order. Aaron was looking for a way to get out of a weekend visit and to get Jerry off his back not to file an abuse complaint. Dawn Daniel’s had a different plan. Daniels filed an abuse complaint against Sandusky with Aaron’s school.
Sandusky had been volunteering at the school (Central Mountain High School in Mill Hall, PA) as an assistant football coach. School administrators were well aware of Sandusky’s reputation and appreciative of the positive impact he was having on a number of kids in the school. They were equally aware of Aaron’s history of behavioral problems and habitual lying. Their investigation found no evidence to support his mother’s allegations. They urged Dawn Daniels to drop the claim.
Undaunted, she notified a friend at Child Youth Services who in-turn pressured the school to bring CYS in to investigate. CYS caseworker Jessica Dershem and therapist Mike Gillum interviewed Aaron. Even though Aaron denied Jerry had abused him, Dershem and Gillum felt like something had happened with Aaron. Therefore, CYS determined the case to be “founded”. The police were notified and an investigation was initiated. This was the key event that started the ball rolling against Sandusky.
We’ve learned a lot about Dawn Daniels, Aaron Fisher and their family since the filing of the complaint back in 2008. Dawn’s brother D.J. had been abused years earlier but never awarded any compensated in the famous Dr. Barry Bender case. Dawn’s second husband, Eric Daniels pleaded guilty to 100 counts of abuse a few years after their divorce and is now in a Georgia prison.
Dawn was mother to three kids, each with a different father. She was struggling, living in welfare housing and barely able to feed her kids. She had witnessed first hand how the system worked. She was prepared to take action when Aaron made his comment about Jerry making him “feel weird”.
Ziegler has interviewed a number of Aaron Fisher’s high school friends as well as Fisher’s ex-girlfriends none of whom believe his story. His ex-wife believes he was actually abused but that the abuse came from his incarcerated former stepfather Eric Daniels. This might better explain why Dershem and Gillum both felt Aaron had been abused.
With the help of continual visits to therapist Mike Gillum, Fisher’s story evolved over time and eventually he claimed he had been abused by Sandusky.
With Fisher now claiming abuse the state empanelled a grand jury and began it’s investigation into Sandusky. The effort to get an indictment against Sandusky required credible testimony from Aaron Fisher. Aaron was a terrible witness and repeatedly broke down during questioning. He was so bad that in his third attempt to testify an exception was made allowing him to read a prepared statement written by his attorney Andrew Shubin. With Fisher’s testimony now locked in investigators began seeking out additional accusers.
From 2009 through late 2010 police questioned over 600 former Second Mile kids about their interactions with Sandusky. Not a single Second Miler claimed anything inappropriate had ever occurred. Investigators became increasingly frustrated as hundreds of men recalled their younger days in The Second Mile fondly and Jerry as a caring and devoted man who had made a difference in their lives.
Emails admitted into discovery show just how frustrated the Attorney General’s office was at their lack of progress. The state was exhausted and they were preparing to drop the case against Sandusky. However, within just days two things happened that changed everything…
…Investigators discovered the records (that should have been expunged) pertaining to the 1998 incident in Penn State files, and
…They received an anonymous tip that Penn State coach Mike McQueary may have seen Sandusky with a boy in a Penn State shower years earlier.
I remember believing the case against Sandusky was overwhelming. There were mounds of evidence against this guy. The truth is it was a case with almost no evidence!
Uncovering records of the 1998 case should not have mattered. The complaint was ruled “unfounded” and was to have been “expunged”. Instead of 1998 being seen as an example of Sandusky’s paternal nature and reason to doubt the claims of Aaron Fisher, it was viewed just the opposite and portrayed nefariously to the public.
Mike McQueary was the only eyewitness to an incident involving Sandusky. The Attorney General told us in the presentment that McQueary witnessed Jerry Sandusky having anal sex with a 10 year-old boy in a Penn State shower. The entire case hinged on McQueary’s testimony and perceived credibility.
At the time of the infamous “boy in the shower” incident Mike McQueary was unsure of exactly what he had witnessed. He told five different people at the time what he had seen. Those people were his father John McQueary, family friend Dr. Jonathan Dranov, Joe Paterno, Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz.
Each and every one of these people, including his own father, testified that Mike did not tell them he witnessed sexual abuse or a sexual act! He told five people at the time and each, including his own father, confirmed that he did not claim to have witnessed a sexual act. This is consistent with the fact that he took no action in the moment despite being thirty-some years younger than Sandusky and very fit 6’ 4” 225lbs.
Instead of stopping the abuse, physically restraining Sandusky or dialing 911, McQueary decided to phone his father and drive home. His father’s friend, Dr. Jonathan Dranov joined them. Dranov was a mandatory reporter meaning if he became aware of any kind of child abuse he was required by law to inform the police. The fact that neither Dranov nor John McQueary contacted the police is further evidence that Mike did not claim to have witnessed any kind of sexual act. Dranov testified to the grand jury and again at Sandusky’s trial that he asked Mike McQueary three separate times whether he had seen anything sexual and each time McQueary told him “no”. This explains why his father and Dranov advised Mike to go see Joe Paterno rather than going to the police themselves.
According to Sue Paterno, Joe’s widow, the meeting between McQueary and her husband lasted just a few minutes and according to both Tim Curley and Gary Schultz when Paterno first passed on what McQueary had told him, he described it as “horseplay” and “inappropriate”. Both Curley and Schultz claim that when they met with McQueary privately days later the graduate student described hearing things more than seeing anything and again used the word “inappropriate.”
Contrast the reality that McQueary told all five people he spoke directly with at the time that he did not see any kind of sex act with the language in the grand jury presentment claiming he witnessed “Jerry Sandusky having anal intercourse with a boy” and it’s easy to see how the media and the public got duped in this case.
How could a story appearing in a government document contain such a critical misrepresentation of the facts?
Either McQueary lied to police about what he had seen or prosecutors lied to the public about what McQueary told them he saw.
Regardless, the presentment drove the media and the media drove public outrage and panic ensued. These events purged all presumption of innocence from Jerry Sandusky and the Penn State Administrators. Five men who had been absolute pillars of the community for years and the government and the media publically decapitated them without any proper vetting of the evidence.
The Jon Dranov and John McQueary evidence alone should have been enough to debunk the theory of a Penn State cover up. Neither his father nor his father’s best friend backed up Mike’s version of events. Dranov was a mandated reporter. If he was told of a crime it was his duty to inform police. He did not inform police therefore he must not have been informed of a crime unless you believe that Dranov was also part to a cover up. The state never made any such claim.
Mike McQueary testified on numerous occasions that he was never asked by any member of university administration or by Joe Paterno to keep his story a secret. It’s hard to imagine a cover up scenario that doesn’t require the cooperation of the only witness.
Spanier, Curley and Schultz were all charged with child endangerment for not reporting the incident to police yet neither John McQueary nor Jon Dranov were ever charged with anything?
The state initially claimed that the McQueary incident occurred on March 1, 2002. This date was used in the Grand Jury Presentment. Prosecutors changed the date just before trial to February 9, 2001. They shifted the day, the month and the year of the incident and virtually no one in the media took notice. You would think that “when” an alleged crime took place would be an important piece of the evidence, yet no one in the media even batted an eye.
The date change to February 9, 2001 was based upon email evidence documenting the meeting between Joe Paterno and Mike McQueary actually occurred on February 10, 2001. This evidence was contained in a file maintained by Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz. Schultz had voluntarily submitted the file to prosecutors. The file contained printed emails from back in 2001 that chronicled the exchanges between Schultz, Spanier and Curley regarding the McQueary incident. These same emails, contributed by Schultz, would be used by the state later to “prove” that Schultz and the others participated in a cover up.
If there really was a cover up and Schultz’ personal file held the key evidence and Schultz was the only one aware of the file’s existence, do we really think he would have voluntarily provided it to prosecutors?
The date change really bothered Ziegler. It’s the kind of thing that should have raised eyebrows but didn’t. Following his instincts, Ziegler dug deep into the evidence and emerged convinced the second date of February 9, 2001 was also incorrect.
Circumstances surrounding the February 9, 2001 date did not match Mike McQueary’s description of campus the night of the incident. McQueary claimed campus was virtually deserted because it was the first Friday of spring break. He had become “inspired” watching the football movie, Rudy and decided to take a ride over to campus to pick up some recruiting films and drop off some new shoes in his locker.
February 9, 2001 turned out to have been an unbelievably busy night on Penn State’s campus. There was a Barenaked Ladies concert across the street from the Lasch building where the incident occurred and a home hockey game in the arena literally attached to Lasch. The concert was a sellout and about 1,000 people attended the hockey game. Parking would have been very limited and campus would have been alive and buzzing. This was nothing like the first night of spring break. This major discrepancy troubled Ziegler but other issues tied to the case prevented him from giving it greater focus at the time.
The singular focus of Ziegler’s investigation up to this point had been the alleged cover up. Growing up in Pennsylvania and having studied Joe Paterno’s career the allegations didn’t make any sense to him. Ziegler, like the rest of us, assumed Sandusky was guilty but he questioned whether a man like Paterno was capable of the crimes he’d been accused of.
An opportunity emerged for Ziegler to interview Sandusky in prison. While skeptical of Sandusky’s answers, Zig sensed that Jerry did not believe the February 9, 2001 date was accurate.
We recently interviewed former Penn State Vice President, Gary Schultz who took us through the sequence of events with McQueary back in 2001.
McQueary met with Paterno the morning of February 10. Paterno informed AD Tim Curley of his conversation with McQueary on that same day. There was no mention of any sex act merely “horse play”. Curley then set up a meeting with McQueary attended by both Curley and Schultz that occurred on either February 19th or 20th. During this meeting McQueary had been clear that he did not witness any kind of sex act but something “inappropriate”.
Schultz had a previously scheduled meeting with John McQueary and Dr. Dranov later that week on an unrelated matter. At the end of their scheduled meeting John McQueary and Dranov requested an update on the Sandusky investigation.
According to Sandusky trial transcripts both John McQueary and Dranov claimed that this meeting with Schultz occurred “months” after the shower incident, not less than two weeks after.
This date sequence discrepancy was troubling. It made a lot more sense that J. McQueary and Dranov would have been looking for an update “months” later rather than the same week they had met with Mike. Schultz’ calendar proved the meeting with Paterno happened on February 10, 2001 so the only way the date of the Schultz/J. McQueary/Dranov meeting could have been “months” after the incident was if the actual incident occurred months earlier than the revised date of February 9, 2001 given by prosecutors.
Ziegler requested a follow up phone meeting with Sandusky. He pressed Sandusky about the alleged incident and the date. Sandusky recalled that on that day he had taken a Second Miler with him back to his hometown of Washington, PA to attend a book signing for his new book, ironically entitled, Touched. The two drove back to State College afterward, caught a workout and showered. Jerry recalled the boy turning on all the showers and sliding across the entire shower area soaped up as they snapped towels at one another.
Newspaper accounts of the book signing documented that it had taken place on December 29, 2000. Sandusky recalled that this was also the day he learned that he’d been passed over for the University of Virginia head coach job. The UVA announcement date was easily corroborated.
December 29, 2000 made a lot more sense because it would have been over the Christmas holiday thus fitting McQueary’s description of a desolate campus. This date makes even more sense since Penn State did not qualify for a bowl game in 2000 meaning the football locker area would have been abandoned. This date also made sense of the meeting between Schultz, John McQueary and Dranov. February 22nd was “months” after December 29th. This new “date” evidence has been put through diligence and accepted as factual by many who’ve followed this case.
Prolific writer, Malcolm Gladwell adopted Ziegler’s date evidence as a cornerstone of his chapter vindicating Paterno, Schultz, Curley and Spanier in his 2019 book, Talking To Strangers. In the book Gladwell asserts that the behavior of state prosecutors in this case was shameful, Paterno, Schultz, Curley and Spanier behaved exactly as we want our leaders to behave and their reputations should be fully restored. He also concluded that the case against Sandusky is murky at best and should be revisited.
The date is critical to the case. If December 29, 2000 is the actual date then Mike McQueary could not have gone to see Joe Paterno the morning after the incident because we know he met with Paterno on February 10, 2001. McQueary actually waited six weeks before contacting Paterno. If McQueary truly believed he had witnessed some kind of sexual act why would he wait six weeks to tell Joe Paterno about it?
When McQueary finally did go see Paterno it was with an entirely different motive. McQueary’s actual motive was a job. Specifically, McQueary wanted to discuss the newly opened wide receiver coach position. Two days earlier wide receiver coach Kenny Jackson had resigned to join the Pittsburgh Steelers and Jackson’s departure left a void that McQueary coveted.
McQueary testified that when he first called Paterno Joe told him, “if this is about a job I don’t have one for you” and that Joe agreed to see him only after McQueary assured him it was about something else. Sue Paterno, Joe’s widow, was standing close by when the call came in and she claims, “That never happened”. She believes Mike only inquired about the position once he arrived at the house to meet with Joe. She also claimed that the meeting itself lasted only three minutes.
Going back to the alleged cover up. If Paterno were involved in or orchestrating some kind of cover up, wouldn’t giving McQueary this promotion have been a perfect way to reward him and insure his continued silence? McQueary did not get the job.
McQueary lied about what he had actually witnessed. The question is, why? Why would McQueary lie to police about what he saw and what he said he saw back in 2001?
McQueary had resumed a normal relationship with Sandusky following the incident and Sandusky had never been told who it was that saw him in the locker room that night. McQueary continued to participate in Second Mile golf tournaments and fundraisers with Jerry over the years. He had never spoken of the incident again to friends, family or other coaches. His actions over time suggested that he had moved on and decided whatever he had seen back in that locker room was not sexual.
Only when investigators came to see McQueary nearly ten years later did he change his “take” on things.
Why would McQueary recall the incident so differently in 2010 than he had described to people ten years prior? Maybe he didn’t see anything sexual at the time but that didn’t mean something sexual hadn’t occurred and now with actual victims coming forward maybe he felt more confident it was sexual. Maybe the police pressured him to embellish his story to make sure Sandusky got put away. Coming forward as a witness now would make him a hero. Maybe the police had some leverage they exerted forcing him into a new narrative?
It turns out Mike McQueary had lots of secrets. McQueary was cheating on his wife and texting naked photos to coeds. So proud was he of his “gifts” that he even sent one to Sandusky’s attorney’s girlfriend that we obtained. Additional evidence emerged linking McQueary to gambling on Penn State football games. The gambling evidence dated back to his playing days at Penn State. Video evidence supports that McQueary may have thrown a meaningless touchdown pass to cover a point spread in the final seconds of a 1995 game against Rutgers.
McQueary recounted his first meeting with investigators as something he’d long anticipated. He was certain one-day Sandusky would be caught and was eager to assist in any way he could.
The truth, however, as explained by his now ex-wife, is that it took nearly two weeks from the moment investigators first rang his front door bell until they meet face to face. It took that long for McQueary to hire an attorney to represent him and negotiate terms for the conversation with investigators.
Ziegler compared evidenced he’d compiled against McQueary with evidence gathered by ESPN reporter Ray Van Natta on a recorded call several years ago. At the time Van Natta planned to use the evidence in an article that was to appear in ESPN Magazine. ESPN brass subsequently decided to water down the piece so it went to print with the most damning evidence against McQueary deleted. ESPN had been one of many media outlets that destroyed Paterno and Sandusky. They had no need for any “new” evidence.
In the most benevolent interpretation; McQueary manufactured a new story to align with the narrative of the prosecution in order to send someone he believed was a child abuser to prison-the ends justify the means.
In a slightly darker version of events; McQueary was threatened into telling a story prosecutors needed told and promised that, in return, his troubles would vanish. In light of the extraordinary amount of prosecutorial misconduct throughout this case this possibility should not be discounted.
The Grand Jury Presentment was deliberately misleading in stating that McQueary reported seeing Sandusky having anal intercourse with a 10 year-old boy in Penn State showers on March 1, 2002. While McQueary was apparently on-board to embellish his story, he never went so far as to say what had been printed in the Presentment and he was angered by the actions of the state’s attorney.
McQueary became increasingly agitated when he realized that public opinion had turned on him. He’d become a goat rather than the hero he had signed up to be. McQueary was so angered at the time that he sent a now public email to State’s Attorney Janelle Eshbach stating that the OAG was misrepresenting his story, as he never said he saw anal sex. He explained that he intended to call a press conference in order to set the record straight. Eshbach responded acknowledging the inaccuracies in the presentment but sternly demanding, “you can’t do that” in regard to his desire to schedule a press conference.
Years later Eshbach testified in a Sandusky appeal hearing that her response to McQueary was based upon not wanting him to “damage or destroy her case”. In other words, she deliberately lied in the presentment with the intent of creating the exact type of media storm that helped her win the case.
Eshbach’s testimony is proof that prosecutors lied to the public in the presentment. Prosecutors may truly have believed that Sandusky was guilty, that they were on the side of right and they had to stop the monster. This belief, a belief not supported by any actual evidence, lead them to not just bend rules but to twist them like a pretzel.
Eshbach, herself a huge Penn State fan, had deduced that Sandusky must be guilty because he had retired so early. She tied his retirement at the end of the 1999 season to the 1998 incident that was ruled “unfounded”. In her mind 1998 marked the beginning of the cover up. Penn State administrators had somehow influenced the “unfounded” ruling and then move swiftly to push Sandusky out. One major problem with this theory is the fact that the ’98 complaint came well before football season so under her theory Penn State knew they had a pedophile and chose to allow him to coach both the ’98 and ’99 seasons before announcing his retirement. There’s no way they would have allowed him to coach two additional seasons if they were forcing him out.
Prosecutors manipulated the grand jury process to their advantage. The state used the secretive, anonymous nature of the grand jury to stack the deck against a defendant they had virtually no evidence against. Sandusky had no knowledge of any accuser other than Aaron Fisher. When the indictment came down and included 8 separate claims, Sandusky and his lawyers were in shock. No claim was more shocking than the one involving Mike McQueary and the boy in the shower.
The prosecution had no actual victim for the shower incident. They claimed to be looking for the victim and asked the public to provide any information they could to help locate him.
After reading the Presentment and watching subsequent news reports former Second Miler and U.S. Marine Allan Myers realized that he was “the boy in the shower”. Myers had remained in close touch with the Sandusky’s over the years. Jerry had been a father figure to Allan. Jerry walked as Allan’s “father” at his high school senior night, he gave the commencement speech at Allan’s graduation, the Sanduskys had attended Allan’s wedding and Myers had driven 10+ hours to attend Sandusky’s mother’s funeral. Myers wasn’t just a Second Mile alum-he was family.
Upon realizing that he was the boy in the incident Myers proactively visited Sandusky’s attorney Joe Amendola. Myers gave a sworn statement identifying himself as the boy with Sandusky in the shower that night. He had not been abused that day or ever by Sandusky. Prior to realizing that he would specifically be involved in the case Myers had written a letter to a local newspaper and another to the AG’s office stating that what was being reported in the paper was untrue and that Sandusky never abused anyone.
Detectives interviewed Myers back in September of 2011. At the time, he assured them that Jerry Sandusky was innocent. When they applied pressure he accused them of trying to get him to lie and asked them to leave.
Myers was set to be the defense’s star witness. The defense was confident the prosecution’s entire case would be discredited by the testimony of Myers. The defense also believed that multiple other “victims” were likely to change their stories at or before trial and admit that they had been coerced into lying. Joe Amendola proudly announced to Bob Costas in an interview that he had found “the boy in the shower” and he says, “nothing happened”.
Allan Myers liked to drink and sometimes when he drank he’d get behind the wheel of a car. Myers hired local DUI lawyer Andrew Shubin to defend his DUI case. Myer’s mother had worked for Shubin and Shubin represented a large number of victims in the case.
Just before the Sandusky trial was to begin prosecutor Joe McGettigan contacted Joe Amendola to inform him that Allan Myers was going to be a witness for the prosecution. Myers had changed his story and now claimed to be a victim. Myers didn’t say at the time exactly what it was that Jerry had supposedly done to him but he didn’t have to. The defense became too scared to put Myers on the witness stand and ended up agreeing with prosecutors that neither side would call Myers as a witness at trial.
Andrew Shubin likely convinced Myers to change his story. If Sandusky was going to be convicted no matter what Allan had to say it would be far better for Myers and his family to be on the right side of this thing. In other words, Sandusky is going down and you can either be one of the fools defending him or among the soon to be rich accusing him. Myers went along with this on the condition that he wouldn’t have to testify and prosecutors bluffed Sandusky’s novice attorney into agreement. Shubin actually took Myers to a secret location during the trial so he could not be called as a witness.
Shubin represented nine “victims” in this case and likely collected somewhere between $15-20m in contingency fees. The attorney had a very large incentive to make sure Allan Myers changed his story.
Shubin’s integrity was tested when a former Second Miler approached him pretending to be a victim of Sandusky. This “victim” created an absurdly fictitious story about being raped by Sandusky in the park area immediately behind Joe Paterno’s house. In his second meeting with the “victim”, while being recorded, Shubin read back a new story he had personally written changing the entire story and the location of the attack to the Penn State showers. Shubin knew Penn State’s liability was tied to events that happened on campus and he was more than happy to “adjust” this “victim’s” story for a better payday.
The fake accuser, AJ Dillon, recorded with permission hours of discussion he had Shubin and other critical figures in this case. These recordings clearly illustrate the methods used by lawyers, therapists, “victims” and even a member of the Penn State Board to commit widespread fraud and game the system.
Sandusky was actually found innocent of the more serious abuse charges related to the McQueary incident. The story that ignited the entire moral panic, “the boy in the shower”, was not a crime for which Sandusky was convicted. Ultimately the state had no victim as they had agreed not to put Allan Myers on the stand and the jury decided that McQueary’s various versions of the story were not credible. McQueary was the only eyewitness in this entire case and the jury decided he wasn’t honest. Somehow the understanding that McQueary had been untruthful didn’t create skepticism as to the veracity of the others that testified.
The Penn State Board of Trustees played a significantly misunderstood role in this case. It was the decisions made by the Penn State Board that week in November 2011 that removed any remaining seed of doubt as to Sandusky and the Administrator’s guilt. The board’s decision to fire Joe Paterno and Graham Spanier cemented for good the narrative of the prosecutors and the media.
Tom Corbett and John Surma led the decision-making at the Board of Trustees. Corbett was Attorney General when the investigation into Sandusky began and had since become Pennsylvania Governor. In effect, this was the Governor’s case. John Surma was the CEO of US Steel and Vice Chair of the Board. Each man had significant influence and each had scores to settle.
Tom Corbett had been angered by Spanier’s apparent favoritism toward his opponent during the 2010 gubernatorial campaign and he’d lost a public feud with Spanier over millions in state funding for Penn State. Corbett wanted to get Spanier.
Surma had been leading the charge to fire Paterno for years. Penn state struggled in the early 00’s and Surma was one of many that thought Paterno was no longer fit to lead the team. Surma had lost that battle and had a personal grudge as well stemming from what he perceived as Paterno’s role in his nephew’s departure from the football team and subsequent drug overdose.
Corbett and Surma had the means, motive and opportunity to manipulate board members and control decision-making during that critical week in November 2011.
The fact that the Governor of the state and former Attorney General, who had filed the original charges, was influencing the decisions of the Board during this time represented a major conflict of interest. Corbett should never have been involved. Yet it was Corbett who told the Board of Trustees, “We must remember that ten year old boy” as he pressured members to concede to terminating both Paterno and Spanier.
We have interviewed board members Al Lord and Bob Capretto both of which provided fascinating insight as to what transpired inside the boardroom that week in November 2011. There was no actual vote taken it was more of a coup with the Governor and Surma taking over.
Sandusky as well as Paterno, Spanier, Curley and Schultz were assassinated by the combination of the lies in the presentment and the media coverage surrounding it. The narrative had been sold in…Sandusky was a serial pedophile and the Penn State administrators had covered it up for over a decade to protect their precious football program. The national press had descended upon Penn State and they were calling for blood. The board had no evidence other than what they read in the presentment and watched in the media coverage.
To complicate matters worse, Penn State was scheduled to play Nebraska in a nationally televised home game that Saturday. Corbett and Surma advised the Board that it would not be good for the university to have a “pedophile protector” on the sidelines coaching the team that Saturday. So, with the charge being led by Corbett and Surma and with Paterno’s board supporters silenced, they decided to fire Paterno and Spanier. Everything changed after that.
The Paterno and Spanier firings amounted to a guilty plea. After all, Penn State would never fire their legendary coach and highly respected president unless they were certain of their guilt. Yet, in reality, the Board knew no more than any of us did.
Many pieces of this story appear to fall in line with the narrative but are actually upside down or counter-intuitive. For instance, we learned that Penn State paid out over $130m to “victims”. These payments further cemented the belief that Sandusky and the Administrators were guilty. If they were innocent why would the university have settled with phony accusers?
Once the Board fired Paterno and Spanier, Penn State actually needed this story to be true!!
Once the Board fired Paterno and Spanier they had a vested interest in the narrative being true. If the story were not true then the Board had just presided over a modern day witch trial where they lynched the winningest coach in NCAA history, one of the most respected university presidents in the country and two other executives with pristine reputations. The moral injustice would be unprecedented…they had to be guilty.
The board’s decision was the decisive blow in ruining the lives of Paterno, Spanier, Schultz and Curley. The cost to the university if found negligent in these terminations, would have made the payouts to the “victims” look small. Additionally, the Governor would have been ruined along with some of the richest men in Pennsylvania who also sat on the Board of Trustees.
By the end of that week in November 2011, the prosecution, the university’s Board of Trustees, the media and the “victims”- ARE ALL ON THE SAME SIDE! THEY ALL NEED THIS STORY TO BE TRUE!
This was a “perfect storm”. A unique convergence of circumstances and self-interest had occurred. Everyone that benefitted from Corbett, Surma and the BOT, to state government, to “victims”, to lawyers, to therapists, to the media, were now deeply invested together in this twisted version of events.
The Sandusky trial was a farce. Sandusky was indicted in November of 2011 and his trial was already taking place by June of 2012. The state moved this case through the system at light speed. When the defense pressed for a continuance in order to review the vast amount of discovery material they were denied. When Joe Amendola tried to resign from the case he was denied. He had three weeks to review 1700 boxes worth of evidence.
Prosecutors had gone on an all out scavenger hunt dangling Penn State’s money fishing for “victims” to come forward. Police pressured, threatened and lied to these former Second Milers trying to get them to admit they were abused by Sandusky. By trial they had successfully recruited two more “victims” and now had ten reported incidents.
These “victims” were…
#1-Aaron Fisher who became a victim via his mother’s get rich quick scheme who had recovered memories of his abuse with the help of therapist Mike Gillum. His story had constantly changed, he had a reputation as a liar and there was no evidence supporting any of his claims. None of his friends, classmates or ex-girlfriends believed him. The administrators from his school who’d been dealing with his lies and behavioral problems for years knew he was lying.
#2-The nameless “boy in the shower” we now know to have been Allan Myers. Myers gave testimony to Amendola claiming Jerry was his “father figure” and never abused Allan or any other Second Mile kid. Allan knew Jerry was innocent but became convinced by Andrew Shubin he should go for the payday.
#3- Jason Simcisko. Simcisko had been approached by police in July of 2011 and told them that he believed in Jerry and that all of the other victims were lying. He was able to recover lost memories with the help of repressed memory therapy and the lawyer Andrew Shubin. Simcisko had told a pretty benign story at trial so Ziegler was shocked to learn he had been awarded a huge settlement. Upon further investigation Ziegler learned that Simcisko’s attorney, Andrew Shubin had submitted an entirely different story to officials negotiating the settlements than what Simcisko had testified to at trial.
#4- Brett Houtz. Houtz had initially told police nothing happened with Sandusky and then later that he had been abused once. He would later change his story again and become the prosecution’s star witness. By trial he now claimed that Jerry forced him into oral sex over 100 times and that Dottie Sandusky had walked in on them during a bowl trip. His therapist had helped him uncover memories that had been lost. A recording of police detectives and Houtz’ attorney collaborating to pressure him into claiming abuse during an interview was played for the jury at trial. After the jury listened to the tape the judge instructed them to “disregard the misconduct of the police” and focus on the victim’s.
#5- Michal Kajak. Kajak was the only “victim” to ever claim that Sandusky had abused him the first time they met. He claimed that he did not report the abuse in 1998 when he was ten years old because “he didn’t know what an erection was”. He later changed the timing and location of his story now claiming the abuse took place in the Penn State showers in 2001 and then during the same testimony he changed it again to 2002. If true, he would have been 14 years old in 2002 and likely would have known what an erection was.
The dates of Kajak’s story were likely altered to appease prosecutors. The prosecution needed at least one victim to have been abused on Penn State Campus after the date they provided for the McQueary incident (February 9, 2001). Prosecutors needed this to “prove” that the administrator’s failure to take action following the McQueary incident had enabled Sandusky to continue his abuse thus endangering many more kids.
#6-Zach Konstas. Zach, the boy from the “unfounded” 1998 incident, became convinced through therapy that Jerry had been “grooming” him for abuse.
#7-Justin Struble. Struble was a friend of Zach’s who was recruited by Zach’s mother, Debra McCord to make a claim. Struble, Zach, Brett Houtz and Michal Kajak were all friends. Sandusky had 60,000 kids annually in Second Mile to choose from but instead chose to abuse 4 friends? Struble came to truly believe he was abused and credited years of repressed memory therapy with helping him “unlock hidden memories”.
#8-Perhaps the most unbelievable of all. Penn State janitor Ron Petrosky came forward and reported that sometime in 2000 he was working with another janitor named Jim Calhoun. Petrosky claimed Calhoun witnessed Sandusky performing oral sex on a teenager in a Penn State locker room. Prosecutors claimed Calhoun suffered from dementia and was therefore unable to testify. They persuaded the judge to allow Petrofsky’s hearsay testimony as to what Calhoun witnessed under some obscure “excited utterance” rule.
We would later uncover that a recording of a police interview with Calhoun had been made a year before the trial. In this recording Calhoun stated to police three separate times that the man he saw was NOT Sandusky. The prosecution never acknowledged the existence of this tape and never produced any official medical documents declaring Calhoun incompetent to testify. Sandusky was found guilty on 5 counts based upon Petrofsky’s testimony.
#9-Sebastian Paden. Paden claimed to have been a prisoner in Sandusky’s home for over 100 weekends during which he would be deprived of food and forced into anal sex in Sandusky’s “sound proof” basement. This continued until he was 15 years old yet he kept going back each weekend? Sandusky’s basement was not sound proof. Paden’s abuse was to have occurred during the same period Aaron Fisher was being abused with each telling stories about staying over Sandusky’s house “every weekend” yet the two had never met one another. Paden attended a Penn State game with Sandusky in September of 2011. Just two months before Sandusky’s arrest this man who was supposedly brutally raped over 100 times by Sandusky goes to a game with him? Paden scored the largest settlement of $20m.
#10 Ryan Rittemayer. Rittemayer claimed to have been abused by Sandusky who forced him to take drugs. No other victim had reported Sandusky providing drugs or alcohol and Sandusky himself does not drink or smoke. He claimed to have been abused in a silver convertible. Sandusky had never owned a silver convertible. Jerry Sandusky had never even met Ryan Rittemayer.
Consider this…
None of these “victims” had reported any crime to anyone prior to being solicited by police.
None of the “victims” had claimed abuse in their initial conversation with police.
None of the “victims” had made any contemporaneous report of any kind. None of these victims had told any friends or relatives about their abuse prior to the investigation.
Four of the “victims” were buddies but had never told each other anything about their abuse.
Many of these victims continued their participation in The Second Mile and continued their relationship with Sandusky long after their supposed abuse.
Victims 2, 3, 4, 6 and 9 all of whom were now well into their 20’s with families of their own had each visited Sandusky or gone to a ball game or a dinner with him in the months leading up to the indictments.
All of the victims had been to therapy and all had gone through “repressed memory therapy”. This controversial and debunked treatment assumes that people “block out” their most painful memories and that these memories can be “recovered”. If this were a real thing, which it is not, how could it magically manifest itself in most all of Sandusky’s victims?
Most of the victims signed contingency agreements with lawyers prior to the trial. The courtroom was filled with lawyers representing victims at Sandusky’s trial. The victims weren’t on trial, why did they need lawyers?
Sandusky, the most hated man in America who had supposedly been using his charity as the fertile hunting ground for his voracious sexual appetite, owned no pornography. Searches of his home, office, computers and storage facility yielded not a single piece of pornography. That didn’t stop prosecutors who claimed they “found pictures of the boys” in Sandusky’s home. They did find pictures of some of the boys in Sandusky’s home; those pictures were with Jerry and others in frames hanging on walls, tables and the fireplace mantel.
Prosecutors found letters in Sandusky’s home; letters referred to by victim 4 as “creepy love letters” were distorted by prosecutors to make them appear nefarious. The letters were written by Sandusky to a good number of Second Mile kids. Often times a letter offered an incentive like a $1,000 scholarship in exchange for improved school results or some fitness goal. Sandusky communicated the depth of his commitment in these letters, sharing how much he cared and how important the individual boy was to him. Not once in any letter was there mention of a physical or sexual relationship. These were letters intended to motivate and inspire the boys. Sandusky saw himself as their surrogate father.
The incompetence of Sandusky’s defense counsel Joe Amendola was astounding. Amendola never challenged the testimony involving repressed memories even though this method had long been debunked.
Amendola amazingly neglected to present evidence from Jerry Sandusky’s medical records documenting his Hypo-gonadism. Sandusky had such severely low testosterone levels that he had what his Doctor described in 2004 as “virtually no testicular matter”. In other words, Sandusky has no balls. While this report is from 2004, which is more recent than some of the abuse claims, it is prior to the most egregious accusations from victims 4 and 9. Furthermore, this is not a condition that came on suddenly. Sandusky’s Low-T had been a challenge going all the way back to his 20’s and 30’s and was the reason he and Dottie could not produce children of their own.
The condition had worsened over the years. Sandusky was never prescribed any kind of erectile dysfunction medication making it very difficult to believe he was in any condition to exhibit the kind of sexual appetite dictated by the extent of the charges against him.
Sandusky’s condition would have been obvious to anyone who saw him naked. Curiously, not one of the victims, not even victim 1, 4 or 9 who’d claimed hundreds of encounters with Sandusky ever mentioned this abnormality. Had any of them mentioned it that would have gone a long way toward proving their allegations.
Whether Amendola never read Sandusky’s medical reports or was aware of the condition but somehow chose not to present the evidence is unknown. Amendola’s incompetence is the major issue within Sandusky’s appeal and so Amendola is no longer cooperative with these kinds of questions. It has also been suggested that Sandusky was so confidant he’d never be found guilty and so embarrassed about his condition that he didn’t want Amendola to use it.
Back to the trial…
While each story was more ridiculous than the one prior it didn’t matter. The jury had been incurably poisoned by the media coverage and Sandusky had put his life in the hands of a defense attorney that was in way over his head and had been given just weeks to prepare for the trial of his life…it was over before it even began. Sandusky was found guilty on 45 of 48 counts and sent to prison for life.
Early in 2012 the Board of Trustees hired former FBI Director Louis Freeh to conduct an “independent” investigation. The board had made some critical decisions at the very beginning of the scandal and needed to understand what the truth really was. However, history proves that the board was not seeking the truth but rather seeking validation. The work product of Freeh’s investigation, The Freeh Report, was a wildly biased interpretation of events with little to no evidence backing its conclusions. Louis Freeh was paid $6.5m for a made-as-ordered interpretation of the events.
The Freeh Report was released on July 13, 2012 just three weeks after the conclusion of the Sandusky trial. A “website glitch” prevented the entire report from being circulated prior to Louis Freeh’s press conference that day. Therefore, the media had only an executive summary to review prior to Freeh’s remarks. The “glitch” proved serendipitous, as Freeh was able to assert aspects of his report as factual that could not stand up under scrutiny.
Freeh reported that his investigation found that a cover up had indeed taken place. The report concluded that there was a “culture of corruption” within Penn State and that Paterno, Spanier, Curley and Schultz were all complicit in a decade long cover up of Sandusky’s crimes. These findings validated the Board of Trustees decision to terminate all four men. This was received as full exoneration of the Board of Trustees and a guilty verdict for the administrators.
It has since been proven that Freeh and his investigators colluded with both the Attorney General’s office and the NCAA throughout the investigation. Working with the OAG, they carefully selected witnesses to interview avoiding those that would likely damage their narrative. Freeh never interviewed Sandusky, Schultz or Curley. Louis Freeh coveted the NCAA’s business and wanted his firm to become the NCAA’s de-facto investigative firm. Sharing inside information with the NCAA about the Penn State investigation could help achieve his goal. The Freeh Report was yet another farce. It was an investigation in search of any thread that could be used to prove a cover up.
Ironically, Freeh’s strongest evidence came from the file provided by Gary Schultz. Schultz’s file contained email communication between Schultz, Spanier and Curley regarding the Mike McQueary episode. The emails were heavily contorted to fit the narrative the Freeh investigators wanted without any substance to their interpretation.
Neither Freeh nor the BOT were aware at the time that the federal government had launched its own investigation into Penn State. This federal investigation was lead by former NCIS investigator John Snedden. Snedden’s investigation was necessary because Graham Spanier carried a high-level government security clearance and the government needed to know if he was involved in a cover up at Penn State. His security clearance would be immediately revoked if he were found guilty. The government renewed that clearance.
We’ve interviewed John Snedden who is incredibly outspoken about the Freeh Report. Snedden believes the report is intentionally deceptive and presents no actual evidence of a cover up. Snedden’s far more thorough investigation found no evidence of a cover up. In fact, Snedden’s investigation found no grounds under which Jerry Sandusky should have been charged with a crime. Snedden discredits McQueary’s story entirely as well as the stories provided by the “victims”.
Snedden refers to the entire scandal as “the Penn State goat screw” and is convinced that not only are Paterno, Spanier, Curley and Schultz innocent but that Jerry Sandusky is innocent as well.
In recent years the Penn State Board has publicly rejected the Freeh report findings. We have extensively interviewed past and present board members as to its validity with universal agreement that it was paid for propaganda. Louis Freeh was handing out exoneration for the cheap price of $6.5m.
Freeh’s conclusions were leveraged by the NCAA to impose massive penalties on Penn State; including $60 million in fines, the forfeiture of 112 of Paterno’s wins, the loss of scholarships, bowl game restrictions and more. The Board signed a consent decree accepting the NCAA penalties back in 2012. Several years later the NCAA released Penn State from all of those penalties after the Freeh report was discredited and law suits threatened.
Tim Curley and Gary Schultz were so convinced they’d never get a fair trial that they accepted a plea down to the lesser charge of “Failure to Report”. In so doing they anticipated serving no jail time. Instead they were both sent to prison.
Graham Spanier was charged later and decided to take his case all the way to trial. In what was another complete farce Spanier and his lawyers had every reason to anticipate a verdict of “innocent” on all charges. Instead, Spanier was found guilty of the same Failure to Report charge Curley and Schultz had pleaded down to. Spanier’s attorneys “backed off” during the trial because they were sure they had won the case and didn’t feel it was necessary to embarrass the state further.
Today, those that follow the case understand that the cover up theory is bullshit. The NCAA penalties were rescinded, Joe Paterno was given back his wins and Penn State was given back their scholarships and their $60M. The Board of Trustees even settled all outstanding disputes with the Paterno family earlier in 2020 officially rejecting the conclusions of the Freeh Report. The Paterno’s have declared that they will no longer comment or participate in any efforts to further investigate the case.
Spanier, Curley, Schultz and their families have been humiliated and the careers of these fine men were permanently destroyed.
This story is one most everyone in the state of Pennsylvania would like to put permanently behind them. But there’s one man remaining who can’t put it behind him. His life was ruined by the sins of others, his family was destroyed, his good name ruined, his charity that helped thousands of kids escape the circumstances they were born into was destroyed and he remains in a Pennsylvania jail cell where he’ll likely die soon if this tremendous injustice is not reversed.
Jerry Sandusky is the grandson of polish immigrants and grew up in the small town of Washington, Pennsylvania. His father Art was a trolley conductor who gave up his job for the opportunity to refurbish the town’s recreation center known as Brownson House.
The family sold their home and moved into Brownson House when Jerry was twelve. Jerry learned from Art about giving troubled youth a chance. Art’s mantra was, “don’t give up on a bad boy because he might become a great man”.
Brownson had just one communal shower so the custom was for kids to shower together after games and workouts. What seems like abhorrent behavior to most of us is what Sandusky understood as “normal”. Jerry was very close to his father and wanted to emulate what Art had accomplished with Brownson House later in his own life. He did so with the formation of The Second Mile.
The narrative from state prosecutors and the media in this case made it appear as if Sandusky often took one on one showers with young boys. The two instances ingrained in the case narrative took place in large locker room shower areas. These are open rooms with many individual showerheads. These were not small private showers.
Sandusky should have been keenly aware that by the late-90s /early-2000s an adult man showering with boys under the age of fifteen was inappropriate. He was wrong to have showered with any Second Mile kids but there’s a big difference between naiveté around social boundaries and child abuse.
Sandusky does not fit the profile of a pedophile. Sandusky was a virgin at marriage, happily married for many years, church going, highly visible and owned no pornography. He had thousands of kids in the Second Mile over the years the overwhelming majority of which thought of him as a father figure and a great man. He was nearly sixty at the time of the first alleged incident; most pedophiles don’t become that way at an advanced age. Sandusky passed a lie detector test. Dottie Sandusky maintains her husband’s innocence and continues to make the four-hour drive each week to visit him in prison. Five of Sandusky’s six adopted children maintain his innocence.
Matt Sandusky requested the Sandusky’s adopt him in his late teens. Matt testified at the grand jury to Jerry’s innocence. Matt sat at Dottie Sandusky’s side the first few days of the trial. When he sensed things were going badly for Jerry he changed his story. He is not credible and all of his siblings as well as his ex-wife say he is lying. Dottie Sandusky traced a number of items stolen from Jerry, including his ’86 Championship ring, to a collectables dealer who identified Matt as the person he’d acquired them from.
Sandusky’s accusers were never vetted. Their stories were ever challenged or scrutinized. Nonetheless Penn State paid them off like it was the cost of doing business. The accusers were able to remain anonymous. Most are still anonymous today. The burden of proof in this case was placed upon the accused rather than the accusers. Sandusky has rights, those rights were violated and he was denied due process!
Tom Corbett and John Surma allowed their collective desire for revenge to supersede the rights of very good men who had served the university honorably for decades. Corbett as Governor had an obvious conflict of interest in taking a lead role with the Penn State Board yet did so anyway.
Corbett’s venom knew no boundaries. He made it his business to insure Sandusky’s misery in prison. Even though Sandusky had been designated a Level 2 offender, for generally non-violent inmates, he was sent to State Correctional Institute Greene, a maximum security facility that houses Level 5 prisoners, the most violent offenders, many on death row.
Sandusky asked the Prison Program Review Committee why he had been placed at Greene. He was told “the order came from Harrisburg”, presumably from the Secretary of the Department of Corrections, a man named Wetzel who reported directly to Corbett.
The lawyers and therapists involved in this case created a cottage industry using debunked repressed memory therapy as a way to explain changing stories and rationalize why victims never claimed abuse prior to the Sandusky indictment. For their conduct they were rewarded with tens of millions in contingency fees.
Prosecutor’s committed massive acts of misconduct and the judge, dependent on Pennsylvania voters to retain his office, allowed it all to happen. Numerous rulings by Judge Cleland at trial were clear signs that he had a vested interest in a certain outcome.
Jerry Sandusky’s appeal for a new trial cites some 30 different “errors of incompetence” made by his defense counsel Joe Amendola. These include…
-The decision to allow Sandusky to be interviewed by Bob Costas
-Failure to seek a mistrial when the prosecution made multiple comments based upon Sandusky not testifying
-Failure to object to repeated Brady violations by the prosecution for failing to disclose material impeachment evidence
-Failing to object to the judge’s erroneous guilt instruction
-Failure to present expert testimony calling into question repressed memory
-Failure to file a motion in limine to preclude victim 4 from testifying
-Failure to introduce the tape-recorded statement by James Calhoun contradicting Ron Petrofsky’s testimony
-Failure to present the grand jury testimony of Tim Curley and Graham Spanier
-Failure to call Allan Myers to the stand or using Mr. Myers prior exculpatory statements
-Failure to investigate juror bias in Centre County
-Failure to produce an expert report necessitating a change of venue
-Failure to seek a cooling off period
-Neglecting to question prospective jurors about information they had learned from the media
-Failing to request a Preliminary Hearing
-Failing to object to prosecutorial misconduct when prosecutor claimed they did not know the identity of victim 2
-Failure to file a collateral appeal after the denial of their motion to withdraw
-Failure to raise structural due process claim where Mr. Sandusky’s rights were violated with the 1998 case
-Failure to challenge application of the Pennsylvania Shield Law preventing the testimony of Sara Ganim
-Failure to file a motion to quash the grand jury presentment and the charges arising from it based on governmental misconduct in tainting the grand jury process
-Failure to provide Brady evidence in the nature of email exchanged between Mike McQueary and Jonelle Eshbach
Mike McQueary’s story was a lie and the presentment was a deliberately misleading method to control public opinion. Given these two facts, is it really that hard to believe that a group of young men from deeply troubled backgrounds would be willing to falsely claim abuse in order to earn millions? Especially when you consider they were promised their stories would not be questioned and their identities would remain anonymous. The police didn’t even need to ask the boys to lie because the lawyers were already taking care of that part for them.
The Governor, the Attorney General, the Penn State Board, the media, the lawyers involved, the therapists involved and the victims, who in totality were paid somewhere between $125m and $150m, all depend on the truth remaining buried!
Regardless, John Ziegler has been crusading for the truth these past nine years. Ziegler’s journey is chronicled in our upcoming podcast series, With the Benefit of Hindsight.
With the Benefit of Hindsight has been a tremendous undertaking. We began with the understanding that the bar to prove Sandusky’s innocence is set much, much higher than the bar to prove his guilt. Therefore, we examine the case in exhaustive detail, we expose the liars and cheats, we relive the biggest moments, we interview key people and we follow John every step of the way in his truth quest.
Millions of people have a narrative of this case deeply engrained in their heads. Twenty-four months ago I had that same narrative in my head-but it’s wrong. It’s clearly, deeply, disturbingly wrong! Ziegler defiantly and selflessly questioned everything and found a truth that presents an existential threat worthy of deep consideration.
Our desire to believe all victims and trust the media runs so deep in modern society that we have surrendered the due process rights of the accused. The pendulum has swung and the burden of proof has traded resting places. We must take hold of that pendulum and swing it back or bear the consequences.