Penn State Goings-On

[crazy canuck]

He may have concluded with some good reason that further action would be futile and only place himself in danger, including danger more serious than a mere firing.

According to the police he was quite eager to unburden himself indicating that he knew he should have gone to them earlier and felt some guilt in not doing so.

Given what we know know - especially with him putting out the line that he had stopped the rape and that he did report the matter to police - is that he knew he should have reported the matter to police but didnt not becuase he didnt think it would do any good but because he thought it might cause him some harm.

[Ed Anger]

Timmay's hopes for 'merciless' signs(or whatever moronic shit he vomited up) at the 'shoe have been dashed. The University has been pounding respect and sportsmanship at the students and fanbase for days.

And signs are banned from the 'shoe. Have always been.

Idiot.

[grumbler]

Well of course.  An organization as bereft of principles and good sense as the NCAA will definitely want to pile on.

Hate to agree with you, Neil, but in this case, you are correct.  Bureaucracies always try to expand their scope of control, and the NCAA here is trying to create a new role of general law-enforcement as opposed to mere athletic rules enforcement.  It is one more nail in the NCAA's coffin, and for that I am glad.

[CountDeMoney]

Timmay's hopes for 'merciless' signs(or whatever moronic shit he vomited up) at the 'shoe have been dashed. The University has been pounding respect and sportsmanship at the students and fanbase for days.

So much respect and sportsmanship, they were courteous enough to give Penn State the win.

[jimmy olsen]

Stay classy Pennsylvania

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/11/alleged_jerry_sandusky_victim.html

[jimmy olsen]

Ballsy fucks.

Where there's smoke there's fire.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/7267044/police-investigation-syracuse-assistant-basketball-coach-bernie-fine-take-weeks

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick says Syracuse police are resisting his office's attempts to obtain records in the investigation of Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine.

Fitzpatrick said he had to get a court subpoena Monday ordering police to turn over records. But he said that when the subpoena was served to the deputy chief, it was greeted with an obscenity.

"I've never seen this happen in my history with the DA's office," Fitzpatrick told the Syracuse Post-Standard of the refusal to share records.

ESPN reported last week the claims of two former ball boys that they were molested for years by Fine.

Fine has been placed on paid administrative leave by the university. In his 36th season as an assistant to Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim, Fine has called the charges "patently false," asked for a quick review, and expressed confidence he would be vindicated.

Bobby Davis, now 39, told ESPN that Fine molested him beginning in 1984 and that sexual contact continued until he was around 27. A ball boy for six years, Davis said in a report that aired last Thursday that the abuse occurred at Fine's home, at Syracuse basketball facilities and on team road trips, including the 1987 Final Four, when the Orange lost to Indiana in the national championship game.

Davis' stepbrother, Mike Lang, 45, who also was a Syracuse ball boy, told ESPN that Fine molested him starting when he was in fifth or sixth grade.

Davis previously reported his allegations to Syracuse police in 2002 and to the university in 2005. Police declined to pursue the case because the statute of limitations had expired, and the university could not corroborate his claims during a four-month investigation.

Davis had said interviews with four other people would support his allegations, but all denied any knowledge of wrongful conduct by Fine, according to the university.

After fifth-ranked Syracuse beat Colgate on Saturday, Boeheim steadfastly defended Fine.

"I've been friends for 50 years with coach Fine, and that buys a lot of loyalty from me," Boeheim said. "It should."

Students were mostly gone from campus on Monday ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. A handful of protesters gathered near the main entrance and called for the elimination of the state's statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases.

"It's time to stop hiding behind the statute of limitations," said Richard Tollner of the New York Coalition to Protect Children. "Children must have a voice."

Prosecutions in New York state for felony sex abuse of a child have to begin within five years after authorities learn about it, or within five years after a child turns 18.

Paul DerOhannesian, defense attorney and former Albany County prosecutor, said the five-year statute of limitations has clearly passed for any alleged crimes in this case if they took place in New York. Any out-of-state incidents during basketball road trips would be subject to the laws of those states, which might not have the same limits, he said.

DerOhannesian said the prosecutor also can bring information and witnesses before a grand jury to do a fact-finding report and recommend changes in the law.

[sbr]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/bigten/story/2011-11-22/11-22-11-Paterno-Discipline/51346682/1

Ex-Penn State official saw Paterno's 'dark side'

By Kelly Whiteside, USA TODAY

At Penn State, Joe Paterno was larger than life, even cast in bronze. His power and influence was so great, no one dared to confront, and certainly not defy, the legend, according to a former university official.

During her four years as the vice president for student affairs, Vicky Triponey challenged that power and lost. Triponey held direct oversight of the Office of Judicial Affairs, the university's disciplinary arm. When football players ran afoul of school policy, Triponey said Paterno interfered with the discipline process.

After one such incident, Triponey said, then-president Graham Spanier told her, "Vicky, you're one of the handful of people who have seen the darker side of Joe Paterno."

    MORE: Review some of the e-mails
    MORE: Complete coverage of the Penn State scandal

In another instance, Triponey said, Spanier told her, "You can't expect to change the culture" and that in "40 years he never saw anybody stand up to Joe Paterno." Spanier did not respond to an interview request this week. Multiple calls to Paterno's publicist were not returned; neither was an e-mail request to his on-campus PR person.

Triponey's account of the pressure she faced sheds light on the influence the football program had on the university. This culture has now come under scrutiny in the wake of the worst scandal in college sports history.

Following the arrest of former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who was charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a period of 15 years, both Spanier and Paterno were forced out. According to a grand jury report, Paterno and three other university officials failed to notify police after a graduate assistant coach witnessed Sandusky sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in the school's football facility in 2002. Sandusky has maintained his innocence.

Paterno is not a target of the investigation.

Athletics director Tim Curley and senior vice president Gary Schultz were accused of failing to report the alleged abuse to police and perjuring themselves before a grand jury. Their lawyers have claimed they are innocent.

Bill Asbury, who worked almost three decades at the university and preceded Triponey as vice president of student affairs, understands Happy Valley's culture better than most. He played football in college and for the NFL and is a member of the reform-minded Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.

"When we say, 'We are Penn State,' it's more than just 'We are Penn State and you're not.' It's also: 'We are Penn State and we are one. We are members on the same team, therefore we will do whatever it takes to protect the team, the culture around the team and university,' " Asbury said. However, he likely could never have imagined that protecting the program would cross the line to criminal behavior, as the allegations of a coverup suggest.

On Monday, when the school announced that former FBI director Louis Freeh would lead Penn State's internal investigation, Ken Frazier, the chairman of the special committee, said the group pledged "to get to the bottom of what happened — who knew what, when."

He also acknowledged the question that has troubled many: Why did Penn State's leaders fail to act? "People are asking completely valid questions about why actions were not taken that might have saved any of the victims from harm," said Frazier, the chief executive officer and president of Merck.

Did a football coach who spent 61 years at the school have too much power? Did protecting the program's reputation come at the expense of everything else? Was the school, run by leaders who have spent most of their professional lives in Happy Valley, crippled by its own insularity?

William Britt, a police sergeant in Philadelphia's homicide division, said he's not surprised by the alleged coverup. "I see how this happens (at Penn State). We lived it," Britt said.

In April 2007, as many as two dozen football players forced their way into a party at an off-campus apartment and assaulted several students at the party, including Britt's son, Jack, who was severely beaten. Six players faced criminal charges as a result of the brawl. In the end, many of the charges against the players were dismissed, and two players pleaded guilty to misdemeanor offenses.

In the middle of the school's internal investigation, Triponey said Spanier ordered her to meet with Paterno. Triponey said she had repeatedly refused to discuss cases with Paterno because she didn't want to compromise her impartiality. "The coach was not happy with that," Triponey said in a telephone interview with USA TODAY. "Many times he tried to insist upon a meeting with me, asked others to have meetings with me. Sent his wife (Sue) one time. In the middle of cases. This became a bone of contention."

"The coach was literally telling his players that they couldn't cooperate with judicial affairs or they would get kicked off the team. So we were going nowhere in getting to the bottom of things," Triponey said. "I said to the coach, 'This would be so much easier if you would tell your players just to tell the truth.' He was livid, and the message to me was, 'I can't do that. They have to play for me and I can't ask them to rat on each other.' The president also chimed in and said, 'Vicky, the coach is right. We can't expect the players to tell the truth.' So that's the environment that was underlying this whole debate about who's in charge."

Football won. "The sanctions that were issued which were nowhere near being in line what the code required for the severity of the offenses," Triponey said.

As a result of the school's inquiry, four key players were expelled temporarily for the summer semester but were allowed to return to campus early for the start of fall practice. Fifteen players were found to have committed violations. Paterno disciplined the entire team by making them clean up a section of Beaver Stadium on Sunday mornings after a few home games.

Britt said the school's handling of the case showed who was in charge. "The highest official in State College, Pa., is Joe Paterno. I don't care what anybody else's title is, he ran the show up there. And he knew about everything. There's no doubt in anybody's mind that it all comes back to JoePa," Britt said. "I got this from the (police) officers I dealt with. Basically they said it's a nightmare, any case that involves the football team."

Tom King, the police chief in State College the past two decades, said football players have been treated like any other students. "I never have experienced any situation involving Penn State athletes where the university has in any way attempted to intervene with enforcement of the law or to mitigate an arrest," King said.

In a 2008 segment on ESPN's Outside the Lines examining an alarming number of criminal charges involving football players, Paterno denied threatening the players involved in the April 2007 brawl. He also said, "I have never ever asked (judicial affairs) to change a decision in any way."

Asbury, Triponey's predecessor, said he can't recall anytime a coach asked him to mitigate a penalty on a player. Triponey said she was pressured by Spanier and athletics director Tim Curley to lessen the sanctions on football players. After meeting with Paterno and other officials in August 2005 to discuss Paterno's concerns, Triponey summarized Paterno's attitude toward student discipline in an e-mail to Curley and others.

Triponey kept records of all such correspondence. She wrote that Paterno wanted discipline to be left to the coach; that he believed the school's code of conduct should not apply to any events that take place off campus and that those incidents should be handled by the police and not affect a student's status; that the program should be closer to the bottom of the Big Ten in addressing discipline matters; and that the school should not inform the public when football players are found responsible for committing serious acts of violence.

Curley's response to her, via e-mail: "I think your summary is accurate." Curley, through a spokesperson, declined an interview request.

Triponey said she also received enormous pressure in a 2005 case involving standout linebacker Dan Connor, who was accused of making harassing calls to retired assistant coach Joe Sarra. One night after a football game, Triponey said Spanier and Curley came to her house because Paterno told Spanier that he had to make a choice between his vice president of student affairs and his football coach. According to Triponey, Spanier said that if he ever had to make that decision, he would side with his vice president.

In 2007, not long after the tumultuous case over the brawl involving the football players, Spanier made his choice. Triponey was forced to resign.

"I don't know what happened between Vicky and Joe, but no president, particularly Graham Spanier wants to be put in the middle," Asbury said. "I don't know who made the fatal mistake. Somebody made it, and she is no longer here."

The same week that Triponey left Penn State, the university outlined a proposal to revamp the Office of Judicial Affairs. One change: Rather than judicial affairs, coaches, as well as club advisers, would determine whether students facing sanctions would be able to participate in extracurricular activities, such as playing football.

Football won again.

Contributing: Steve Wieberg; Jon Saraceno in State College, Pa.

[jimmy olsen]

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/22/8959190-report-2-new-cases-of-child-abuse-alleged-against-sandusky

Officials with The Children and Youth Services in Pennsylvania are investigating two new cases of child abuse alleged against former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, The Patriot News reported Tuesday.

If the new allegations -- reported less than 60 days ago -- are found to be credible, it would the first known cases involving people who are still under the age of 18, the newspaper reported.

The state's Children and Youth Services only investigates reports of abuse if victims are minors. All others are handled by police agencies, according to Pennsylvania law.

Sandusky faces 40 criminal counts accusing him of sexually abusing eight boys beginning in the mid-1990s. Authorities say some assaults happened on Penn State's campus and were reported to administrators but not to police agencies.

Sandusky has maintained his innocence.

Hearing delayed
Also on Tuesday, a judge delayed Sandusky's preliminary hearing in the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa.

The hearing, set for Tuesday, was rescheduled for Dec. 13, according to court records. The change was made "to accommodate the logistical needs involved in the hearing," a posting on the courthouse website read.

Messages seeking comment from Sandusky's attorney Joe Amendola and the state attorney general's office weren't immediately returned to msnbc.com or NBC News.

Amendola told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday that he was worried that there would be new criminal allegations against his client.

"My concern is, if they bring new charges based upon new people coming forward, that bail's going to be set and he's going to wind up in jail," Amendola said.

Sandusky was initially released on $100,000 unsecured bail, which means he didn't have to post collateral to be freed.

Until the preliminary hearing, prosecutors can seek to have bail modified by the district judge, Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin told The Associated Press. After that hearing, bail changes would have to be pursued by a county court petition, he said.

Scandal
Meantime, Pennsylvania court officials say all the judges in Penn State's home county have removed themselves from potentially presiding over the child sex-abuse case against Sandusky.

The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts announced Tuesday that out-of-county judges have been named to deal with any related court business in the Centre County case.

The sex-abuse allegations have stunned Penn State and altered the image of its legendary college football coach, Joe Paterno, who was ousted amid the scandal.

Hearings for Gary Schultz and Tim Curley, the two former Penn State administrators accused of failing to properly report suspected abuse and of perjury before a grand jury, was set for Dec. 6 in the Dauphin County Courthouse in Harrisburg. Both maintain their innocence.

[jimmy olsen]

Pennsylvania deserves to be purged with fire.   

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/22/penn-state-scandal-jerry-sandusky-victim-mother_n_1108979.html

[Caliga]

Pennsylvania deserves to be purged with fire.   

[merithyn]

Pennsylvania deserves to be purged with fire.   

I'm confused. The article says that the school claims that it called the police immediately and ended Sandusky's visits once they had reason to suspect him. The mother is claiming that she took her son to this Gillum guy. There would be records for both, right? It seems ridiculously stupid for the school to lie about the actions it took since it will all be on record and easy to figure out.

And Tim, don't blame the whole state. This article is about Sandusky's hometown. Like Penn State, they're going to protect their hero over some poor kid from a broken home.

[Barrister]

Pennsylvania deserves to be purged with fire.   

I'm confused. The article says that the school claims that it called the police immediately and ended Sandusky's visits once they had reason to suspect him. The mother is claiming that she took her son to this Gillum guy. There would be records for both, right? It seems ridiculously stupid for the school to lie about the actions it took since it will all be on record and easy to figure out.

And Tim, don't blame the whole state. This article is about Sandusky's hometown. Like Penn State, they're going to protect their hero over some poor kid from a broken home.

The mother claims that the school only called police immediately because she insisted, repeatedly.  The mother says the school suggested repeatedly that they 'go home and think about it'.

That kind of discrepancy would not be on any written record.

And fair point about College Station vs PA as a whole.

[Neil]

Tim needs to be purged with fire.

[jimmy olsen]

Why you got to be like that Neil? 

Also, more awfulness

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/sports/ncaafootball/for-victim-1-in-penn-states-sandusky-scandal-a-search-for-trust.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

[dps]

Tim needs to be purged with fire.

Heard an interview on local sports talk radio yesterday with Ravens broadcaster Gerry Sandusky.  Mostly, he and the program's host talked about the Ravens, but they did talk briefly about the fact that he, because of his name, is getting a lot of hate mail from people who have him confused with Jerry Sandusky.  Bet that a lot of those people are Tim-types.