Apparently, with 20/20 hindsight, it can be said that Mr. Gricar made a wrong choice.
It might not have been hindsight; Schreffler said that there should have been charges, today, under oath. We'll see if Arnold is called.
However, I don't see how a wrong decision involving Vic 6 leads people to the inevitable conclusion that Ray Gricar was coerced, bribed, or the victim of a fatality involving the current scandal in PA.
1. Having had to address the bribery question, at least three times today, there is no evidence of a bribe at this point in time. RFG did
not have higher than expected assets; they were lower than expected. From 1998, he was not known to have higher than expected expenditures.
2. While I'm certain that PSU could exert substantial pressure on any public official in the county, I cannot see how they could exert pressure on one who, after 2001, would not be seeking re-election.
3. You have made this point before that no one will murder a DA for
not prosecuting them.
Sometimes very good people make very bad mistakes. Not deliberately, not with malice of forethought.
Sometimes, one occurance is totally unrelated to another of public interest in a town/ county.
I do not and never have believed that Mr. Gricar was harmed years after the Victim 6 report was investigated and closed.
I do feel, and I think it's clear at this point, that he had a case strong enough to prosecute in 1998. The judge agreed with me.
I am trouble by two things in this:
A. RFG did prosecute cases, including against PSU football players, even when the controversy around it touched Paterno. And, he prosecuted weaker cases (and lost some).
B. He did
not keep Arnold assigned to the case. She was the in-house child abuse person and even if she wasn't going to be the lead prosecutor, she should have been backup (second chair).
I just wanted to state my opinion. I do not fault Ray Gricar for what Jerry Sandusky was, and is, and has done. I hope Mr. Gricar is alive and well in the place of his choosing.
I
do fault RFG for his weak response in 1998, on a number of levels, but I cannot fault him for what Sandusky is alleged to have done, or those incidents about which he knew nothing.
1998 was a colossal lapse of judgment, but it may very well have been a honest mistake as well.