How Penn State officials buried suspicions about Jerry Sandusky
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120713_How_Penn_State_officials_buried_suspicions.html
In May 1998, Gary Schultz scribbled two words that in hindsight look chilling.
"Other children?" he wrote............
Schultz's handwritten notes were among the most damning evidence disclosed Thursday in the long-awaited report on what the most powerful men at Penn State, including former football coach Joe Paterno and president Graham B. Spanier, did about signs that Sandusky was sexually abusing boys.
Its conclusion: Not much.
Instead, the team of investigators headed by former FBI Director Louis Freeh found a paper trail suggesting that Paterno, Schultz, Spanier, and then-athletic director Timothy Curley discussed and worried about - but ultimately ignored - suspicions in order to avoid scandal, a decision that effectively allowed Sandusky to assault more children............
"The evidence clearly shows, in my view, an active agreement to conceal," Freeh said during a news conference at a Philadelphia hotel.............
Curley and Schultz are awaiting trial next year on charges they failed to report Sandusky's 2001 assault on the second boy and later lied to a grand jury about it. Sources have said they
also expect Spanier to be charged.........
A month after it started, campus police closed the 1998 investigation and stashed the report in a file labeled "administrative information."
Schultz was relieved, according to his files. "I think the matter has been appropriately investigated and I hope it is now behind us," he told Spanier and Curley in an e-mail, the report says.
Freeh said he was struck that none of the four men interviewed Sandusky about the report, "including the coach, who was a few steps away from his office."
At his news conference, Freeh walked a tightrope in describing Paterno. He said the coach left a "terrific" legacy but also might have made the worst mistake of his life.
"The facts are the facts," Freeh said. "There's a whole host of evidence here and we're saying the reasonable conclusion from that evidence is that he was an integral part of this active conspiracy to conceal. I regret that, based on the damage it does, obviously, to his legacy."...........
Spanier later told Freeh's investigators he meant it was "humane" to explain to Sandusky the reason they were taking steps against him. [But they did not talk to him at all about those reasons.]
According to the report, Curley told a lawyer for the Second Mile soon afterward that "publicity issues" were the reason Sandusky could no longer bring children on campus............Despite being copied on the 1998 e-mails, Spanier told investigators that "the subject matter of a university employee in a shower with a child had never come up before" 2001. ...............
Attorney General Linda Kelly said the report would not impact her office's investigations or
the forthcoming prosecutions.
"The Freeh report should prove helpful to decisionmakers, the Penn State community, and the public at large in understanding how this disturbing situation developed, as well as how to prevent it from being repeated in the future," she said.
More at link.....
