In a scathing
report that takes to task former head football coach Joe Paterno and
other top Penn State officials, an independent report from investigators
led by former FBI director Louis Freeh says there was a "total
disregard for the safety and welfare" of Jerry Sandusky's child victims
"by the most senior leaders" at the school.
That is "our most saddening and sobering
finding," Freeh concludes about his investigation into the scandal that
rocked the school last year.
Sandusky, a
former assistant football coach at the university was arrested last
November. He was convicted last month on 45 counts of sexual abuse
involving 10 boys over a 15-year period.
According to a statement from Freeh:
"The
most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years
to protect the children who Sandusky victimized. Messrs. Spanier,
Schultz, Paterno and Curley never demonstrated, through actions or
words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky's victims
until after Sandusky's arrest."
The men he's referring to:
— Paterno, who was fired after the scandal broke and died in January.
— Former school president Graham Spanier, who was fired after the scandal broke.
— Athletic director Tim Curley, who is on leave.
— University Vice President Gary Schultz, who has retired since the scandal broke last November.
We'll have more from Freeh's statement and the 267-page report he's releasing today shortly.
Update at 12:45 p.m. ET. What The Janitors Saw:
Freeh
said today that among the most telling examples of how a mindset that
put protecting the school's reputation above protecting the young boys
permeated Penn State was the reaction of three janitors to what they saw
Sandusky doing with a young boy in the fall of 2000.
As
we noted earlier, the report details how the janitors feared for their
jobs if they told anyone in authority about what they saw. The section
of the report about that incident is worth noting (
fair warning, it includes a description of a sex act involving that young boy):
"According
to the testimony of witnesses in Gerald A. Sandusky's trial in Centre
County in June 2012, in the fall of 2000 a temporary university janitor
('Janitor A') observed a man, later identified to him as Sandusky, in
the assistant coaches' locker room showers of the Lasch Building with a
young boy. ... Sandusky had the boy pinned against the wall and was
performing oral sex on him. The janitor immediately told one of his
fellow janitors ('Janitor B') what he had witnessed, stating that he had
'fought in the [Korean] War ... seen people with their guts blowed out,
arms dismembered. ... I just witnessed something in there I'll never
forget.'
"On that same night, Janitor B
observed two pairs of feet in this same shower at the Lasch Building
but could not see the upper bodies of the two persons. He waited for the
two to finish their shower, and later saw Jerry Sandusky and a young
boy, around the age of 12, exit the locker room holding hands. ...
"A
senior janitorial employee ('Janitor C') on duty that night spoke with
the staff, who had gathered with Janitor A to calm him down. Janitor C
advised Janitor A how he could report what he saw, if he wanted to do
so. Janitor B said he would stand by Janitor A if he reported the
incident to the police, but Janitor A said, 'no, they'll get rid of all
of us.'
"Janitor B explained to the
Special Investigative Counsel that reporting the incident 'would have
been like going against the president of the United States in my eyes.
... I know Paterno has so much power, if he wanted to get rid of
someone, I would have been gone.' He explained 'football runs this
university,' and said the university would have closed ranks to protect
the football program at all costs."
Update at 11:45 a.m. ET. Paterno Family Responds.
The Associated Press just moved this "alert":
"Family: Paterno wouldn't have protected Sandusky to avoid bad publicity, was fooled by him."
The wire service reports the family's statement says, in part:
"The
idea that any sane, responsible adult would knowingly cover up for a
child predator is impossible to accept. The far more realistic
conclusion is that many people didn't fully understand what was
happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events. ... If Joe
Paterno had understood what Sandusky was, a fear of bad publicity would
not have factored into his actions."
Update at 10:45 a.m. ET. Freeh Says Paterno Could Have Stopped Sandusky:
Asked
if he thinks Paterno was powerful enough on campus to have put a stop
to what Sandusky was doing years before the assistant coach's 2011
arrest, Freeh just said the former head football coach was "one of the
most powerful leaders" at Penn State. "He could have done so if he'd
wished to," Freeh said.
His report
includes evidence that Paterno had known since at least 1998 of reports
that Sandusky was having inappropriate relationships with young boys.
Update at 10:30 a.m. ET. In Short, Freeh Says, "Nothing Was Done":
At
a news conference a moment ago, Freeh said that none of those four men
alerted the board of trustees or other authorities — and none of them
ever even talked to Sandusky about the first incident they were told of,
in 1998.
"In short, nothing was done and Sandusky was allowed to continue with impunity," Freeh added.
The
four men showed, he said, a "callous and shocking disregard for child
victims." And asked if what they did was illegal, the former FBI
director said he would have to leave that to authorities to decide — but
added that the report does contain evidence of an "active agreement to
conceal" what was happening.
Update at 10:25 a.m. ET. Janitors Saw An Assault, But Feared For Their Jobs:
The
report places heavy blame on senior Penn State leaders, whose
concealment of child abuse and failure to communicate with police
drifted to lower level university employees. In the fall of 2000,
Sandusky assaulted a boy in the athletic building showers, and that
attack was seen by a janitor. A second janitor saw suspicious behavior
by Sandusky and a boy later that same night. The two told a third
custodian, and all of them knew they could call the police.
But
they didn't. The report quotes one janitor saying that to tell police
"would have been like going against the president of the United States
in my eyes. ... I know Paterno has so much power, if he wanted to get
rid of someone, I would have been gone."
Added the janitor: "Football runs this university."
Update at 9:45 a.m. ET. What Did Paterno Do?
The
report offers some more details about how Paterno reacted in February
2001 after being told by then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary that he
(McQueary) had seen Sandusky engaging in some sort of sexual act with a
young boy in a Penn State shower.
According
to the report, "Paterno tells McQueary, 'you did what you had to do.
It's my job now to figure out what we want to do.' "
But
Paterno never notified law enforcement and didn't tell his superiors
until the day after McQueary reported the incident — or two days after
the assault in teh shower. Paterno called Curry and Schultz. The report
says Paterno didn't "want to interfere with their weekends."
Update at 9:40 a.m. ET. "Striking Lack Of Empathy":
Freeh's report is
now online here.
In its executive summary, the four Penn State officials are said to
have "exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky's victims." And,
says the report, "these individuals, unchecked by the Board of Trustees
that did not perform its oversight duties, empowered Sandusky to
attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing
him to have continued, unrestricted and unsupervised access to the
University's facilities."
Wednesday,
as we reported,
Paterno's family issued a pre-report statement saying that he never
covered up anything. The family also questioned "the fairness and
confidentiality of the investigative process."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/07/12/156654260/was-there-a-coverup-report-on-penn-state-scandal-may-tell-us?ft=3&f=1001&sc=nl&cc=nh-20120712
Freeh report on Penn State’s handling of Jerry Sandusky’s child sex abuse reveals ‘total disregard’ for victims
Former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno and the senior
leadership at the university covered up incidents of child sexual abuse
on the Penn State campus by a former assistant football coach, showing
“total disregard for the safety and welfare of the victims,” a team of
investigators concluded in findings released Thursday morning.
In a prepared statement that preceded
the release of a 162-page report,
former FBI director Louis Freeh, who along with his law firm conducted
an independent review of the circumstances surrounding the scandal,
blamed Paterno and university officials for “catastrophic failures” that
were reinforced by a
Board of Trustees that had failed to create an environment of accountability.
The release said Paterno and other officials showed no concern for the victims of Jerry Sandusky, 68, who in June
was convicted
on 45 counts of child sexual abuse and is awaiting sentencing, until
after his arrest last November. The report said “a culture of reverence
for the football program . . . ingrained at all levels of the campus” contributed to the massive ethical breakdown.
“Our
most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the
safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior
leaders at Penn State,”
Freeh said in the release. “In order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at Penn State University . . . repeatedly
concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse from the
authorities, the Board of Trustees, the Penn State community and the
public at large.”
The report took former Penn State president
Graham Spanier to task, saying he “failed in his duties as president.”
Investigators specifically homed in on an incident in February 2001,
when Sandusky was discovered sexually assaulting a boy in the Penn State
showers by graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary. The report blasted
Paterno, Spanier, former vice president Gary Schultz and athletic
director Tim Curley for showing concern for the ”humane” treatment of
Sandusky rather than the victim.
The report said that when
McQueary told Paterno he saw Sandusky behaving inappropriately with a
young boy in a locker room shower, Paterno delayed passing along the
information because he did not “want to interfere” with people’s weekend
plans. At no time did any officials try to identify the boy, Freeh
said.
Eight young men testified during Sandusky’s trial that he
lured them as boys from his at-risk charity and sexually abused them in
his home, in the Penn State locker room and on road trips with the
football team for more than 15 years.
Members of Penn State’s
Board of Trustees are opening a meeting Thursday in Scranton, Pa., to
determine how to respond. The board paid for the investigation, which
Freeh said involved 430 interviews and the analysis of 3.5 million
e-mails and other documents. The report also made 120 recommendations in
eight different areas.
In a
statement
on Penn State’s Web site, university leaders and the trustees said: “We
want to ensure we are giving the report careful scrutiny and
consideration before making any announcements or recommendations. We are
convening an internal team comprising the Board of Trustees, University
administration and our legal counsel to begin analyzing the report and
digesting Judge Freeh’s findings.”
The reputations and futures of a
host of officials have been tied to the report’s release. Curley and
Schultz face criminal charges of perjury and failure to report child
abuse. Spanier, who was ousted along with Paterno days after Sandusky
was arrested last November, has stated through his attorneys that he had
no knowledge of any child abuse, sexual misconduct or criminal activity
by Sandusky.
Investigators did not interview Curley or Schultz,
who declined requests on the advice of their counsel, or Paterno, who
died of lung cancer in January.
Freeh’s release said Curley,
after consulting with Paterno, decided not to report to authorities the
2001 abuse, preferring to handle the matter internally by talking to
Sandusky and telling him not to bring “guests” into the locker room.
Spanier
wrote in an e-mail that he agreed with that decision, saying, “The only
downside for us is if the message isn’t ‘heard’ and acted upon, we
become vulnerable.”
The report also outlined discussions among
Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley about a 1998 criminal investigation
of Sandusky relating to suspected sexual misconduct with a boy in the
locker room shower, noting that they “showed no concern about the
victim.” Charges were never filed in the case.
The four men, Freeh
said, never “spoke to Sandusky about his conduct. In short, nothing was
done and Sandusky was allowed to continue with impunity.”
The
report also detailed interviews with a janitor who said he saw Sandusky
performing oral sex on a boy in the showers in 2000. Despite his shock
at what he had seen, the janitor told investigators he did not report
the incident because it “would have been like going against the
President of the United States. . . . Paterno has so much power, if he wanted to get rid of someone, I would have been gone. . . . Football runs this university.”
The
report said it found no evidence that the Penn State Board of Trustees
knew of the allegations from 1998 and 2001, but that the board was
remiss for failing to create an environment with sufficient oversight to
have compelled reporting.
The legacy of Paterno, the legendary
coach who took pride in running an honorable program, has been on the
line since Sandusky’s arrest. Paterno’s firing infuriated many students,
players and alumni, while others accused him of putting his program
before the welfare of the victims in the case. In a draft of
a letter that surfaced Wednesday and was verified as genuine by Paterno’s family, Paterno wrote to former players, “This is not a football scandal and should not be treated as one.”
The
letter also said: “Whatever failings that may have happened at Penn
State, whatever conclusions about my or others’ conduct you may wish to
draw from a fair view of the allegations, it is inarguable that these
actions had nothing to do with this last team or any of the hundreds of
prior graduates. . . . Penn Staters across the globe should feel no shame in saying ‘We are . . . Penn State.’”
The
NCAA is also investigating Penn State for a lack of institutional control and unethical conduct; officials said Thursday the would
consider the material in the report. Attorneys representing the victims
in the case are also expected to digest the report as they prepare
claims for civil lawsuits related to the case.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/freeh-report-on-penn-states-handling-of-jerry-sanduskys-child-sex-abuse-reveals-total-disregard-for-victims/2012/07/12/gJQAfVoMfW_print.html
