Well. This might be the hardest blog post I’ve sat down and written since I started this blog. It might be the hardest piece of writing I have ever sat down to do. Whenever you are writing about such serious crimes it is going to be hard and I’ve read the indictment in full…
Yesterday a Grand Jury indicted Jerry Sandusky with forty counts of sexual abuse against children. I doubt many (if any) regular or even semi-regular readers of this blog know who this man is so I’ll tell you. He was the former Defensive Coordinator at Penn State and was considered to be the natural heir to the man to whom I have more respect than any other person alive today that I have never met – Joe Paterno.
67 year-old Sandusky was on Joe Paterno’s staff for thirty years and was the person who led Penn State’s defense in the national title years of 1982 and 1986. The defensive scheme in the 1987 Fiesta Bowl is still to this day the greatest defense I have seen on a football field. The greatest offense ever seen in college football was shutdown by Penn State. Heisman Trophy winner Vinny Testaverde was intercepted five times that night including on 4th Down and Goal with nine seconds remaining. It was Sandusky who created ‘Linebacker U’ but his on field achievement seem so worthless today.
The charges and the Grand Jury’s indictment is ugly and to be honest a horrific account of long-term abuse against minors. Within 24 hours though the story moved on as others have been implicated. The AD at Penn State Tim Curley has been charged with perjury as has Gary Schultz the vice president for finance and business. As part of his job Schultz was also responsible for overlooking university police. Their charges stem from an incident in 2002 which sadly will taint Joe Paterno despite him not doing anything wrong.
That incident revolves around a grad assistant witnessing Sandusky abusing a boy on the Penn State campus. That grad assistant may well have been Big Red Mike McQueary but that isn’t gospel but it seems like the case. The grad assistant informed his father to what he witnessed and his father told him to come home. The next day McQueary visited the Paterno home and told the coach what he saw. The coach then informed both Curley and Schultz as he was meant to. This is all from Paterno’s testimony to the Grand Jury from earlier this year. I must point out that coach Paterno has not been charged with anything to do with this case and will not be according to the Grand Jury.
Curley and Schultz have also been charged with failing to notify the authorities of a potential sex crime which is illegal under Pennsylvania law although it terms of seriousness it is not serious enough to warrant jail time. Paterno has not been charged because he did not witness the alleged assault and he did inform both his superior and the person in charge of the university police. Legally he has done nothing wrong. Indeed it seems extremely likely that Paterno and the grad assistant will be prosecution witnesses in these cases.
The evidence seems overwhelming against all three charged. Curley and Schultz’s testimony in front of the Grand Jury was essentially the polar opposite to coach Paterno’s version of events as the two charged never believed a serious crime had been committed. It reeks of a cover-up and the main question is who was involved. As more comes out it does look as though one of my biggest idols is in the clear but maybe we’ll never know.
In 1998 there was an alleged incident of sexual abuse investigated by university police against Sandusky which never resulted in a criminal case. At this point the coach was still very much seen as the natural successor to Paterno. Within twelve months he had been forced into retirement by Paterno and Penn State. Paterno had told him that he wanted to make changes and that he was out. Considering how loyal Paterno is to his staff it smelled like something was up. To me it smells like Paterno knew something wasn’t right and wanted up out of there. However as part of his retirement agreement with the university he still had access to the facilities.
At this point how I must stress that everyone is innocent and I have seen many a Grand Jury indictment lead only to a Not Guilty verdict in a Court of Law despite there seeming to be damning evidence. All we have heard so far is the prosecutions side of the story and this is one thing I can’t get about the US legal system – the Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly has come out and said, “This is a case about a sexual predator who used his position within the university and community to repeatedly prey on young boys,It is also a case about high-ranking university officials who allegedly failed to report the sexual assault of a young boy after the information was brought to their attention, and later made false statements to a grand jury that was investigating a series of assaults on young boys.”
I just don’t get how an Attorney General come out and call Sandusky a sexual predator without having a guilty verdict in a Court of Law but hey maybe the US prefer a Guilty until proven Innocent stance from their legal officials. Why not say a man has been charged and then try him on the crimes? I often find that the more that comes out outside of the trial then the like likely it is the prosecution will get a conviction. That is just my own opinion though – I do not have the facts to back that up but in several very high-profile cases Stateside recently the more the public has apparently known the less chance the jury has convicted.
I have zero knowledge as to these charges and how it will play out in court. Lying to a Grand Jury is pretty nasty stuff however Barry Bonds is not sitting in a jail cell today, nor is Roger Clemens. So Curley and Schultz have hope even though it seems like they did lie under oath (and really why do that? They knew Paterno was going to say the truth so why lie to try and cover up your own either a) inadequacies or more alarmingly b) your own cover-up).
As for Jerry Sandusky who knows. He has strenuously denied all wrongdoing and the legal process will play out in due course.
What makes me sad at this moment is that Penn State has an almighty black-eye today and it is without a doubt the darkest day in the universities history. Coach Paterno who is a truly great man has a black eye just by association despite not doing anything wrong but all this pales into insignificance if the allegations are true because plenty of young people’s lives have been ruined by a sexual monster. Sexual abuse never leaves you.
For now though I shall stick by my old-fashioned ‘Innocent until proven Guilty’ motto and hope like anything that this is all untrue. I fear it isn’t but I stand by that motto. What it means for the future of Joe Paterno and the Penn State Football programme and the university as a whole I don’t know but what I do know is it’s a bleak day whatever happens from here on in.
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