Penn State Child Molestation Scandal...continuing discussion

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I think Headache, like most of us find it a bit laughable that JoePa was enraged with nothing being done, but basically had his hands tied because his bosses wouldn't listen to him!!!

The story smells of complete bullshit. Paterno could do whatever he wanted, and if that story was true, and he was SO upset, Joe could have easily gone to the police himself.

People are trying to cover for him since he's a legendary coach.
 
BEAL said:
I think Headache, like most of us find it a bit laughable that JoePa was enraged with nothing being done, but basically had his hands tied because his bosses wouldn't listen to him!!!

The story smells of complete bullshit. Paterno could do whatever he wanted, and if that story was true, and he was SO upset, Joe could have easily gone to the police himself.

People are trying to cover for him since he's a legendary coach.
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But I'm not trying to cover for him, and I don't think that story is true. Literally all I said is that his power has been exaggerated. I know this from, gee, I don't know, having been here.

And I'm not playing the Uncle Leo defense. Sure, the guy rambles and can't keep up with the fast pace of a college football game anymore, but he still knows what's going on. When I hear that shit, it pisses me off too.
 
I heard on the news that one of the victims had to leave his high school (senior year) because he was being bullied about Paterno being fired. I guess the victims don't have anonymity in school and the word has gotten around somehow.
 
Victim 1 is the only victim who is not currently an adult. He's the one whose complaint a few years ago started the whole case.
 
Joe Paterno's rule was far-reaching, former Penn State official says

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: 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.
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Paterno's rule at Penn State far-reaching – USATODAY.com

Another perspective. Don't know if it was accurate in 2007; also don't know if Paterno has lost influence since then. (PF is there, I'm not and I know he's not an apologist) But, if true, yeah Paterno was much higher up the food chain than his nominal bosses. Article rings true to me.
 
Asbury, Triponey's predecessor, said he can't recall anytime a coach asked him to mitigate a penalty on a player.
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"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."
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I mean, those are in the same article.
 
Now, I'm sure Paterno has protected his players at times in the past, just like every other college football coach. But there are plenty of instances of he and the university disciplining players as well. Austin Scott got arrested and eventually was found not guilty, but he was kicked off the team when he was arrested and never reinstated. Just this season, Stephfon Green missed almost half the year because he bought an underage kid some beer.

I'm far from a Paterno apologist, but this thing reeks of a disgruntled former administrator who clashed with everyone in the university and his brother because she's nuts trying to ride the media wave to get back at the university.
 
I'm not sure I place trust in anyone's word--be it ousted student affairs VP's, predecessors or police chiefs.:D. (I come from a corrupt little area and would only vouch for a handful of people) I will defer to your opinion of Ms. Triponey's being a paranoid, lying sack of shit, although a little clarification would be helpful.
 
In her time here, she attempted to destroy student government, Greek government and student radio. Her idea of being a leader was to tear down student institutions and eliminate the voice of the student media. When she was forced out, nearly every decision she made was reversed almost immediately.

I was told about her about a year ago, in response to some heavy criticisms I made about her successor, Damon Sims. It was basically a "You think this guy is bad, you never knew the old VP" kind of situation, which is why I know who she is.
 
OK, your take sounds reasonable.

I've seen it the other way too, so forgive me if I'm always a little bit cynical in an environment like a university (et al). I've seen people hurt badly when these little circles tighten like a noose and these beacons of enlightenment and authority lie through their fucking teeth to protect the institution, the status quo, their positions, not caring whom they shatter before they move on to a new place. I kind of think everyone is a lying sack of shit unless proven otherwise.

It'll be interesting to see what more shakes down--when Penn State loses its exemption from the right to know laws.
 
Bloomberg, Nov. 23
An investigator who looked into a 1998 complaint against former Penn State University football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky says there wasn’t enough evidence to take action then--and he is sorry it took so long to bring charges against the man now accused of molesting eight boys from 1994 through 2009. Jerry Lauro, who worked for the state’s Public Welfare Department, reviewed a complaint about Sandusky showering with a boy in a university locker room. Lauro dropped the case after concluding that while Sandusky’s actions at the time were inappropriate, the boy didn’t make allegations of sexual abuse and there wasn’t yet a pattern of complaints, he said.
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Governor Tom Corbett, who helped lead a new investigation of Sandusky when he was attorney general in 2009, said he expects the state’s lawmakers to toughen scrutiny of child abuse before the end of the year. The Legislature may pass a joint resolution next month creating a bipartisan commission to make recommendations for changes in state law, said Stephen Miskin, a spokesman for the House Republican Caucus.
. . .
Detectives from the police departments of Penn State and the town of State College, Pennsylvania, also investigated the 1998 allegations against Sandusky, and the local district attorney declined to file charges, according to a grand-jury report. ...The inconclusive 1998 investigation shows that Pennsylvania needs to change its narrow definition of what constitutes child abuse and when it must be reported, said Jennifer Storm, executive director of the Dauphin County Victim/Witness Assistance Program in Harrisburg. “This to me would have been a really good criminal case,” she said. “Why didn’t this go to court? Unfortunately, we may never know the answer.”

Many of the complaints Pennsylvania declines to act on would be considered abuse in other states, said Rachel P. Berger, a pediatrician and child-abuse researcher in Pittsburgh. Berger and the Protect Our Children advocacy organization are calling for a comprehensive review of state laws related to child abuse. “If one good thing comes out of all this bad, hopefully as a state we will find a way to prevent this kind of situation from occurring,” Berger said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Click to expand...
Second Mile didn’t move to limit Sandusky’s access to children until November 2008, when he told them he was being investigated on allegations made by a teenage boy, according to the charity’s website. Second Mile’s Raykovitz learned in 2002 about the incident involving Sandusky and a boy in the Penn State football showers, the grand-jury report said. The statement on Second Mile’s website said university officials told Raykovitz that someone reported being “uncomfortable about seeing Jerry Sandusky in the locker room shower with a youth” and that the foundation wasn’t aware “of the very serious allegations contained in the grand-jury report”--that Sandusky was sexually assaulting the boy. Raykovitz didn’t return a telephone call yesterday seeking additional comment.
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One of the new accusers was locked up in Sandusky's basement and raped there. The victim would scream for help, but Sandusky's wife never came down, though the claim could be made she never heard the screams.
 
A lot of people are planning to drive to Bellefonte to try to get into his preliminary hearing next week. I don't really get why.
 
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