Former Penn State president Graham Spanier will face perjury charges, as a result of the testimony he gave during the Jerry Sandusky trial, according to a new report from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Unidentified sources told the paper that Spanier, who was fired from Penn State after 16 years as president, has been under investigation for statements he made before a grand jury in 2011. Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly and state Police Commissioner Frank Noonan will hold a press conference this afternoon to discuss the case in more detail. (Photo via AP/Gene J. Puskar/ABC News) source
FLASH: Former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison in child sex abuse case. Watch Reuters.com for more.
This comes one day after a lengthy defense he made from jail.
Evaluate the accusers and their families. Realize they didn’t come out of isolation. The accusers were products of many more people and experiences than me. Look at their confidants and their honesty. Think about how easy it was for them to turn on me given the information, attention and potential perks. I never labeled or put down them or their families. I tried and I cared, then asked for the same.Jerry Sandusky • In his statement, made from his jail cell, denying, at length, the allegations against him. He claims a vast conspiracy against him. “A young man who was dramatic, a veteran accuser and always sought attention, started everything,” Sandusky claims. “He was joined by a well-orchestrated effort of the media, investigators, the system, Penn State, psychologists, civil attorneys and other accusers. They won.”
It is unfathomable and illogical to think … someone who experienced massive and persistent abuse as a child … would have knowingly turned a blind eye to a report of child abuse.Former PSU President Graham Spanier explaining, in a letter to Penn State trustees, that he was a child-abuse victim and wouldn’t have ‘turned a blind eye’ to others in response to Freeh report. (via imwithkanye)
» No longer the winningest: As a result of the vacated seasons, Paterno will no longer be the NCAA’s winningest football coach, which means that Florida State’s Bobby Bowden is now the winningest coach in NCAA history — and a statistic that once meant everything means nothing.
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Joe Paterno’s statue at Penn State is gone, taken down after months of anger that only rose in recent weeks over Louis Freeh’s report, which appeared to implicate the legendary coach in the Jerry Sandusky affair. There it is. It’s gone. (photo by Christopher Weddle/Centre Daily Times)
Ultimatum of the Day: Debate has raged for months over whether the Joe Paterno statue outside Penn State’s Beaver Stadium should remain in the wake of increasingly damning revelations in the Sandusky abuse scandal.
Now, just days after an independent report implicated Paterno in a high-level cover-up, a plane is flying above the university trailing a banner that threatens “TAKE THE STATUE DOWN OR WE WILL.”
No word on who “We” might be, or how soon the statue must be removed before “We” return with an excavator.
However, this has the potential to get interesting: The Penn State Board of Trustees issued a statement Sunday claiming that no decision had been made on whether the statue would be removed, and that a decision shouldn’t be expected anytime soon.
[deadspin]
Do you guys think the statue should go?
To those who are convinced that the Freeh report is the last word on this matter, that is absolutely not the case. Since various investigations and legal cases are still pending, it is highly likely that additional critical information will emerge. With that said, we want to take this opportunity to reiterate that Joe Paterno did not shield Jerry Sandusky from any investigation or review. The 1998 incident was fully and independently investigated by law enforcement officials. The Freeh report confirms this. It is also a matter of record that Joe Paterno promptly and fully reported the 2001 incident to his superiors. It can certainly be asserted that Joe Paterno could have done more. He acknowledged this himself last fall. But to claim that he knowingly, intentionally protected a pedophile is false.A Paterno family statement regarding the Freeh report, which implicated Joe Paterno, the former Penn State coach, in a cover-up of the Jerry Sandusky case. “Mr. Freeh presented his opinions and interpretations as if they were absolute facts,” the family also said. “We believe numerous issues in the report, and his commentary, bear further review.” The full statement is over here.
I think Joe Paterno is an amazing human being. I think he made a major bad decision in his life.Artist Michael Pilato • Discussing why, in the wake of last week’s Freeh Report, he removed a halo from a Penn State mural that depicts Joe Paterno, replacing it with a blue ribbon to reflect awareness for child abuse. Pilato previously removed Jerry Sandusky from the mural entirely, also replacing him with a blue ribbon — as well as an empty chair.
Sobering. In related news, The New York Times reports that Joe Paterno negotiated a deal for his retirement in early 2011, at a time when the Sandusky saga was starting to bubble over. The $5.5 million deal, which would have made 2011 Paterno’s last season, also included perks, such as the use of a private jet for him and his family, which would remain in effect for decades after Paterno died. In the end, the university gave the family virtually everything they planned to offer Paterno. This deal, however, was not public at the time.
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The Louis Freeh Report on Jerry Sandusky includes a detailed timeline of events in the case. Here is the section from just after Mike McQueary told Joe Paterno what he witnessed, and he told Penn State leadership about Sandusky.
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.Former FBI director Louis Freeh • In a statement accompanying his report on the Jerry Sandusky case. The report, which is 200 pages long, is over here, but based on the tone of this statement, it implicates, Joe Paterno, the former Penn State head football coach who died earlier this year, for not reporting Sandusky’s conduct.
At no time in the more than 16 years of his presidency at Penn State was Dr. Spanier told of an incident involving Jerry Sandusky that described child abuse, sexual misconduct or criminality of any kind.A statement from the lawyers for former Penn State president Graham Spanier • Insisting that, contrary to recently leaked info suggesting a conscious plan not to report Jerry Sandusky for child sexual abuse, Spanier never knew of Sandusky’s offenses. Spanier’s Penn State emails now figure centrally in this argument — it was excerpts from them which that appeared to implicate him, and he’s now mounting a legal challenge to force the university to hand the emails over to him. According to his attorneys, “Selected leaks, without the full context, are distorting the public record and creating a false picture.” The hotly-anticipated report on Penn State officials’ conduct regarding Sandusky, investigated by former FBI director Louis Freeh, is set to be released this Thursday morning. source (via • follow)