Could Jerry Sandusky get new trial on 2012 child-molestation conviction?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
This story is about Jerry Sandusky's attorney filing a request for a new trial with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. However, the story mentions the Freeh report and Freeh's reaction to those that think the report was flawed.
It’s easier to find those who believe Joe Paterno, who was fired in the wake of Sandusky’s 2011 arrest after 62 years at Penn State, did not cover up Sandusky's acts. And the attention paid – at least nationally – has subsided since 2012, the year Paterno died, Sandusky was convicted, the Louis Freeh report that alleged a cover-up was released and the university was sanctioned by the NCAA.
Lindsay along with others at Monday’s news conference also pointed to a 2018 report from five current and two former members of Penn State’s board of trustees that alleged flaws in Freeh's investigation. The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported on the report this month.
“It was the product of external influences and was not by any measure objective or the result of independence,” the board of trustee members concluded in the report. “In short, it is both unreliable and misleading. Our University paid $8.3 million for an ‘independent investigation’ that was neither independent nor a fair and thorough investigation.”
Freeh, the former head of the FBI, issued the following statement:
“A small but vocal segment of the Penn State community, the deniers continue to detract from the real victims in this case by trying to convince the public that Coach Paterno and his football legacy were somehow instead the victims. The deniers continue to embarrass the many thousands of outstanding Penn State students, faculty, and alumni by blindly disregarding the uncontroverted facts in favor of a misguided agenda.”
I have always had a problem with the Freeh report. That problem was that it relied heavily on third-hand evidence to blame Paterno as covering things up. The report heavily used emails about Paterno claiming he ordered certain actions, but there was no real evidence that he actually did order those things as Paterno RARELY OR NEVER USED email himself. Paterno was as old-school as they come regarding modern technology. He didn't like it. Knowing the culture at Penn State, having lived 9 miles away for about 30 years; I know for a fact that there were a lot of lazy people working at the University. I, also, know that one way of preventing pushback over an idea is to claim that someone in authority ordered it, even if they did not.
Remember, Freeh's group was hired on Nov 21, 2011 to investigate the Sandusky scandal and the University response. He, also, planned to investigate happenings from 1975 up until 2011. His group issued their report on July 12, 2012. It felt like a rush job at the time to me and it seemed like the goal was to clear the Board of Trustees of any wrongdoing in the firing of Joe Paterno. And, the report ended up heaping all the blame on Joe Paterno in the end, even though he had died almost 6 months before the report was released and 2 months after Freeh was hired to investigate.
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I have always had my doubts about the Freeh report, but I was always ambivalent to the accusations regarding Jerry Sandusky. I was not at the trial even though it was held less than 2 miles from my family's farm and just a block away from where I used to live before I had cancer. It was a sad time for all of us in the area as many looked up to both Jerry Sandusky and Joe Paterno. I still look up to Joe Paterno and never got the sense that he knew what was going on with Jerry Sandusky in any real terms. Remember, a previous investigation cleared Sandusky regarding similar accusations before everything blew up in 2011.
100% in agreement.
All of my kids attended PSU. Before, during and after this debacle.
But it does illustrate that we put too much value on sports and sports records.