Sandusky case implicates Penn State, Joe Paterno as cover-up details revealed
In early July The Dispatch reported that details from the Sandusky case revealed Joe Paterno’s knowledge of the Sandusky child abuse, it was far from the full nightmare which is now unfolding.
2010 photo/Frances Sonne wikimedia commons
The latest report says Senior Penn State administrators exhibited a “total disregard for the safety and welfare” of the children who were sexually abused by former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
According to an internal investigation of the university, former Penn State University president Graham Spanier, former vice president Gary Schultz, former head football coach Joe Paterno and Athletic Director Tim Curley, now on leave, never demonstrated “through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky’s victims until after Sandusky’s arrest.”
“The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized,” the investigation concluded.
The Seattle Times writes: Joe Paterno’s legacy took a lethal hit Thursday, as did his school, Penn State, with the release of a searing, 267-page internal report headed by former FBI director Louis Freeh. The waffling, the posturing, the conspiring — things we suspected in this Jerry Sandusky mess but perhaps couldn’t quite get our arms around — were laid out in black-and-white sentences.
“We have a great deal of respect for Mr. Paterno and condolences for his family on the loss, it’s a person with a terrific legacy, a great legacy, who brought huge value not just to the university but the program,” Freeh said. “He, as someone once said, made perhaps the worst mistake of his life. But we’re not singling him out. We’re putting him in a category of four other people who we would say are the major leaders of Penn State.”
“None of them ever spoke to Sandusky about his conduct,” Freeh said. “Nothing was done and Sandusky was allowed to continue with impunity. … None of these four men took responsible action.”
He also said the university trustees needed to take responsibility.
“The board failed in its oversight,” he said. “They did not create an atmosphere where the personnel and the senior officials were accountable to the board.”
Freeh said a 2000 incident, in which Sandusky’s abuse of a young child in a football locker room was witnessed by a university janitor, represented a culture of silence that prevailed at Penn State to avoid bad publicity.
“What I found to be extremely telling and critical in deciding not just what I thought recommendations should be, is the janitors,” Freeh said. “These are the employees of Penn State who clean and maintain the locker rooms in the Lasch building where young boys are being raped. They witness, what I think in the report is probably the most horrific rape that’s described. And what do they do? They panic. The janitor who observes it says it’s the worst thing he ever saw. He’s a Korean war veteran. He said he’s never seen anything like that. ‘It makes me sick.’ He spoke to the other janitors. They were awed and shocked by it. But, what did they do? They said they can’t report this cause they’d be fired. They knew who Sandusky was.”
Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse involving 10 victims during a span of 15 years. Sandusky remains in a central Pennsylvania county jail awaiting formal sentencing.
