Day two of a hearing on whether three former Penn State officials covered up an allegation in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal is expected to feature two more witnesses, a day after legendary coach Joe Paterno was said to be quietly critical of how university officials had handled it. …read more
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By The Huffington Post News Editors
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Longtime Penn State head coach Joe Paterno said that the university mishandled its response to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, a former assistant coach testified Monday.
Mike McQueary was called as a witness in a hearing for three former Penn State officials accused in a cover-up of the scandal. He told the judge that the late Hall of Fame coach had told him over the years that “Old Main screwed up” – referring to university administrators – in response to the allegation against Sandusky.
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By Associated Press Longtime Penn State head coach Joe Paterno said that the university mishandled its response to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, a former assistant coach testified Monday. …read more
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Penn State University has reached tentative settlements with several men who claim to have been sexually abused by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, the school’s Board of Trustees announced Friday.
The school won’t be commenting on specifics until the deals have been made final, which could happen in the coming weeks. University president Rodney Erickson called approving the settlement offers “another important step toward the resolution of claims from Sandusky’s victims.”
“As we have previously said, the university intends to deal with these individuals in a fair and expeditious manner, with due regard to their privacy,” Erickson said in a statement issued after the settlement resolution was approved.
Sandusky, 69, was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse, including violent attacks on boys inside school facilities, after a three-week trial last summer in which eight victims testified against him. He is serving a 30- to 60-year prison term and maintains he was wrongfully convicted. He is pursuing appeals.
The school said it won’t comment until settlements have been finalized, executed and delivered. More than 30 claimants have come forward with sexual abuse allegations involving the longtime assistant to late coach Joe Paterno.
The deals will be limited to a range of dollar values and subject to final approval by a committee empowered by the board to handle the claims.
Legal experts say the “value” of a child sexual abuse claims depends on several factors, including the victim’s age and the nature and frequency of the abuse. Many details about the Sandusky abuse claims have not been made public, but other cases suggest Penn State may have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, up to several million, to get settlements.
Ira Lubert, the trustee who chairs the board’s Committee on Legal and Compliance, told the board that “tentative settlements have been reached on a number of existing claims” without detailing how many have settled, how many remain and how much money — individually or in the aggregate — might be involved.
Lubert said his committee was empowered to authorize the settlements itself, but though it was important that the trustees approved the move in a public meeting. The trustees voted unanimously to make the settlement offers with no discussion after a brief explanation by Lubert.
The committee was …read more
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By Associated Press The widow of longtime Penn State coach Joe Paterno says she and her husband were ignorant about sexual predators like Jerry Sandusky.
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The widow of longtime Penn State coach Joe Paterno says she and her husband were ignorant about sexual predators like Jerry Sandusky.
Speaking at a child-abuse prevention program, Sue Paterno says she and her husband sometimes unknowingly helped Sandusky “groom” the boys he abused, believing he was helping them find a better life.
Paterno says she was horrified to learn Sandusky sexually abused several young boys.
A probe completed last summer accused Joe Paterno, who died in January 2012, and three former Penn State administrators of covering up an abuse allegation about Sandusky more than a decade ago in an attempt to shield the university from bad publicity.
The Paterno family has vehemently died the late coach had knowledge of Sandusky’s crimes.
Sandusky is serving 30 to 60 years in prison.
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By Evann Gastaldo 
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Jerry Sandusky said in interview excerpts broadcast Monday that a key witness against him misinterpreted him showering with a young boy in Penn State football team facilities more than a decade ago.
Sandusky told documentary filmmaker John Ziegler, in recordings played on NBC’s “Today” show, that he does not understand how Mike McQueary concluded “that sex was going on” when he witnessed Sandusky showering with a boy in 2001.
“That would have been the last thing I would have thought about,” Sandusky said during what Ziegler described as 3½ hours of interviews. “I would have thought maybe fooling around or something like that.”
McQueary, a graduate assistant in 2001, testified at trial that he heard “skin-on-skin smacking sound” and had no doubt he was witnessing anal sex.
The boy, identified as Victim 2 in court records, was not a witness at trial. A team of civil lawyers has said they are representing Victim 2 and posted online audio recordings of voicemails purportedly from Sandusky and left for the boy.
Sandusky also told Ziegler he was not sure whether head coach Joe Paterno, who was fired after Sandusky’s November 2011 arrest, would have let him keep coaching if he suspected Sandusky was a pedophile. Sandusky was investigated by university police for a separate shower incident in 1998, but remained one of Paterno’s top assistants through 1999.
“If he absolutely thought I was, I’d say no,” Sandusky said. “If he had a suspicion, I don’t know the answer to that.”
Ziegler is working on a defense of Paterno. Wick Sollers, a Paterno family lawyer, said in a statement released Sunday that Sandusky had an opportunity to testify at trial but “chose not to do so.”
Sandusky, 69, is serving a 30- to 60-year prison sentence after being convicted last year of 45 counts of child sexual abuse. He maintains his innocence and is pursuing appeals.
An interview with Jerry Sandusky is expected to be aired on NBC‘s “Today” show, a rare instance of the former Penn State assistant football coach giving his own side of the story.
The network said the Monday morning broadcast will include Sandusky’s remarks about his former boss Joe Paterno, who died two months after being fired following Sandusky’s arrest in 2011.
Sandusky’s lawyer Norris Gelman says the interview excerpts are from John Ziegler, a documentary filmmaker working on a defense of Paterno.
In a statement Sunday, Paterno family attorney Wick Sollers says Sandusky had the opportunity to speak under oath during his trial but he “chose not to do so.”
Sandusky is serving a 30- to 60-year sentence after being convicted of child sexual abuse. He maintains his innocence and is pursuing appeals.
Jerry Sandusky’s “major claims” as he appeals a conviction for child sexual abuse include the many years that went by before victims notified authorities, according to a pair of defense filings Monday.
Sandusky attorney Norris Gelman listed the failure to report — specifically, the judge’s refusal to instruct jurors on the issue — as a critical element of the former Penn State assistant coach’s effort to overturn the 45-count conviction.
Gelman also argued that the defense lawyers lacked sufficient time to prepare for the three-week trial last summer.
He revisited arguments were previously rejected by the judge who presided over the trial, Judge John Cleland. The new filings set the stage for formal appeals before Superior Court.
Sandusky, 69, is serving 30 to 60 years at a state prison in southwestern Pennsylvania for molesting boys over a period of several years in a case that brought down Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno and led to sanctions against Penn State‘s storied football program.
Using their initials, Gelman listed the reporting delays by the eight young men who testified against Sandusky. He said only one of them reported the abuse promptly, while the others waited between four and 14 years.
“Reversible error was committed when the trial court refused the defense request to give jury instructions on the failure of the alleged victims to make a prompt complaint to authorities based on its view of ‘the research’ which led the court to believe that in the area of child sexual abuse such an instruction was not ‘an accurate indicia of honesty and may be misleading,'” Gelman wrote.
The state attorney general’s office, which prosecuted Sandusky, offered no immediate comment on the pair of filings — one made to Cleland and the other to Superior Court.
Jeff Anderson, a lawyer who represents two people with claims related to Sandusky, said the prompt complaint issue was unlikely to result in a new trial.
“I think it’s a shallow and predictably made legal argument that has to be made, but it will effectively go nowhere,” said Anderson, whose clients are not among the eight who testified at trial.
Gelman also said Cleland should have given Sandusky’s attorneys more time …read more
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The insurance carrier for the children’s charity founded by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky doesn’t have to cover him for acts of child sexual abuse, a judge ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane said Sandusky was not acting as an employee or executive of The Second Mile when he abused and molested boys.
“The fact that Sandusky met his victims through The Second Mile — or even sexually abused victims ‘during the course of activities of Second Mile‘ — does not change the fact that his sexual abuse of children was personal in nature, and performed in his individual capacity,” the judge’s ruling said.
The judge ruled in favor of Warren, N.J.-based Federal Insurance Co., which had brought the case against Sandusky.
Sandusky was convicted last summer of abusing 10 boys, some of whom he met through the charity he founded in 1977. He was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison but maintains his innocence and is appealing. He faces lawsuits from some of his accusers.
Sandusky’s lead appellate lawyer, Norris Gelman, said he would be sticking with his client but “without money it’s going to be a little tough.”
“I’ll talk to him, I’ll talk to his wife, and we’ll see what’s what,” Gelman said. “I’m not the kind of guy who would quit in the middle of a case. I’ve never done that, and I don’t think I ever will.”
Gelman said Federal Insurance had paid him some money but declined to say how much. Neither the insurer’s lawyers nor Sandusky’s civil lawyers immediately returned phone messages Friday.
Eight young men testified against Sandusky, describing a range of abuse they said went from grooming and manipulation to fondling, oral sex and anal rape when they were boys.
Sandusky, 69, did not testify at his trial but has long insisted he’s innocent. He acknowledges he showered with boys but says he never molested them.
The abuse scandal rocked Penn State, bringing down football coach Joe Paterno and the university’s president and leading the NCAA, college sports‘ governing body, to levy unprecedented sanctions against the university’s football program.
Penn State‘s bill for legal fees, consultants and other costs associated with the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal stands at more than $27.6 million.
An updated figure as of November 2012 was provided this week on a university website. It includes a $13 million price tag for board of trustees communications and the internal investigation into the scandal by former FBI director Louis Freeh.
Freeh’s findings released last summer were the subject of renewed scrutiny this week after Joe Paterno‘s family released an extensive response conducted by its own experts.
Nearly $7.5 million is paying for university legal services or defense. About $4 million is for other legal defense fees including those covering three ex-school administrators facing criminal charges related to the scandal.
A Penn State trustee has called on the university governing board to re-examine the findings of former FBI director Louis Freeh‘s school-sanctioned investigation into the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
The critique released this weekend by Joe Paterno‘s family raised “serious and troubling” questions about Freeh’s findings, trustee Alvin Clemens said Monday in a statement.
Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh was among the experts brought in by the Paterno family to review the Freeh report, which concluded that Paterno and other university officials covered up allegations against Sandusky to spare the university bad publicity. The family’s review said the cover-up claims were inaccurate, were unfounded and equated to a “rush to injustice.”
Freeh has defended his work and stood by his findings. He has called the Paterno family’s review self-serving and a campaign to shape the late Hall of Fame coach’s legacy.
Sandusky, a former assistant coach under Paterno, was convicted of 45 child sex abuse counts. He was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison last fall but still maintains his innocence.
Paterno died in January 2012 at age 85.
The NCAA levied unprecedented sanctions on Penn State less than two weeks after Freeh released his stinging findings in July.
Freeh’s firm was hired by the board of trustees to perform “an independent, full and complete investigation of the Sandusky scandal,” said Clemens, a trustee since 1995. “In addition to questions about accuracy and fairness, there is little question that the Freeh report is less than complete.”
Penn State said Sunday that Freeh was brought in to conduct an independent investigation of the school’s response to the allegations, and not actions of entities unrelated to Penn State. Freeh offered 119 recommendations to strengthen governance and compliance, the majority of which have been implemented, the school said.
Freeh’s report has never been formally discussed by the board as a whole. At the time of its release in July, trustees said they had accepted responsibility for failures of accountability.
University president Rodney Erickson handled talks with the NCAA over the penalties.
The family offered its response to the Freeh report Sunday, attacking what it called …read more
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By Don Van Natta Nike co-founder Phil Knight said Monday that Joe Paterno was unfairly maligned by the “unjustified and unsubstantiated” findings of the Freeh Report. …read more
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Perhaps the late former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno didn’t help cover up the sexual crimes committed by former Nittany Lion defensive coordinator coach Jerry Sandusky. …read more
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A report commissioned by Joe Paterno‘s family says that the July 2012 Freeh report – authored by former FBI Director Louis Freeh – is “full of fallacies, unsupported personal opinions, false allegations and biased assertions.” …read more
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By ESPN.com The Paterno family report targets nearly every conclusion and assertion the Freeh report made about Joe Paterno in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. …read more
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By ESPN.com Sue Paterno, the widow of the late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, has emailed a letter to hundreds of former Penn State players, informing them that a report, commissioned by the family in response to the Freeh Report, will be released Sunday. …read more
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Two Pennsylvania congressmen want the NCAA to restore football scholarships taken away from Penn State as part of sanctions for the child sex abuse scandal involving retired assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
Reps. Richard Dent and Glenn Thompson wrote in a letter sent Monday to NCAA President Mark Emmert that taking away up to 40 scholarships harmed players who had nothing to do with the scandal.
Dent and Thompson wrote that denying student athletes access to higher education does nothing to account for Sandusky’s crimes.
Sandusky has been sentenced to at least 30 years in prison after being convicted last summer on dozens of criminal counts. The scandal cost Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno his job.
Gov. Tom Corbett‘s has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the NCAA sanctions.
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Penn State‘s negotiator for civil claims involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky said Friday the school has been in talks with 28 people and settlement discussions with some claimants could soon produce results.
The number of claimants is 18 more than were involved in Sandusky’s criminal case this summer, when eight young men testified they were assaulted by Sandusky. Prosecutors were not able to identify two victims.
Ken Feinberg told The Associated Press that the talks have gone well and he is hopeful they will yield settlements in the coming weeks.
No one has pulled out of the negotiations, and he said a realistic timetable for settlements is “the near future. I think the process will be successful, yes I do.”
Harrisburg attorney Ben Andreozzi, who represents multiple claimants in the talks, said there was “still some ground that needs to be made up.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m quite as optimistic as he is,” Andreozzi said. “I do think it’s been a positive process and both parties are acting in good faith so far. I would say I’m cautiously optimistic.”
Feinberg said the 28 claims are being handled on an accelerated basis now that the holidays are over.
“This is not a group settlement,” he said. “We’re looking at each individual claim.”
Based on other cases, some of the factors that can go into putting a value on a child sexual abuse claim are the age of the victim, the length of time the child was abused, the types of acts involved, where they took place and evidence it has affected them.
Sandusky’s November 2011 arrest immediately touched off a massive scandal that cost Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno his job, as well as the university president. Former school President Graham Spanier and two other top administrators currently face charges they covered up allegations involving Sandusky to protect the university’s reputation. They maintain their innocence.
Penn State announced in September it was bringing in Feinberg, who helped resolve claims from the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the Virginia Tech massacre.
The university said after Sandusky’s guilty verdict in June on 45 counts that it wanted to “privately, expeditiously and fairly” settle with victims of the former assistant football coach. In some cases, the victims have filed lawsuits.
Sandusky is serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence. Sandusky maintains he is innocent and is pursuing appeals. Most recently, he was in court for argument on post-sentencing motions, including a claim his lawyers lacked sufficient time to prepare for trial, and a ruling from the trial judge is pending.
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