But he has found some things to say about the Gospel According to Freeh.
Reading the Freeh Report and somehow not throwing up all over my desk and surrounding carpet is I think an achievement in itself.Monnery also takes a good jab at Rick Reilly, who was particularly outspoken against Paterno recently.
The Freeh Report is full of holes and did not speak to many of the important people involved due to various reasons. Basically if I was using another American scandal I’d say it was the Mitchell Report which was ready to bury people based on just one source – Brian McNamee.
This time round Louis Freeh is ready to bury people on the strength of 14 and 11 year-old e-mails that may or may not be out of context. We all know that if this was a prosecution case in a criminal trial then no-one would be found guilty but the court of public opinion is a very different one to that of a court of law.
Now I am still what you call old school. You are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law and deserve to be treated as such. You are not innocent until a report into your conduct which only looks at a small portion of the evidence deems you as such. That isn’t how we do it in the democratic world – well it isn’t how it should be done anyway. There is surely plenty of blame to go around. We just don’t know where the blame should be laid yet. We all have opinions but opinions and knowledge are two very different kettles of fish. When people like Mike McQueary, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz etc… start speaking publicly and/or under oath then we might start getting the full picture. Until then we have seen half the story and to form an opinion based on half a story is not much further elvolved [sic] than what happened at the Salem witch trials.
But Rick--and others--would call us Paterno apologists.
I am an apologist . . . I'm very sorry that due process has been ignored and our society feels this crushing desire to harm innocent people without said due process.
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Mcqueary, Spanier, Curley, Schultz and Paterno have already testified under oath before the Grand Jury, Trial Jury and/or Judge. This guy obviously doesn't know what he's talking about.
It is true I haven't really found myself yet. I'm kind of a jack of many trades but a master of none. I'm only 29 though. Plenty of time to find my true calling...
As for the comment above. Yes they've all testified before the Grand Jury but that evidence is not in the public domain as yet so how can we have an opinion on what they said?
Yes, Joe testified to the Grand Jury . . . and they brought NO CHARGES gainst him. Yet, there are a lot of f**king idiots who think he is guilty of a cover up. We have not been told what Curley and Schultz said yet. And McQueary's testimony in court caused the jury to DROP THAT RAPE charge against Sandusky.
Try googling, for example, "Transcript: Joe Paterno's Grand Jury Testimony". There's plenty of grand jury and preliminary hearing stuff online.
Joe testified that Mike told him that Jerry had done something of a "sexual nature" to Victim 2. Joe's precise words were "It was a sexual nature". Knowing this, Joe still did nothing until the following week because he didn't want to interfere with people's weekend plans. Meanwhile, Jerry continued to have access to his victims, including Victim 2.
The jury dropped the anal penetration charge because Mike said that he didn't see actual penetration of Victim 2. They CONVICTED Jerry of the other four sex-related charges regarding Victim 2 because Mike testified in support of those four charges. In other words, the jury believed Mike when he told the jury the same thing he told Joe. What difference does this make? We have Joe's own testimony about what Joe was told by Mike.
It is completely false that Joe did not do anything until the following week. Exhibit 5A from the Freeh Report shows that Schultz had a conference with outside council regarding reporting suspected child abuse on Feb. 11, 2001. That was a Sunday (you can Google that too), the day following McQueary’s conversation with Joe.
McQueary is the only individual discussed here who has publicly testified and has been subject to cross examination. Paterno, Curley, Schultz and Spanier have not. Joe’s Grand Jury testimony was read into record during the Curley/Schultz preliminary trial. The questioning during that Grand Jury testimony came wholly from the prosecution.
It is false to say that Joe testified that Mike told him that Jerry had done something of a "sexual nature" to Victim 2. Joe's precise words were "It was a sexual nature"
Following are excerpts from Joe’s testimony:
“Well, he had seen a person, an older-not an older, but a mature person who was fondling, whatever you might call it – I’m not sure what the term would be – a young boy.”
“Well. I don’t know what you would call it. Obviously, he was doing something with the youngster. It was a sexual nature. I’m not sure exactly what it was.”
“I didn’t push Mike to describe exactly what it was because he was very upset.”
“I didn’t go any further than that except I knew Mike was upset and I knew some kind of inappropriate action was being taken by Jerry Sandusky with a youngster.”
With the ‘I’m not sure’ and ‘I don’t know’ statements that Joe made and the lack of additional prosecution questions or cross examination to help to clarify those statements, the only thing that is sure is that Joe's understanding after talking with McQueary is that he knew that some kind of inappropriate action was being taken by Jerry Sandusky with a youngster.
Joe testified under oath that MM didn't specify the "exact" acts which he witnessed but that Joe understood from what MM DID say that "It was a sexual nature". For purposes of judging Joe's actions in response to what he heard, MM's specificity is not what's important; what's important is that Joe UNDERSTOOD MM to have witnessed something sexual between Jerry and a little boy.
Why would Joe even utter the word "sexual" if that word didn't go through his mind while listening to MM?
The "only thing that is sure" is that Joe swore that "It was a sexual nature". Short of holding a seance, that's all we have.
Joe in fact did say "It was a sexual nature." as part of his response to a probative question regarding his use of the word fondling. By the way, I've never heard or read anywhere that MM used the term fondling in his description of the events.
When did Joe come to understand that MM was reporting something of a sexual nature? Was it as part of MM initial meeting with him, or did it occur a some point in the 10 years that passed between MM report and the GJ testimony?
You can have the opinion that it came at the time of the initial meeting, but it is only an opinion, it's not a fact.
MM hasn't demonstrated himself to be a highly articulate person. That coupled with his emotional state at the time of his meeting with Joe,it's not to hard to imagine that Joe wasn't really sure what the heck MM was trying to tell him. That's only speculation though.
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