Joe Pa could face criminal charges - per si.com
- Thread starter SAMCRO
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Although I'm not a lawyer, I'd guess +1 on this.
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Yeah, not like anymore facts will come out that could change the attorney generals attitude on this. Sure AD and VP Finance are going to go quietly and not try and bargain vs. serious jail time. 1998 was not the start of Sandusky's crimes and 2002 was not the 1st inkling JoePa had on this - bet on it and that it will come out. Serial homosexual pedophiles do not start acting at the age of 54, especially when for the previous 19 years they have been a major player in an organization designed to touch troubled boys. The start of this cover up was not 1998.
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Did you read the report? It had instances from well before 1998. Most of the victims were prior to 1998.
2002 wasn't the first inkling for JoePa. We already know that. How? Pasqualoni was reported to the campus police, who started the investigation that was subsequently punted to the town and state (an undercover sting operation and state children's protection).Sandusky was then forced out.
JoePa is getting heat for 2002 because he DIDN'T alert the authorities.
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Believe me, JoePa knew about Sandusky long before 2002. Why do you think they made Sandusky "retire" at age 55 at one of the top jobs in the country. Any minor incident on campus regarding the football team goes straight to JoePa. The 1998 incident would have wound up in his office. I am not sure when he first found out, but he knew about this in 1998 and negotiated Sandusky's removal from the program with a soft landing. Just because they haven't been able to prove this yet and put it in the report, doesn't mean it is not true.
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He may be getting heat but he is not being charged (as you noted) as there is not enough/any evidence to date as to how really knowledgeable he was (my assumption) of Sandusky's earlier acts (1998 and prior). This will come out, his description given to the grand jury for his conduct in 2002 will become more suspect and perjury and then obstruction charges will follow.
There is no way this is a Sandusky only deal there in Happy Valley. It just lasted too long and was too blatant. What is the deal with this non profit organization, is there a homosexual predator network at Happy Valley which includes key member of the PSU administration and is part of the culture there? Is the DA disappearing part of this? It doesn't make sense that JoePa took a heavy lead in hiding this all these years, somehow the power structure at PSU must have involved "we don't want to make homosexuals to look bad by playing into the "predator" stereotype and JoePa played along (with some assurances of WE took care of Sandusky). This is the only way I can make sense of the GA actions and then staying as a coach, JoePa not taking a bat to Sandusky, how the AD and VP Finance acted, how the President acted.
Maybe I should step away from this, I might be seeing another gunman on the grassy knoll.
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junglehusky
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speedoo
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That's a reasonable conclusion to come to if you interpret the AG's comment in a broad way. However, my recollection is that she made the comment specifically with regard to Paterno's reporting responsibilities. IMO she never said anything that precludes an indictment for lying to the GJ about the GA's report to him and hlw detailed it was.
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Don't be so sure of this. Facts and circumstances can change during the course of an investigation. As the investigation, continues forward, more may come out that Paterno or others knew more than they let on or went to lengths to hide what they knew and when they knew it. You've already seen conflicting statements between what McQueary allegedly told Paterno, and then Paterno denying he knew what actually happened and that he thought it was some "horsing around" in the shower. In some ways, this situation resembles situations that have happened with the Catholic Church, where Archbishops knew of a priest assaulting boys, and their answer was to move them to another Parish. In this situation, and incident is reported in 1998, Sandusky "retires" in 1999, but is allowed to have free access to the campus and facilities, an incident is reported in 2002, by a Grad assistant. Sandusky gets "his keys" taken, and eventually the Grad Assistant becomes a full time member of the staff. Look for details to get a lot worse.
Honestly i feel bad for everyone except Sandusky (soon enough he will be on the receiving end of having his hands up against a shower stall, if he doesn't off himself first). Paterno is a frigging dinosaur. I'm sure he thought Sandusky could "stop" this with a stern talking to and he did not want to see a colleague dragged off to jail. I have to imagine that others took their marching orders from Paterno on how to handle this. Paterno is old enough to be a great grandfather, in some instances i'm sure he has some outdated thinking that goes on in that head of his. Child sex abuse in older generations wasn't something that was openly discussed, that is a relatively new development, that is no longer taboo to discuss in large part because of what has happened with the Catholic Church.
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Right, perjury is something entirely different.
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Sounds very conspiracy theorish, but it's not the DA. The DA gave the investigation over to the AG years ago because--and we don't know why--there was a conflict of interest. Now, that might be where a conspiracy comes in, but the conflict could go back to the 1998 investigation and the fact that they didn't prosecute Sandusky though there might be an argument that they should have. Maybe that's the conflict, that the Centre county DA dropped the ball in 1998.
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That's the Clery Act. A slap on the hand. If you look at punishment under that act for not reporting murders and murderers on the loose, we're talking low hundred thousand fines.
nelsonmuntz
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Right. That must be why they started with two relative small fry like the AD and the business manager and then outed the whole scandal. Those two must be freaking out right now. It is just as likely that the AG said that publicly to put pressure on the two small fry. Basically, they got to flip on JoePa, or they will be holding the bag on this s***show.
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junglehusky
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Some good points noeynox. Ivan Maisel had a similar point that in the past these things were "unspeakable". I don't know, but I imagine that people like my grandmother, raised Catholic in western PA, would percieve this as such a pernicious evil that it would be heinous to even bring up the subject at all. And that may also be part of why McQueary didn't report to the cops (I would also think he would be in a state of shock after witnessing that, not that it excuses his responsibilities), and when you're in an authority based organization like a football team (or a church, or a Boy Scouts troop) you can be conditioned to keep these kinds of things in-house and not go to an external authority like the cops. Universities have mechanisms like counseling and maybe ombudspersons, but obviously more needs to be done, and of course the leadership and administrators in this case should absolutely be held responsible to the fullest extend of the law.
nelsonmuntz
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I don't feel bad for Paterno. What is happening now is exactly what he thought would happen if Sandusky's crimes ever went public. So he buried them. He made a calculated decision to save his own hide and leave a predator to assault more children. He can rot in hell for eternity.
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Uh, no. I'm convinced now that you didn't read the report. Last time you said there were guaranteed to be incidents prior to 1998, when the report was about incidents prior to 1998. The report also detailed where Curley and Schultz told lies about heir knowledge of the problem. Paterno testified that he told Curley, he didn't say he was unaware of it.
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Then why didn't this happen to the university when they went public a while back?
Even DEADSPIN had an article on it in 2010, they made a joke out of it (citing Sandusky's book TOUCHED).
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You speak with such authority on this, but the reality is if Paterno/PSU had addressed this upon first learning of Sandusky's behavior (whenever it was they FIRST learned of this, which may have been before 1998), then the "Program" would not be going through what it is going through because it would have been an isolated cancer (Sandusky) that could be cut from the program.
The only thing that makes sense to me, and I work in law enforcement, is that someone knew of Sandusky's transgressions prior to 1998, and they thought he "wouldn't do it again" based on discussions they had with Sandusky. I'm guessing he tearfully told them of abuses he had experienced and they bought in hook line and sinker. Problem is, it is just like the downing the duck syndrome, once you let it happen once, he has you by the short curly ones. Sandusky grew pretty bold about some of the places he committed these indiscretions. A shower, a weight room, both places that someone could walk in, why not just in his office at PSU with the door locked?
I could be way off but its the only thing that makes sense to me, though I WANT to believe that Paterno was really that ignorant and he had no clue due to his advanced age.
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I am an attorney, and I will say the chances of Joe Paterno being indicted are about 5,000,000 to 1. DA stated that Joe Paterno would not be charged. Pretty much the end of it. Legally, Joe PAterno did everything he was required to do. Morally, he did not do everything he could. That is not a crime.
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And, a high school's conference room!
speedoo
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Well, Mr./Ms. Attorney, I think you may not have your facts straight. It was the state AG, mot a DA, and what she said about Paterno was that he was not a target, not that he would not be charged. And it has been reported that his grand jury testimony regarding what McQuery reported to him regarding the 2002 incident may be a problem that imo could result in a perjury/obstruction charge.
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You're right about the AG, but he's a she and she did say that stuff about Joe fulfilling his responsibilities and not being liable. She then opined about moral responsibility, implying he had failed that measure.
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I think all sorts of new info is about to come out in the wash over the next several months, and there will be all sorts of new information for the AG, the DA, etc... to assess whether persons of interest have broken any laws. As more people start to be questioned, and are put in a position where they're covering their own ass, look out.
This show is just beginning. The criminal trial(s) will be one thing, wait until the civil trials begin.
This show is just beginning. The criminal trial(s) will be one thing, wait until the civil trials begin.
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Joe Pa is already on the ground and he's not getting back up. What kind of message are we sending if we just keep kicking and kicking?
I'm just sad of how much of a witch-hunt this is turning out to be. Listen, I understand the severity of the crimes - maybe on a more personal level than most people are talking about here - but at the end of the day, Paterno is in his 80s...it's not like he's going to be doing anything else after this Penn St. job. He's already gotten forced out - there is no life left for the man. I'm not exactly sure what the point of trying to charge him with felonies will really do. It doesn't stand for anything more than this whole case has before. If anyone couldn't recognize gross negligence on behalf of many adults when the report first came out, I'm sure they're not going to recognize it even if Joe Pa gets sent to jail.
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One unspoken aspect of this is law enforcement. One of the people Paterno reported this to was head of campus police for a 50,000 strong student body who liasioned with local police, and indeed he was the very person who alerted the local DA to Sandusky in 1998 after he conducted a police investigation. The DAs office in Centre County, the police, and the attorney general are going to have to answer their own questions about a Sandusky file that seems to have remained open all the way from 1998 until now. If you read the DA that replaced the disappeared guy, Madeira, he turned over the Sandusky file and investigation in 2005 citing conflict of interest, and it was an active file.
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