Criminal law, Society, Torts

Freeh Report: Penn State Officials Failed To Protect Children and Facilitated The Abuse

We have been following the Penn State scandal and the school’s possible culpability in the matter. Now the long-awaited Freeh report has been issued (a copy is below). The report is a damning indictment of the school which is found to have failed to protect the children in order to protect the school from embarrassment. This included “striking lack of empathy for child abuse victims by the most senior leaders of the University.”

Both former president Graham Spanier and former head football coach Joe Paterno are found to have “failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.” Former university vice president Gary Schultz and ex-athletic director Tim Curley were also found to have failed to protect the children. These officials effectively facilitated the abuse by continuing to give Sandusky the means used for the abuse: “Indeed, that continued access provided Sandusky with the very currency that enabled him to attract his victims. Some coaches, administrators and football program staff members ignored the red flags of Sandusky’s behaviors and no one warned the public about him.” The board of trustees is also mentioned as failing its responsibility in the face of what Freeh found was active concealment of the crimes: “These men concealed Sandusky’s activities from the Board of Trustees, the University community and authorities. They exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky’s victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well-being, especially by not attempting to determine the identity of the child who Sandusky assaulted in the Lasch Building in 2001.”

Athletic director Tim Curley is found to have clearly revealed the alleged crimes to former head coach Joe Paterno but “they changed the plan and decided not to make a report to the authorities.” Indeed, while McQueary reported the assault to Paterno on Saturday, February 10, Paterno reported the incident to Curley and Schultz on Sunday, February 11 as Paterno did not “want to interfere with their weekends.”

Cynthia Baldwin, a former Board member and Chair, also is criticized as the school’s first general counsel. The report states that she failed to brief the board until such a briefing was demanded by a trustee and downplayed the significance for the school. She also failed to bring in someone experienced with criminal matters and opposed an independent investigation. Ironically, in the effort to avoid independent review and action, Baldwin contributed to a far worse result for her client.

The report will no doubt assist any lawsuit for negligence against the university. Penn State is a state university but may not be able to use sovereign immunity because it is not a member of the Pennsylvania System of Higher Education.

There is also the question of liability for the Second Mile organization. On March 19, 2001, Curley met with the executive director of the Second Mile and “shared the information we had with him.” The Second Mile leadership simply found the matter to be a “non‐incident” and took no further action.

It is a report that shows a consistent and disturbing series of failures in university and Second Mile officials taking the allegation seriously or taking meaningful action to protect these victims.

This is one of the areas where the threat of liability would be a good thing. There is no evidence of concern for the victims in this matter. What does come out of the report and earlier news account is a football culture that overwhelmed every other concern at the university. This has long been a concern among academics over the degree of reliance and identification of universities with their sports programs. The report describes Penn State as creating a “culture of reverence.”

Freeh notes “Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State . . . The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.”

Here is the report: freeh.report

131 thoughts on “Freeh Report: Penn State Officials Failed To Protect Children and Facilitated The Abuse”

  1. @Mike Spindell & DrMike,

    Mike and Mike seem to be getting at what should be done. We have individuals who have acted, at best, with poor judgement, and perhaps criminally, an institutional culture that made it easy for responsible individuals to feel that their actions were justified, and a large number of individuals who were not informed and played no role.

    As satisfying as it might be to punish the university, punishment does not seem to lead to the right result.

    So Mike and Mike, what is the right result and how do we get there.

    Apparently the Freeh report has approximately 100 suggestions. At the very least the right result would seem to include making it impossible for individuals in responsible positions to ignore or cover up future criminal activity.

    There seems to be a lot here to consider. But what fascinates me is institutional culture that made it possible for responsible individuals to believe that clear indications of criminal activity could be ignored or covered up.

    It seems so clear to me that something like this was certain to go public and at that point there could be no reasonable explanation or excuse. Yet responsible individuals convinced themselves that their decisions were defensible.

    How could they possibly believe that facts like these would stay hidden and how could they possibly believe that their decisions would be judged reasonable?

    1. BFM,

      Re: your question as to how the could think they would get away with a coverup, I’d say denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. It is one of the most widespread of human defense mechanisms and the faultiest.

  2. Curious, Madsen is frequently about 3 years ahead of MSM in his reporting.

  3. bettykath
    Thank you for providing your sources and a further explanation. I find those sources lacking all credibility. The Washington Times was founded by the Rev. Moon – thought by most to be the head of a religious cult and a man with an unusual agenda and not much by way of journalistic credentials. It took me awhile to figure out WMR was the Wayne Madsen Report. He has too many conspiracy theories to list, but I did find his 2010 “blockbuster expose” interesting where he reveals that Obama is bi-sexual and left three dead lovers behind him on his way to the White House. However, that pales in comparison with your own Madsen citations. Ugly. Vile. Smears.

  4. Mike S.

    That Paterno became the most powerful person at the school is an indictment of the whole institution that casts a shadow even on those who are blameless.
    =============
    Life has its reality. You get painted with the same brush, even if you had nothing to do with it.

  5. “Mike Spindell

    Me,

    You?”

    ——————————————–

    Not I

    😎

  6. Dr. Mike: “Just to start, obviously Paterno and leadership are partially at fault and Sandusky is a horrible human being (if he can even be called human).”

    Well he CAN be called human and he IS human and there are LOTS of humans who have many of his characteristics. That’s just the point, in my opinion. It always makes me mad when someone tries to refer to some dirtbag as “an animal” to show how bad they are. Most animals (mammals anyway) do not try to annihilate other whole groups of their own specier; most animals live in groups that do not do substantial harm to their own young; etc. etc. etc.

    We are human and there are lots of child molesters among us; and THEY are human and they are entitled to all the constitutional rights that any bank robber or tax evader would have if charged with a crime. And they are entitled to any amount of sympathy that others feel like giving them, too. And I think it would be a lot better for us as a culture if we stopped hating them WORSE THAN OTHER PEOPLE WHO HARM THEIR CO-HUMANS because then we wouldn’t have to cover up their conduct so vigorously.

    Let’s say we just said that someone who did what Sandusky did back in 2001 should be (a) STOPPED and (b) punished, and we didn’t go apesh*t about it. THEN perhaps the folks at Penn State who covered up so fanatically would not have had the same incentive. Perhaps they would have thought, “I don’t want to get into trouble for helping someone evade the consequences of his own actions” rather than, “We HAVE TO HANDLE THIS IN TOTAL SILENCE; WE CANNOT LET IT GET OUT NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS!”

    A while back I proposed a decriminaliztion of certain kinds of child abuse WITHIN THE FAMILY specifically so that the perps could be treated humanely and not reviled, and the reason was that under those circumstances, there would be some more reasonable possibility of getting the child abuse to STOP and getting the parents to revise their behavior rather than getting into more and more vigorous defense including calling their own kids liars. This idea didn’t fly. My colleagues got mad at me for suggesting that child abusers should be treated like humans who have made mistakes.

    Anyway, there’s my two cents’ worth…

  8. Typical to Pravda…start with one story move it around until it hits your political targets.

    Start with Sandusky…move it to Jeb Bush…finally nail Pres Bush.

    Straight from the Lenin playbook.

  9. Just to start, obviously Paterno and leadership are partially at fault and Sandusky is a horrible human being (if he can even be called human).

    It is not fair to criticize the rest of the University. The leadership failed but the other members of the faculty had nothing to do with it. Penn State is still a teaching institution and does have other merits other than football (believe it or not). So, while the leadership should be chastised, the rest of the university is just as shocked and angry as the rest of us.

    I used to teach at a different university and the professoriate is typically far removed from the actions of the athletic department.

    Without a doubt, what happen was far beyond the pale of humanity and those at fault should pay for what they covered up. The rest of Penn State should be allowed to get along with the business of teaching.

    That concludes my rant. In reading a few news stories about the Freeh Report, the phrase “Penn State did..” or “Penn State covered up…”, and if I were a member of the faculty I would be pretty pissed about being grouped in with those monsters.

    1. DrMike,

      Your point is well taken in that this scandal wrongly detracts from the fact that academically Penn St. is no doubt a very good University. What I think blackens the University’s name in this is that it’s football program in effect became the face of Penn State, which was used to raise money. This exists in many fine schools throughout the country where they use their sports teams as the “face” of their program. Big time College sports by their nature breed corruption in order for the teams to maintain their stature. That Paterno became the most powerful person at the school is an indictment of the whole institution that casts a shadow even on those who are blameless.

  11. Inquiring minds will want to know: 1) When jerko goes the second mile to the second State Penn; 2) When he gets anally intruded; 3) When Paterno’s family shuts up.

  12. A very long time ago, Dwight Eisenhower was President and I was teaching. A couple of our teachers had gone to DC for some kind of teacher’s conference. They were sitting in the hotel lobby late one evening and as they described it:

    “The first thing we knew, all these Secret Service guys came into the lobby, fanned out and told everybody to not get up and move about until they said it would be OK. Right after that, Eisenhower and several other old gobblers came in and went up the stairs to the mezzanine level. Every one of them had a sweet young thing on their arms. Neither one of us saw Mamie Eisenhower.” And I might add, did not expect to see Mamie that night.

  14. haven’t found the PA article yet.

    New details emerge about 1989 Bush I White House teen prostitute scandal: teens entered private quarters of the White House while George W. Bush was occasionally residing there while acting as his father’s hatchet man in the White House.

    The Washington Times also stated, “White House officials have said that the midnight tours such as those arranged for Mr. Spence do not threaten the First Family’s security because they are allowed only in office areas and not the residence.” In fact, according to the Times, then First Lady Barbara Bush brushed aside the story of the teen prostitutes entering the White House for midnight tours, saying, “There haven’t been a lot of stories in our house about it . . . I’m not into all of this,” adding it was “good” that The Washington Post wasn’t following The Times’ story. However, WMR has learned that Spence was close to a number of Washington Post journalists as well as others working for The New York Times, CBS News, and ABC News. Spence was arrested in New York City for gun and cocaine possession and in November 1989 was found dead in a Boston hotel, fully clothed in a black tuxedo and white bow tie reportedly from a suicide. There were no signs of injury to Spence’s body.

    And, although Fitzwater and Mrs. Bush claimed Spence’s male prostitutes never entered the private quarters of the White House, WMR has learned otherwise. WMR was told by one of the chief investigators on this story that one of the teen prostitutes said that he noticed damage to the underside of a cornice (a special molding along the top of a wall) in one of the bedrooms in the private quarters of ithe White House during one of his overnight stays. The Lincoln Bedroom and the Rose Guest Room are both located within the more secure confines of the private quarters on the second floor of the White House. The prostitute’s story about a damaged cornice in a corner bedroom of the private quarters was later confirmed by a White House source. Moreover, the damage to the cornice could have only be seen by someone who was lying on their back on the bed.

  15. March 27, 2007 — BREAKING STORY. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ “loyal Bushie” U.S. Attorney for Western Texas covered up a major pedophile scandal with the connivance of the Justice Department’s Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division
    publication date: Apr 29, 2007
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    March 27, 2007 — BREAKING STORY. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ “loyal Bushie” U.S. Attorney for Western Texas covered up a major pedophile scandal with the connivance of the Justice Department’s Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division.

    Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, already under pressure for firing several U.S. Attorneys not considered “loyal Bushies,” now faces another scandal. Albert Moskowitz, the Chief of the Criminal Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, sent a letter dated September 27, 2005, to the Superintendent of the Texas Youth Commission’s West Texas State School youth detention facility declining the prosecution of two of the Texas agency’s employees — Ray Brookins and John Hernandez — for engaging in sexual molestation of 10 underage males incarcerated at the facility. The charges of molestation were originally brought by Texas Ranger Brian J. Burzynski. Earlier, in a July 28, 2005 letter, the Assistant US Attorney for West Texas, Bill Baumann, who works for US Attorney Johnny Sutton, a close friend of Gonzales, sent a letter to Burzynski declining federal prosecution in the pedophile case. In a decision that indicates that the Gonzales Justice Department defines child molestation in very narrow and high threshold terms, Baumann wrote that the young men at the West Texas facility that claimed they were raped by Brookins and Hernandez did not sustain “bodily injury” or “bodily pain.” Baumann also defined aggravated sexual assault as resulting from a “perpetrator knowingly causing his victim to engage in a sexual act (which can include contact between the mouth and penis) by force against the victim or by threatening or placing the victim in fear that the victim (or any other person) will be subjected to death, serious bodily injury or kidnapping). Baumann stated, “I do not believe that sufficient evidence exists to support a charge that either Brookins or Hernandez used force to cause victims to engage in a sexual act.”

    Astonishingly, Baumann also writes that “none of the victims admit they consented to the sexual contact” with the juvenile facility employees. However, Baumann then suggests that the underage males came on to the prison guards and were “simply ‘getting off’ on the school administrator. Baumann also indicates that “many students” were “retained at the West Texas State School long after their initial release date” but that “it would be difficult to prove that either Mr. Brookins or Mr. Hernandez prevented their release.” The clear indication is that Brookins and Hernandez kept the boys incarcerated in order to continue to sodomize them. Baumann, who appears to be borrowing heavily from the tracts of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), suggests that sex between the underage males and detention facility personnel is perfectly legitimate as long as the sex is consensual. There are also reports that detained youth in the Texas Youth system are transported from various facilities for purposes of prostitution.

    After the allegations about abuse at the West Texas detention facility became public, Hernandez was forced to resign as principal at a Midland, Texas charter school. A Ward County grand jury is investigating the case.

    There are now reports that pedophilia extends to other youth detention facilities in Texas. The Texas Sheltered Care Facility in Nixon, in south Texas, is being investigated for the abuse, including sexual molestation of detained Latin American immigrant youth housed at the center. The facility is operated by Away from Home, Inc. Some 72 children were relocated from the facility after the abuse charges were raised. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigated the Nixon facility and referred the case to US Attorney Johnny Sutton and the FBI. However, once again, Sutton decided “the alleged activity, which as the focus of the investigation, could likely be more effectively addressed by the state of Texas prosecutorial authorities.” FBI agent Erik Vasys told the Houston Chronicle that the FBI was “disappointed” in the failure of the Justice Department to bring charges. Presidential adviser Karl Rove has been implicated by child welfare advocates in Texas in the failure of the Justice Department to prosecute the Texas child abuse and pedophilia cases. Indictments in the case prepared by the US Attorney for West Texas were reportedly spiked on the orders of the White House and Justice Department.

    Baumann states that Burzynski “thoroughly investigated the allegations brought to your attention by the Texas Youth Commission” and promptly interviewed all witnesses and victims, gathered appropriate documentation from school officials and executed a federal search warrant at the residence of Mr. Hernandez at West Texas State School in Pyote.” Baumann concludes, ” It is my opinion, however, that our office’s resources would be better employed investigating and prosecuting cases involving more clearly defined violations of federal criminal law.”

    The decision of the Gonzales Justice Department to decline prosecution of pedophiles within the Texas Youth Commission juvenile detention system mirrors its failure to take prompt action last year in the case of former Representative Mark Foley (R-FL), whose e-mails with underage male congressional pages were turned over to the Justice Department for investigation. On October 3, 2006, WMR reported the following:

    “WMR has learned from informed sources in the Justice Department that the salacious e-mails from Rep. Mark Foley were leaked to ABC News by career Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents who are incensed that Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales covered up the House page scandal for political reasons. The back story of Pagegate is that there was a criminal conspiracy by the top political leadership of the Justice Department to cover up the predatory activities of Foley and other GOP members of Congress since at least 2003 and, likely, as early as 2001.”

  16. October 3, 2006 — Informed sources in Tallahassee, Florida have told WMR that Governor Jeb Bush was fully aware of ex-Rep. Mark Foley’s conduct with underage male pages but sat on the information to protect Foley and another top GOP Florida official, Attorney General Charlie Crist, who is currently running for governor to replace Bush. Today, Jeb Bush said he had not previously known about Foley’s behavior with the pages before being informed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert in a letter dated October 1, 2006. Bush said he was “dismayed and shocked to learn about Congressman Foley’s unacceptable behavior.”

    However, according to our Florida sources, the FBI and Justice Department informed the Florida Governor’s office, Attorney General Crist, and the Florida AG’s Child Protection Cybercrime Unit at least a year ago about Foley’s predatory emails and instant messages. WMR was told that Crist’s conflict-of-interest in the case stems from Crist’s and Foley’s involvement in gay sex parties, some of which took place during 2003 in trendy Coconut Grove, Florida.

    [photo]
    Foley scandal reverberating in Florida gubernatorial race. Left to right: Crist, Foley, and Jeb Bush.

    Informed Florida sources claim that up until now, Crist and Jeb Bush have been able to keep a lid on the once-divorced Crist’s life style, touting his conservative Christian credentials, but that the Foley revelations will severely impact the Crist gubernatorial campaign. The links between Foley and Crist are certain to harm Crist with his conservative backers who admire Crist for his anti-gay rights stance. Floridians begin early voting on October 23.

  17. July 23, 2008 — UPDATE 1X. New details emerge about GOP-linked child kidnapping and prostitution ring

    Evidence continues to surface that Omaha, Nebraska was “ground zero” for a child kidnapping and prostitution ring that had its tentacles extending into the top echelons of the Republican Party in Nebraska and the Bush 41 White House.

    Noreen Gosch, the mother of 12-year old Johnny Gosch, who was kidnapped from his West Des Moines paper route in 1982 and enslaved by the child abduction cult largely based in Omaha, said that in August 2005, she received a call from an older man who claimed that he knew about brutal things that took place with children in the Hummel Park area of Omaha. The man said that he was also aware of unmarked grave sites where the bodies of children had been buried.

    In September 2005, a man showed up at an invitation-only meeting at which Mrs. Gosch spoke. The man later was identified as one of two photographers that GOP African American Franklin Credit Union chief Lawrence (Larry) King used to photograph abducted children. On July 23, 2007, WMR reported: “Lawrence King, a rising star in GOP politics, was sued in 1999 in federal court by Paul Bonacci, claiming compensatory damages. Bonacci charged that King was part of a network, with links to the Bush White House, that engaged in child sexual abuse, Satanic rituals, and mind control. King did not contest the charges and a federal judge awarded Bonacci $900,000 in damages. King was convicted and imprisoned on unrelated fraud charges related to Franklin Credit Union.” King is now reportedly working in Fairfax County in northern Virginia.

    WMR has written extensively about the role of U.S. diplomats and the State Department in procuring children for prostitution for VIP clients, especially in Southeast Asia. WMR can now report that based on information received from reliable sources, the State Department played a significant role in the procuring of children from Southeast Asia in the late 1980s and early 1990s for purposes of child prostitution in the United States. This was at the height of the “midnight tours” of the White House call boys scandal that rocked the Bush 41 White House and was extensively reported by The Washington Times. The Omaha/Franklin scandal also involved the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha and Boy’s Town, the famous Catholic orphanage in Omaha.

    WMR’s sources report that during the Bush 41 child prostitution scandal, aircraft contracted to the State Department, routinely flew children from Southeast Asia into Offutt Air Force Base outside of Omaha. The entire planes would be declared “diplomatic pouches,” which meant that there were no records — immigration, military, or otherwise — with a record of the passengers being brought into the country. The State Department lawyer who oversaw the legal arrangements for the trafficking of children into the United States through the “diplomatic pouch” contrivance was described as a “Mr. Jones” by a source familiar with the operation.

    From Offutt, groups of Asian children were dispatched to two locations, Washington, DC and New York City, for purposes of prostitution. WMR has learned that among the clients of these child prostitution services were some of America’s top politicians, media celebrities, and Wall Street financiers.

    UPDATE 1X: WMR has also learned that during the Bush 41 presidency, a luxurious home on Wyoming Avenue in northwest Washington, DC that belonged to GOP lobbyist and former ABC News correspondent Craig Spence, was used to bring together abducted children trafficked through Omaha with high-level politicians and other VIPs. A top GOP official in the Bush 41 administration, who used the moniker “Madam Pete,” was involved in the liaison between Spence and Omaha’s Lawrence King.

  19. Curious — I’m not objecting to anything you have said. I’m just explaining what I know to the extent that I know it from experience.

    Another point I want to make is this: I have been suspicious of MANY nonprofits for essentially taking part, passively, in providing children for abuse. It started in orphanages, many of them run by churches. It is not an unusual scenario. “Throw-away kids” are basically provided to “philanthropic donors” for the alleged kindnesses shown to them and so forth blah blah blah. If you will look through the last few decades of these kinds of happenings, you will see a Nobel Prizewinner taking poor (and what I would call sub-poor) kids from a terrible background and, while molesting them, providing them with all sorts of benefits. Even the most prestigious and well-educated individuals can be heard to say, “But he did so MUCH for them…”

    A case in Florida involved a guy going through a group home and identifying a boy he quite liked, and deciding that he would take that boy home and provide for him — rah rah how wonderful, who could possibly object? The mother’s rights were terminated so she couldn’t fuss about it (remember Matt Sandusky’s birth mother trying to complain about what was happening to her son? She didn’t get much respect, did she?). Who would object? Kid turns up 10 years later complaining about sexual abuse; who is listening? They claim that the boy was an opportunist trying to wring money out of his benefactor, and oh well, the kid had a poor and deprived background and he just became a little psychopath.

    We are set up, as a society, to let the very powerful really take advantage of the very powerless. Who is more powerful than a wealthy donor? Who is more powerless than a throw-away child? It’s just what happens.

    One thing that did shock me in my empirical education: A very wealthy, powerful, brilliant, celebrity New Yorker had a few “procurers” in his entourage who would scout out street kids to bring him for his “use” in an expensive midtown hotel. EVERYBODY KNEW what was happening when some scruffy unclean youngster was escorted in by a well dressed member of the inner circle. When I heard about it, I was gung-ho to bust the perp. NOT ONE MILLIGRAM OF ASSISTANCE — I GOT NOTHING, even from the appalled individuals who had told me all about what was going on. They all said that the perp was so well known and so brilliant that nobody should reveal this. NOBODY SHOULD REVEAL IT! Why? Some said that if there was a real bust and the perp was caught red-handed, the entire arts and intellectual structure of New York City would unite to make the allegation look like a hoax perpetrated UPON the molester as a sign of the hostility of some damnable enemy. I was assured that this would backfire in the worst way and that “after that nobody will ever be believed again about ANY CHILD ABUSE CASE!”

    I tried four times to arrange a bust. Nothing. I couldn’t even get an interview with the folks in the police station who, I had it on good information, had received a half dozen complaints from various sources and who had not followed up on anything over a course of a decade. As health problems began to plague the alleged molester, various excuses were given and various medical reports were handed out. Meanwhile, folks in that community in New York even KNOW the particular preference this celebrity has — in age, looks and gender.

    There are some people you CAN bust and some you CAN’T. Right now you can bust priests. Soon you may be able to bust folks like Sandusky. But there will still be those you cannot bust regardless of the obviousness of the activity and the widespread nature of the knowledge that there is abuse going on. I don’t have time to reexamine the Franklin case, and haven’t checked into the Second Mile case yet myself — many other things taking my attention. My advice is simply that it cannot be ruled out until it is RULED OUT.

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