On Thursday’s news conference, the FBI director revealed that Pennsylvania State University officials had been aware of allegations that Sandusky was a sexual predator for at least the last 14 years. Freeh said, “In order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at Penn State University … repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse.”
The 267-page report details how Paterno and other Penn State officials conspired to cover up allegations against Sandusky as far back as 1998.
Thomas Kline, a lawyer who represents Victim 5 in the Sandusky case said, referring to Penn State officials, “They were morally bankrupt, and wrong legally.”
Freeh drew damning attention to former university President Graham Spanier, Paterno, former Athletic Director Tim Curley and former university Vice President Gary Schultz for working in concert to cover up Sandusky’s child abuse.
Freeh told the assembled journalists, “Even though they all knew about the 1998 incident, the best they could muster to protect Sandusky’s victims was to ask Sandusky not to bring his ‘guests’ into the Penn State facilities.”
Kline, the lawyer for Victim 5 said, “Sandusky paraded children around, like trophies, he paraded children through the locker room, he was naked with children in the locker room, he was seen by the janitor, he was seen by an assistant coach, it was known by Coach Paterno, by Mr. Spanier, by Mr. Curley, by Mr. Schultz … and they did nothing.”
This is a really good article. I am not naive — it is obvious that college and professional sports are big business. But the Penn State scandal is on a different plane altogether — if you put A) the behavior of Paterno and Penn State leadership on one side of the scale and B) all the other sports controversies of the past decade on the other side all at once, what happened at Penn State is by far worse. Yes, if you add up steroids, ear-biting, doping, bounty-hunting, gambling, intern-dating, recruiting violations, boat parties, videotaping and every other non-sexual assault scandal, they are nowhere near this bad.
Its difficult to write because human language is not equipped to describe this kind of social betrayal — society entrusts children and other young people to educational institutions to promote welfare of the kids and society. This is an unbelievable breach of trust. Every parent in America is a bit more nervous sending their kids to camp. Zafar Hasan