E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Pat Little / Reuters file
Former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, center, leaves the Centre County Courthouse after his sentencing in his child sex abuse case in Bellefonte, Penn., on Oct. 9, 2012.
A judge in Pennsylvania has ordered a special prosecutor to examine if secrecy rules were violated in connection with a grand jury that investigated former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky as well as three former school administrators who face criminal charges.
Judge Barry Feudale named attorney James M. Reeder on Feb. 8 as the special prosecutor and gave him six months to investigate secrecy issues related to the grand jury.
The judge's order was obtained by the Associated Press on Wednesday.
Still, it was not clear if any potential violations of secrecy rules were related to the Penn State cases or any others before the 33rd Statewide Investigation Grand Jury, the AP reported, because such grand juries often work on more than one matter at the same time.
Feudale, the AP reported, recently was weighing a legal dispute involving whether former Penn State lawyer Cynthia Baldwin should have been present at a grand jury proceeding.
The order referred to a rule that governs who may be present during the grand jury sessions. Lawyers for the three former administrators have said their clients' rights to legal counsel were violated by Baldwin's actions and were seeking to have her barred from testifying in hearings related to their cases.
Baldwin's lawyer, Charles De Monaco, has said she "at all times fulfilled her obligations to the university and its agents."
On June 22, 2012, Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse and he is now serving a 30 to 60-year sentence in a state prison.
Two grand jury reports accused Sandusky of having used his connections to the Penn State football program to “groom” boys, whom he met through his Second Mile charity for troubled children, for sexual relations. Sandusky has maintained his innocence and is appealing his case.
Former Penn State President Graham Spanier, former Vice President Gary Schultz and former Athletic Director Timothy Curley face charges of perjury in connection with their grand jury testimony in the Sandusky case. They also face charges of obstruction, conspiracy, endangering the welfare of children and failure to properly report suspected abuse. The three dispute all of the allegations.
Leave a Comment:
Denny sure does like that cowboy hat.
Same thing I was thinking Randy..
How many lives did he destroy? He should already be DEAD.
He's truely mental and doesn't understand what he did so bad to all those boys! His wife and he should rot in hell.
They will.
Jerry Friends are working hard to get child molestation legal as the rush to make Rape legal. Remember Rape is God's Blessings and Rape is legitimate as even candidate Romney agreed. We have so many child molester elected as Law Makers and these laws to approve these acts of horror are important. Jerry has alot of support from Senators and Congress and he hopes he can get released and continue to molest kids. The Vatican hopes they can continue to molest kids and have a new Pope to cover up the secrets again.
Even though your attempt at satire is an attempt to show your cunning and intelligence, your comment shows that you truly are a moron.
What a Waste of taxpayers Money.
Really judge, I thought we are in sequestration, why are you spending money on the rapist abuser of children, that money can be better spent. Let him rot, and Penn State, move the hell on, stop wasting money of the sicko, put your legal staff to better use.
@tyrone
The article isn't about Sandusky. The Judge authorized investigation of the Grand Jury to see if the rights of the defendants (Spanier, Curley and Schultz) in a perjury case were violated in the Grand Jury proceedings. Sandusky has already been convicted and sentenced in a completely different proceeding. This investigation won't alter that.
Doesn't matter if secrecy rules were violated.
Serve your time. Slimeball.
How about all the Penn State "students" who rallied 'round the statue of Joe Paterno and who implicitly heaped more abuse and derision on the young boys whose abuse Paterno and Sandusky carried out or enabled? Tells you where their priorities were at, "Hey, so what, they didn't do it and good for them if they did, it's just a few kids, what's a few kids anyway? We're talkin' FOOTBALL here!!!!"
@Seattle-Sunset
Your comments are complete nonsense. Nothing like that ever happened.
What no Bubba has taken him out yet! What is the hold up?!
I am a proud democrat, (look at my other posts!) but things like this lend credence to Corbett's points as to why the investigation took so long.
Not only having to find the victims and make sure their stories were credible enough to stand alone as proof to a jury, but having to make sure that every single" i" was dotted and "t" was crossed knowing that Sandusky et all had the resources to hire lawyers to look into every single detail to find the smallest mistake or loophole to get them off.
Also, this does more than answer why Corbett couldn't say something sooner or deny funding to or from the second mile due to secrecy regulations. If just having a former lawyer of the college at the grand jury could cause a big problem...it certainly makes sense that Corbett had to be careful as AG about not doing anything to suggest something was going on.
All involved should rot in jail.
Sandusky, a registered Republican, can rot in hell with all his GOP/TP "wide-stance, toe tappers"! I predict an ambiguously gay named Republican will try to claim Sandusky was a Democrat!
Sir, It is a dangerous precedent to accept testimony as "Proof". Sandusky was convicted on testimony alone. Think about that. No matter what the crime, as bad as it may be or seem, testimony is not proof. It cannot be, the consequences are too dire. I'm not defending Sandusky, if testimony is proof then our justice system is anything but.
bburgbill -- Sandusky was NOT convicted on testimony alone. Corroborating testimony from multiple victims, their families, their doctors and the admission by Sandusky that he did "shower" with his victims and "hug" them and that he slept with them in the basement of his home and took them on vacations and slept with them and the fact that the university administration attempted to cover it up and the fact that Paterno "fired" him and had him banned because of a reported incident.
@uchusky99
Looks like you are at it again. The argument you make (that Corbett, as the PA DA, needed to take his time and be careful in bringing charges against Sandusky) supports the argument that Spanier, Curley, Schultz and Paterno are innocent - it doesn't detract from it. The things you state as "facts" are false: e.g. Paterno didn't fire Sandusky or have him "banned"; the PSU Administration did not "attempt to cover up" that Sandusky "slept with them (victims) in the basement of his home and took them on vacations and and slept with them"; etc..
Tom Corbett, the Pennsylvania Governor, controlled the Penn State Board of Trustees that arranged for the Freeh Report and accepted its incredibly biased conclusions (read the Report and you will see that the evidence cited does not support the conclusions). The only real evidence against Paterno was the testimony of McQueary. McQueary was a very unreliable witness (he changed his story many times and some say he had a grudge against the University because he lost his job). His testimony was directly contradicted by the testimony of Dr. Jonathan Dranov. Dr. Dranov is a very reliable witness, graduated Phi Beta Kappa, attended a prestigious Ivy League medical school, is a Board Certified Internist and Nephrologist, has more than 30 years of experience in questioning patients to get accurate histories and is familiar with the mandatory reporting requirement for child abuse. He interviewed McQueary on the night that McQueary says he saw Sandusky and the child showering together. Dr. Dranov testified that he asked McQueary three times if he had seen anthing of a sexual nature and three times McQueary said no. It can safely be assumed that Dr. Dranov did not report this himself because from his extensive knowledge and experience he didn't think it crossed the threshold for reporting. So this is what Paterno, a layman, and the others heard. They also had access to a report by the police in 1998 when Sandusky gave a child "a bear hug" and was investigated by a police detective, the PA Department of Public Welfare in Harrisburg, the Centre County DA's Office, and a CCYS counselor who interviewed the child and wrote a report. The conclusion of the police report was "no sexual assault occurred" and no charges were filed. Since this is all that Paterno and the others knew (and no victims had come forward), what are they guilty of?
Louis Freeh does not have lily white credibility. He had to resign as FBI Director after a Business Week article on "Carnivore". He left with a history of: the Waco siege cover-up, insubordination to Attorney General Janet Reno, the Robert Hansen mole case, ordering use of FBI sharpshooters at Ruby Ridge which led to the death of Randy Weaver's wife while she was holding their child in her arms, etc.. The Freeh Report is: (1) an "ex parte" document (not an independent report) that was funded with millions of dollars by parties who have a conflict of interest in the case (Tom Corbett controlled the PSU Board of Trustees, was the PA DA who had jurisdiction over the original complaints against Sandusky but failed to investigate them in a timely fashion and needed a scapegoat to deflect the lynch mob away from him ); (2) written in a prosecutorial fashion with no apparent concern for innocence; (3) criticizes the actions of people using a hindsight perspective that employs information that none of them knew (e.g. no victims had come forward); (4) does not contain a response by the accused parties (Curley, Spanier, Schultz, Paterno); (5) does not prove mens rea; (6) is written by someone who has a checkered history and may have a biased view of the case.
He will get a Presidential Pardon - after-all he's a registered Democrat! Coming soon - he will be re-hired, as now we must hire convicted felons, or illegals, as long as they are registered Democrats!
WTF! This is the most STUPID thing I have ever heard. Investigating a grand jury? Does it require the impaneling another grand jury? WIll we then investigate that grand jury?
When will this nightmare end? Please PA and PSU, and the Paterno family, please....just...stop bringing this horror back into our conscienceness. STOP IT, END IT NOW!
This is an excellent example of how a convicted pedophile, with enough money, can wreak havoc on our legal system by desperately trying to get his worthless ass out of prison using every tricky maneuver in the legal playbook. Why does it always take so long for pond scum to disappear completely.
It is a true statement that "you do not have to be the assistant football coach at PSU to be a child molester". But!!!
This whole situation is a zombie...it will never die, even if you cut off it's head..no pun intended.
The only reason this has come about is because the Catholic church is considering Sandusky for the next Pope.