EVERY SIGNATURE MATTERS - THIS BILL MUST PASS!

EVERY SIGNATURE MATTERS - THIS BILL MUST PASS!
CLICK - GOAL - 100,000 NEW SIGNATURES! 75,000 SIGNATURES HAVE ALREADY BEEN SUBMITTED TO GOVERNOR CUOMO!

CLICK!

Monday, July 30, 2012

'Officials need to understand that if you protect a pedophile instead of protecting children, there'll be hell to pay.'

                                   

The retribution against Penn State has begun. This week, the NCAA announced a series of weapons-grade sanctions against Penn State:

• A $60 million fine paid to programs to prevent child sexual abuse;

• A four-year football post-season ban;

• Slashing the number of scholarships awarded for four years; and

• Vacating 111 wins from 1998 to 2011, a hammer-blow to the Paterno legacy.

It will probably take the Nittany Lions the better part of a decade to recover from this setback. Have innocent football players been hurt? Absolutely. But the NCAA is not to blame for that.

Instead, blame a monster named Jerry Sandusky. Blame those who knew about his crimes and covered them up -- Joe Paterno, university president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz. According to the investigation report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, these men "repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse." Men who should have known better sacrificed innocent young souls on the altar of Penn State football.

'Coaches and university officials need to understand that if you protect a pedophile instead of protecting children, there'll be hell to pay.'

So retribution is in order. Coaches and university officials need to understand that if you protect a pedophile instead of protecting children, there'll be hell to pay. If you think you can protect your sports program by throwing children under the team bus, think again. When the truth comes out, your sports program will suffer shock and awe.

But along with the retribution, shouldn't there also be redemption? Absolutely -- and Penn State is seeking to redeem itself.

Over the weekend, the iconic statue of Joe Paterno was removed from the campus. The university has announced plans to pay for counseling for Sandusky's victims, and to become a leader in research and outreach in the field of child welfare. This fall, the university will host a national conference on sexual abuse.

Most important, Penn State is joining forces with the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape to establish a new Center for the Protection of Children at the Hershey Medical Center. The university is off to a good start. It has begun the process of accepting legal responsibility and making financial restitution.

But real redemption can only come from moral restitution. To perform moral restitution, the university should make sure that its new Center for the Protection of Children becomes the premier institution of its kind. It should house a treatment and counseling center, a research center attracting top international experts on sexual abuse, a research library, and more.

And here's my personal message to the new Center for the Protection of Children: If you'd like to have the insights of an abuse survivor, call me. I'd be happy to help in any way I can. My first suggestion: Focus on educating the public on these issues:

• Improved ways to spot pedophiles and remove them from schools, churches and youth programs;

• Improved treatment for victims suffering trauma due to molestation;

• An improved legal system, in which perpetrators can be more effectively apprehended, prosecuted, and separated from society; and

• Improved awareness, so the public will understand the need to protect children, not perpetrators.

One of the lessons of this tragedy is that people who seem otherwise intelligent often exhibit abysmal judgment in pedophile cases. Penn State is not alone. We've seen this same "protect-the-predator" mindset in the Catholic Church, where senior clergy shuffled known child molesters from parish to parish.

And we've seen the "protect-the-predator" mindset at Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles, where a male teacher was arrested in January for unspeakable acts against children. Many people knew what he was doing -- and they looked the other way or covered it up.

For some reason, people almost always protect the adult instead of the child. They protect their "precious" institution instead of the precious innocence of a child. Clearly, our society has a lot to learn about protecting children from pedophiles. Penn State can redeem itself by publicizing the lessons it has learned from this tragedy.

No one can restore the lost innocence of Jerry Sandusky's victims -- but the university can help prevent future victims. Though Penn State has much to be ashamed of today, it can redeem itself in the future and become a proud institution once more.

[ATTENTION: If you know of a child who is being abused, call the police immediately -- then call the ChildHelp Hotline at 1-800-4ACHILD (1-800-422-4453). The ChildHelp counselor will answer your questions and direct you to support services.]

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan. He is a political consultant, founder and chairman of The Reagan Group, and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. He is the author of "The New Reagan Revolution" (St. Martin's Press). Visit his website at www.reagan.com.


MORE:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/26/future-penn-state-retribution-or-redemption/?cmpid=NL_BestofOpinion

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

On Legislating Morality

The UOJ Archives - May 26, 2008

"I am not a pessimist. To perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism!"

Roberto Rossellini


A well-intentioned rabbi calls a gathering, and emotionally lays out the pitfalls of the great technological advances of our time. Story after probably true story, of heartbreak and more devastation. So many families falling victim to the Internet, text messaging, cell phones...and that sly yetzer ha'ra.

I have no reason to doubt the veracity of those stories; but I wonder if the Internet has done any good; were any lives saved by cell phones and text messaging?

Is not Hatzalah run almost entirely by this latest work of Satan? How much Torah was learned through Hashem's creation of man, that was responsible for the genius of the Internet -- being able to be used for so much good. What about the automobile? I am informed that many European rabbonim labeled it "maaseh Satan" or the work of the devil - especially, because that notorious Jew-hater, Henry Ford was so instrumental in bringing it to market. Automobiles kill more people annually than all of the cancers combined!

How about the radio - today? There are Jewish hamlets that forbid it in any Jewish home! Oh, those newspapers - just another form of secular infiltration of the Jewish household.

So this rabbi has a solution; the wife should be the keeper of the computer password - preventing the husband and the kids from getting online unmonitored!

What I call genius!!!

Let's go back only a bit in time, when the parents took sole responsibilty for the moral education of their children. They would hopefully send their children to the appropriate schools that would mirror their family values. They would be responsible for the emotional well-being of their kids; not the least being who their childrens' friends were.

Enter Maria or Guadalupe!

Parents are busy socializing and remodeling their homes - just because they can! Kids are dressed in the latest fashions - for no good reason other than to outdo the Moskowitzs. It is the parents that need appropriate value lessons - their teachings, especially the "yeshiva boys", has not included ahavat Hashem through shmirat hamitzvos v'taavot. They were brought up with respect for the almighty dollar. Who are their children to learn from? Parents are off to Atlantic City and Las Vegas --- and brag about it at davening (not everything that happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas)..... "Kids - stay off the Internet, it could be bad for you."

And getting back to one of my favorite themes --- guests of honor at yeshiva, shul and Jewish organization functions.

An organization has recently honored a family of "vadei mamzerus!"

Bubby --- after the war "married" a man because she had not heard from her first husband for two years post the war. They had a child! Shortly after the child was born, hubby number one shows up. Beis din convened and ordered her to leave "husband number two", since she was an eishes ish and did not have two witnesses testify in beis din that hubby number one was in fact dead. Her second marriage was null and void!

She refused! She liked the second guy better and told hubby number one to get lost. Beis din ruled the child of that union - a mamzer...and pleaded with hubby number one, for the sake of the future children of this woman, to divorce his wife.

He ultimately divorced the woman, and the many subsequent children do not carry the stigma of mamzerus. But she did not have another "kiddushin", even though the halacha is clear; when she married hubby number two, the kiddushin was not tofes or chal, because she was married to the first guy, rendering her offspring pogem, - (spiritually defective - born out of wedlock ) - albeit not illegitimate or bastards. But the first child, although no fault of hers, is a mamzer(et), and was only permitted to marry someone from the same unfortunate stigmatized Jewish lineage. Sad, but the halacha is sometimes seemingly unfair. She did not; and as best they could, kept the secret of her spiritually defective Jewish lineage.

But the person honored at the Jewish organization dinner knew that he married a mamzeret. The organization and the rabbi at it's head knew, the entire community knew - AND NOBODY SAID BOO!

His kids are mamzerim - vadei mamzeirim - and if the money remains in the family - they probably will be honored at future Orthodox Jewish dinners as well.

Yes, cellphones and the Internet can be misused, but they are NOT the danger that mamzerus can cause to the sanctity of Klal Yisroel. In matter of fact, Kiddushin - holiness through appropriate marriage - k'das Moshe v'Yisroel, is the bedrock of Yiddishkeit. And now we're trading that very foundation of Klal Yisroel - for a few bucks, full tables, and journal ads.

Back to the Internet and cell phones. Rabbis --- you have lost all the moral authority once vested in you - nobody gives a damn what you have to say. The children (and few thinking adults) see through this facade --- what you're doing is creating additional very good reasons for the children to say to you - you're full of it, and we want nothing to do with your brand of hypocrisy!

Address the real issues - in an honest manner - or there will not be any Orthodox Jewish kids left to text message the announcements of your bogus asifas and exaggerated maaselach!

Monday, July 23, 2012

The Dark Side of Privacy

by Professor Eugene Volokh

The Courier-Journal (Louisville) reports:

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120720/NEWS01/307200106?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1

Frustrated by what she felt was a lenient plea bargain for two teens who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her and circulating pictures of the incident, a Louisville 17-year-old lashed out on Twitter.

“There you go, lock me up,” Savannah Dietrich tweeted, as she named the boys who she said sexually assaulted her. “I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell.”

Now, Dietrich is facing a potential jail sentence, as the attorneys for the boys have asked a Jefferson District Court judge to hold her in contempt because they say that in naming her attackers, she violated the confidentiality of a juvenile hearing and the court’s order not to speak of it.

A contempt charge carries a potential sentence of up to 180 days in jail and a $500 fine.

An order barring a victim from revealing the names of her assailants is, I think, clearly unconstitutional, even when the assailants are juveniles. Oklahoma Publishing Co. v. District Court (1977) expressly rejected the notion that courts or legislatures may bar the publication of the names of juvenile offenders; that case involved a newspaper’s publishing the name of the juvenile offender, which it learned from a court hearing, but the rationale applies at least as strongly to a person’s publishing a name that she learned from the attack itself. Likewise, even when it comes to grand jury proceedings — probably the most historically secret part of the criminal justice system — Butterworth v. Smith (1990) held that, while a grand jury witness could be barred from revealing what he learned as part of the grand jury proceedings, the witness could not be generally barred from revealing information that he had learned on his own (even if that was the subject of his testimony).

The same applies here, I think. Dietrich revealed what she knew even before the trial — the names of her attackers — and that they are juveniles cannot strip her of her First Amendment rights on this score. And while she also revealed that they got a plea bargain, something she presumably learned through the court proceedings, that strikes me as the sort of information about the court system and the prosecutor’s office that the state cannot stop people from revealing. (Note that parties who get some confidential information from other parties via discovery may be barred from revealing it, see Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, and the same may be true about much confidential information learned through grand jury proceedings or through closed proceedings, but Butterworth shows that this principle is limited; and it doesn’t apply to what was learned by the speaker independently of the proceedings and, I think, to information about the sentences that the prosecutor urged.)

Dietrich’s problem, I think, is that she seems to have violated the court order, rather than challenging it when it was entered. (All this is based on what I read in the newspaper story, which I realize may not be fully accurate.) Under Walker v. City of Birmingham (1967), a person generally is not allowed to violate even an unconstitutional court order; he must challenge it on appeal (or via a similar procedure, such as mandamus), or abide by it. But even that “collateral bar” rule has an exception for “transparently invalid” court orders, and it seems to me this exception applies here. And in any event, the collateral bar rule can’t justify the judge’s decision in issuing this order.

SOURCE:
http://www.volokh.com/2012/07/22/the-dark-side-of-privacy/

INCOMPETENT BOZO JUDGES MUST BE REMOVED FROM THE BENCH:
Make Your Own Petition








Sunday, July 22, 2012

Criminal "Gedolim" Alert! This Is How History Will Judge You!


News Alert from The Wall Street Journal

The famed statue of Joe Paterno was taken down from outside the Pennsylvania State University football stadium Sunday, eliminating a key piece of the iconography surrounding the once-sainted football coach accused of burying child sex abuse allegations against a retired assistant.

Workers lifted the statue off its base and used a forklift to move it into Beaver Stadium as the 100 to 150 students watching chanted, "We are Penn State."


READ IT UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND THE CRIMINAL RABBIS' MIND:
 CLICK: http://rabbimatisyahusalomon.blogspot.com/





Video streaming by Ustream


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444025204577542670920264682?mod=djemalertNEWS




No sympathy for child abusers!

Columnist Susan Reimer and Elizabeth Letourneau seem to have forgotten the harmful role that some mental health practitioners have played — and may continue to play — in the worldwide clergy abuse scandal ("Child sexual abuse needs prevention, not just punishment," July 19).

Many abusive priests were not only weren't reported to the authorities by their bishops but were sent to sympathetic treatment centers that didn't report them either.

Contrary to Ms. Letourneau's assertion that "there is no way for someone to get help for themselves or someone else without involving the criminal justice system," too often mental health practitioners sent abusers back to communities where they could continue to rape children. (THINK OHEL)

Jerry Sandusky In some cases, even when bishops were advised not to allow child-molesting priests to be involved with children again, there was no oversight to prevent it from happening.

St. Luke's in Maryland sent a notorious priest, Father Geoghan, back to Boston and failed to report to authorities that the archdiocese had not followed its recommendations about this dangerous predator. Unfortunately for children, the result was predictable.

A treatment philosophy where everyone keeps the offender's secret is antithetical to the protection and safety of children. Secrecy is the lifeblood of child sexual abuse and assault.

Treatment professionals without the ability to monitor and control abusers should not ask society for the right to make unilateral decisions about the disposition of child molesters. The cloak of medical confidentiality enables the offender in the denial and minimization of his behavior; it affirms the secrecy that allowed the offenses to be committed in the first place.

A well-known national expert, Lucy Berliner, has noted that reporting child sexual abuse may be difficult and uncomfortable and may even lead to loss of income. However, it is also an opportunity for therapist and other professionals to model responsible community values and law abiding behavior.

Many therapists challenge the claim that not reporting abuse will encourage significant numbers of offenders to voluntarily seek treatment. In their experience, pedophiles simply to not seek treatment unless they are pressured to do so, nor do they remain in treatment unless they are ordered to.

Sadly, most child molesters get probation or other sentences where the punishment doesn't come close to fitting the crime. Sentencing guidelines in Maryland are very favorable to convicted sex offenders.

That is why Ms. Letourneau's suggestion that Maryland's criminal background check law be repealed is outrageous. That law has protected many vulnerable children by deterring sex offenders who pose a danger to them, as well as actually identifying dangerous individuals who otherwise would have gained access to children had the law not been in effect.

Penn State University officials did not report assistant coach Jerry Sandusky to the authorities because in their view it would have been "inhumane." It's time to think first about the rights of the victims, not the protection of powerful institutions that turn a blind eye to the perpetrators of these horrible crimes.

MORE:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-ed-abuse-reimer-letter-20120721,0,4458831.story






Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Was Thomas Jefferson On To Something, & Was He The Original UOJ? {UnOrthodox Jefferson}

Jefferson's letter to Mordecai Noah on religion, faith and democracy in 1811.


THE VIEWS EXPRESSSED HERE ARE NOT THE VIEWS OF UOJ AND ARE NOT ANALOGOUS TO JUDAISM PER SE, AND MY PERSONAL BELIEFS! BUT I DO BELIEVE EDITING OUT SO MUCH OF THE NONSENSE AND FRIVOLOUS --- MAN-MADE RITUALS AND FABRICATED MEANINGLESS TRADITIONS - THAT IS TODAY'S HAREDI JUDAISM; - THAT IS DESTROYING THE VERY INTENT OF THE BEAUTY THAT IS OUR TORAH & MESORAH --- IS SOMETHING WE NEED TO THINK ABOUT - SERIOUSLY!

This article in the L.A. Times has been edited by me - as not to offend the idiots among us - who would have a problem understanding my true intent!

Jefferson Bible reveals Founding Father's view of God, faith

SCHOLAR: Robert C. Ritchie says many people would consider it desecration to take a scissors to the Bible. "Yet, it gives a reading into Jefferson's take on the Bible, which was not as divine word put into print, but as a book that can be cut up," he says.

By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

July 5, 2008

Making good on a promise to a friend to summarize his views on Christianity, Thomas Jefferson set to work with scissors, snipping out every miracle and inconsistency he could find in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Then, relying on a cut-and-paste technique, he reassembled the excerpts into what he believed was a more coherent narrative and pasted them onto blank paper -- alongside translations in French, Greek and Latin.

In a letter sent from Monticello to John Adams in 1813, Jefferson said his "wee little book" of 46 pages was based on a lifetime of inquiry and reflection and contained "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man."

He called the book "The Life and Morals of J." Friends dubbed it the Jefferson Bible. It remains perhaps the most comprehensive expression of what the nation's third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence found ethically interesting about the Gospels and their depiction of J.

"I have performed the operation for my own use," he continued, "by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter, which is evidently his and which is as easily distinguished as diamonds in a dunghill."

The little leather-bound tome, several facsimiles of which are kept at the Huntington Library in San Marino, continues to fascinate scholars exploring the powerful and varied relationships between the Founding Fathers and the most sacred book of the Western World.

The big question now, said Lori Anne Ferrell, a professor of early modern history and literature at Claremont Graduate University, is this:

"Can you imagine the reaction if word got out that a president of the United States cut out Bible passages with scissors, glued them onto paper and said, 'I only believe these parts?' "

"He was a product of his age," said Ferrell, whose upcoming book, "The Bible and the People," includes a chapter on the Jefferson Bible. "Yet, he is the least likely person I'd want to pray with. He was more skeptical about religion than the other Founding Fathers."

In Jefferson's version of the Gospels, for example, J. is still wrapped in swaddling clothes after his birth in Bethlehem. But there's no angel telling shepherds watching their flocks by night that a savior has been born. Jefferson retains J's. death but ends the text with his burial, not with the resurrection.

Stripping miracles from the story of J. was among the ambitious projects of a man with a famously restless mind. At 71, he read Plato's "Republic" in the original Greek and found it lackluster.

Ever the scientist, he inoculated his wife, children and many of his slaves against smallpox with fresh pus drawn from infected domestic farm animals, according to Robert C. Ritchie, W.M. Keck Foundation director of research at the Huntington Library.

"For a lot of people, taking scissors to the Bible would be such an act of desecration they wouldn't do it," Ritchie said. "Yet, it gives a reading into Jefferson's take on the Bible, which was not as divine word put into print, but as a book that can be cut up."

Jefferson, a tall vigorous man who preferred Thucydides and Cicero to the newspapers of his day, was not the only 18th century leader who questioned traditional Christian teachings.

Like many other upper-class, educated citizens of the new republic, including George Washington, Jefferson was a deist.

Deists differed from traditional Christians by rejecting miraculous occurrences and prophecies and embracing the notion of a well-ordered universe created by a God who withdrew into detached transcendence...(Bechira-like).

Critics of the time regarded deism as an ill-conceived attempt to reconcile religion with scientific discoveries. For rationalists in the Age of Enlightenment, deism was one of many efforts to liberate humankind from what the deists viewed as superstitious beliefs.

Jefferson was a particular fan of Joseph Priestley, a scientist, ordained minister and one of Jefferson's friends. Priestley -- who discovered oxygen and invented carbonated water and the rubber eraser -- published books that infamously cast a critical eye upon biblical miracles. Jefferson was particularly fond of Preistley's comparison of the lives and teachings of Socrates and J.

Discussions and letters between Jefferson and another friend, Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush, led Jefferson to compile his "wee little book." In a letter to Rush on April 21, 1803, Jefferson said his editing experiment aimed to see whether the ethical teachings could be separated from elements he believed were attached to religion over the centuries.

"To the corruption of Christianity I am indeed opposed," he wrote to Rush, "but not to the genuine moral precepts."

Therefore, Ritchie said, "for Jefferson, the Bible was a book that could be made and unmade."

The Jefferson Bible remained largely unknown beyond a close circle of relatives and friends until 1904, when its publication was ordered by Congress. About 9,000 copies were issued and distributed in the Senate and the House.

Today several editions of the Jefferson Bible are available through booksellers. A few online versions exist, including one on the website of the Jefferson Monticello, www.monticello.org/library/links/jefferson.html.

It is hard to say whether Jefferson would have objected to publication of the book.

"Say nothing of my religion," Jefferson once said. "It is known to myself and my God alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if that has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one."

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Jews Must Act: Gut Agudath Israel







NCAA must act: Gut Penn State football

 After an eight-month inquiry, Former FBI director Louis Freeh's firm produced a 267-page report that concluded that Paterno and other top Penn State officials hushed up child sex abuse allegations against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky for more than a decade for fear of bad publicity, allowing Sandusky to prey on other youngsters.

 Joe Paterno is dead and so is what was left of his good name, shredded to pieces by investigators who didn't seem terribly impressed by anything the coach once did on Saturday afternoons.

Jerry Sandusky will spend what is left of the rest of his life in prison, paying for crimes so despicable they are hard to even comprehend. Some former Penn State administrators could be heading there, too. After Louis Freeh's damning report, they might want to think twice about taking their chances before a jury of their peers.

The cult allowed to fester at State College has been exposed, with a once-proud university looking like a backwater institution where worshipping at the statue of Joe was more important than protecting young boys exposed to horrors that will haunt them the rest of their lives.

Paterno's family can protest all it wants, but there is no way to spin this: He hurt a place where his word was gospel, and it may be decades before anyone outside Pennsylvania hears the words "Penn State" and doesn't immediately think of naked boys being abused in the same showers used by the young men who brought the university glory on the football field.

His name has already come off a Nike child care center in Oregon. His statue outside Beaver Stadium should come down next.

Unfortunately, it's not enough. Nothing may ever be enough to make up for what is arguably the worst scandal to hit college athletics. There is no way to turn back the clock, no way to give back to the victims, now grown men, who testified against Sandusky the childhood innocence they lost forever.

There are, however, ways to make sure the culture that enabled Sandusky never takes root on any college campus again; ways to help re-establish some moral authority in college sports; ways to make sure no university janitor is ever afraid again to report a terrible crime because he fears losing his job.

Yes, Penn State has already paid dearly, its pristine reputation damaged beyond repair. "Winning with honor," a motto made famous by Paterno, is worth a wince and a cringe. The school will also surely pay from the pocketbook, with untold millions going to victims in civil suits.

The almighty football program at the center of all this must pay, too. It must or else we have learned nothing from this sordid mess.

Don't wait for the school to impose some voluntary sanctions on itself. It won't happen. No one at Penn State has the guts to do it.

That leaves you, NCAA. You must act. Now.

No more excuses. No more using semantics to try to dance around the responsibility of policing the seamy side........

READ MORE:
http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/football/articles/2012/07/14/column_ncaa_must_act_gut_penn_state_football/?page=1


Thursday, July 12, 2012

Welcome To The Agudath Israel of Pennsylvania!

MORE ARTICLES ADDED FRIDAY - SCROLL DOWN!

Breaking News Alert

The New York Times

Thursday, July 12, 2012 -- 9:11 AM EDT

Sandusky Sex Abuse Investigation Faults Paterno and Others at Penn State

The most senior officials at Penn State University failed for more than a decade to take any steps to protect the children victimized by Jerry Sandusky, the longtime lieutenant to head football coach Joe Paterno, according to an independent investigation of the sex abuse scandal that rocked the university last fall.

Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims,” said Louis J. Freeh, the former federal judge and director of the F.B.I. who oversaw the investigation. “The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.”

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/sports/ncaafootball/13pennstate.html?emc=na

News Alert From The Wall Street Journal

A widely anticipated independent investigation into Pennsylvania State University's handling of child-sex abuse allegations found that university administrators, including the former President Graham Spanier and the late longtime football coach Joe Paterno, "repeatedly concealed critical facts" to avoid bad publicity in connection with reports that former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky could be a pedophile.

The report, issued by former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Louis Freeh at the request of trustees, founds that Spanier and Paterno, along with former athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz, "failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade."

READ MORE:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303740704577522603440183734.html?mod=djemalertNEWS

READ THE FULL REPORT:
http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page/free-report-psu-16760826

ADDED FRIDAY JULY 13, 2012

SNAP Responds To The Above Report: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/iteam/2012/07/survivors-network-responds-to-freeh-report-on-penn-state-sex-abuse-scandal

Joe Paterno was a liar, there’s no doubt about that now. He was also a cover-up artist. If the Freeh report is correct in its summary of the Penn State child molestation scandal, the public Paterno of the last few years was a work of fiction. In his place is a hubristic, indictable hypocrite.

In the last interview before his death, Paterno insisted as strenuously as a dying man could that he had absolutely no knowledge of a 1998 police inquiry into child molestation accusations against his assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky. This has always been the critical point in assessing whether Paterno and other Penn State leaders enabled Sandusky’s crimes.

If Paterno knew about ’98, then he wasn’t some aging granddad who was deceived, but a canny and unfeeling power broker who put protecting his reputation ahead of protecting children.

READ MORE ABOUT THIS GIANT: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/joe-paterno-at-the-end-showed-more-interest-in-his-legacy-than-sanduskys-victims/2012/07/12/gJQAMUX9fW_story.html







My Sentiments - Exactly!

Sent by a Friend - Send it to everyone you know!

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job.

What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden to tell you whom to vote for - it is against the law to discriminate based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc.

Please vote for who you think will serve your interests the best. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interest. First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story.

This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You saw my big home at last year’s Christmas party. I'm sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life. However, what you don't see is the back story.

I started this company 12 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living space was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business -- hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's.

My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business --- with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9 am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5 pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, ****, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to me like a 1 day old baby.

You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden -- the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... You never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made. Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail out all the people who didn't.

The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for. Yes, business ownership has its benefits but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds. Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200 ,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check?

Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country. The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy. Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget i t now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the mud of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine.

Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep. So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem anymore. Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire.

You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

While tax cuts to 95% of America sounds great on paper, don't forget the back story: If there is no job, there is no income to tax. A tax cut on zero dollars is zero. So, when you make decision to vote, ask yourself, who understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn't? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of saving your job. While the media wants to tell you "It's the economy Stupid" I'm telling you it isn't.

If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the Constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me in the South Caribbean sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about.

Signed, Your boss,

Michael A. Crowley, PE

Crowley, Crisp & Associates, Inc.

Professional Engineers

1906 South Main Street, Suite 122

Wake Forest, NC 27587


Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Definitely NOT Suitable For Children!

Voice begins after about 60 seconds:



William Lynch, the man acquitted last Thursday of felony elder abuse and assault charges stemming from an encounter two years ago in Los Gatos with a priest he says brutally raped him as a boy, has began a nonprofit organization to help sexual abuse victims.

Speaking to reporters after the not-guilty verdict was read by the jury in Department 34 of the San Jose Hall of Justice the afternoon of July 5, Lynch said he wanted to start an agency that would also help repeal the statute of limitations for sex abuse cases.

READ MORE:
http://losgatos.patch.com/articles/william-lynch-begins-nonprofit-to-help-sexual-abuse-victims

Sunday, July 08, 2012

"Don't Judge Judaism By The Jews!"

The UOJ Archives - 4/28/2008

THE MASSES ARE ASSES!

CHEVRAH ALZHEIMERS!
Which street-corner, soapbox preacher did you hear this ignorant blather from? Berel Wein, Yissocher Frand, Noah Weinberg, Mattisyahu Salomon, Paysach Krohn? Did they stand there playing the accordion with a monkey and a tin cup - when they told you this garbage? Did you ever hear it from an honest Jew - who does not make a living off this nonsense? A person with integrity and depth? A person who truly understands - that is exactly how you are suppose to judge Judaism?

How else do you judge anything - if not by what the results are! It either works - or it does not! And if it does not - you need to fix it by throwing out the idiots that are responsible for the deranged state of Orthodox Judaism --- calling themselves Jewish leaders!

ORTHODOX JUDAISM IS BROKEN! DOES ANYBODY HEAR ME? YOU CAN'T HAVE CHILD RAPISTS AND ALL THEIR RABBI ENABLERS --- GETTING A FREE PASS TO RAPE OUR KIDS, PHYSICALLY, SPIRITUALLY AND EMOTIONALLY, AND SCAR THEM FOR LIFE ---- FROM THE RABBIS - WHO PROTECT THEM AND COVER FOR THEM - AND CLAIM JUDAISM --- AS PRACTICED TODAY - IS THE REAL McCOY!

The "virus" of fraud, deceit and outlandish corruption that has so infected the world at large, has crept in -- and malignantly spread to every facet of the Jewish world . It is a virus that can't be cured by traditional doses of tefillah, tehillim, tzeddaka or learning more Torah.

Torah Temimah --- the "school" (not a yeshiva) that permitted and sanctioned Kolko's behavior, has began a fund-raising campaign --- claiming their broke! Any idiot that gives a dime to these menuvalim should be ridiculed publicly! Any parent that sends their child back to this concentration camp called Torah Temimah, where child-rape is no big deal, should be stoned! It's time for the community to shout out in no uncertain terms - WE'VE HAD IT - THIS SCHOOL CAN NOT BE PERMITTED TO REMAIN OPEN!

Welcome home to all the idiots from the hotels - rabbis - shysters in residence - free-loaders - included,--- who probably ate their way to illness! Welcome back to the real world - where you must deal with the ugliness that you stare in the face! Is this the Yiddishkeit you want to pass along to the next generations? We're now auctioning off brachas from the chevrah Alzheimers? Is that believable how low we've sunk?

For three years now I've been "screaming" at the top of my lungs --- we're sick --- we're in serious trouble! --- WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE? Ate some sushi in Arizona? Did you book next year already? Z'man Cheiruteinu??? We've never been more enslaved to our desires and indifference since "Chet Ha'Egel Hazahav! Who are we? ----- What do we stand for?----- What meaning do our lives have? When children and morality are sacrificed in the name of daat Torah -- IT'S THE END OF CIVILIZATION!

How else are we to judge Judaism --- by the Catholics? Of course - you judge Judaism by the Jews, their actions and their "leaders" --- and it's rotten to the core, at it's core....and you put on ten pounds over Pesach eating yourselves sick! Pathetic!

Friday, July 06, 2012

PRESS RELEASE FROM JBAC


Jewish Board of Advocates for Children commends the NY Daily News and journalist Reuven Blau for today's article reporting that Moshe Pinter, who has a serious criminal history for child endangerment and grand larceny, is working in a Brooklyn yeshiva.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/man-accused-raping-a-teen-working-a-brooklyn-yeshiva-article-1.1108718?fb_ref=s%3DshowShareBarUI%3Ap%3Dfacebook-like&fb_source=timeline

A bill, A. 09287, sponsored by Assembly Member Dov Hikind, and cosponsored by Assembly Members Harvey Weisenberg and Helene Weinstein, would require the nonpublic schools to fingerprint and conduct criminal history background checks on their employees. http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A09287&term=2011

Attached are letters of support from seven nonprofit groups that support this bill, including our own:

1. Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, Inc.;

2. Ohel Children's and Family Services;

3. Rabbinical Council of America;

4. CHILD - Children's Health Care Is a Legal Duty;

5. Prevent Child Abuse NY;

6. The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children;

7. American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children - New York.

Currently, all NYS public schools are required to background check their employees; but, for nonpublic schools, it is optional. Our own organization was, in 2006, successful in advocating for the law, Education Law 3001-d, that at least permits nonpublic schools to fingerprint their employees.

In 2007, working with Senator Dean Skelos, we were successful in advocating for the first mandated fingerprint bill for nonpublic schools - that bill passed the Senate, but was never voted upon by the Assembly.

The bill was re-introduced in subsequent years, but has still not passed.

Our Freedom of Information Law request upon the State Education Department reveals that only one per cent, 19 out of 1,900 nonpublic schools, are fingerprinting their employees.

The State Education Department also informed us that from 2001 through 2011, there were 1,653 public school job applicants, outside New York City, who were rejected for employment because of their serious criminal histories. (The New York City Department of Education declined our FOIL demand.)

There are over 700,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, including 30,000 in New York. These people, and others with serious criminal histories such as Moshe Pinter, should not work near children where they can inflict harm.

Our February 2009 Position Paper to the State Legislature, available on our web site, elaborates as to all of the many reasons why employee fingerprinting and criminal history background checks are essential for child safety.

The recent ongoing media attention about child abuse in religious and private schools, including yeshivas, Horace Mann, and Brooklyn Poly Prep, makes it so imperative that New York joins the 13 other states that require fingerprinting and background checks for nonpublic schools.

There are approximately 450,000 children who attend New York's nonpublic schools, about 15 percent of the total.

Child sex abuse is a horrific crime that often inflicts significant, long term damage. Alcohol and drug abuse, impaired cognitive functioning, actual brain damage, serious clinical depression, and suicide are among the consequences.

There is also an economic impact to society which is staggering. The NYS Senate Democratic Conference recently reported, in an April 30, 2012 report, that the immediate economic impact of child sex abuse is $211 million; the long term economic impact is $2.1 billion.

Most recently, on June 28, 2012, orthodox New York City Council Member David Greenfield, representing Borough Park, introduced a Resolution, 1393-2012, which, if passed, will urge the State Legislature to pass a mandated fingerprint law for nonpublic schools.

The Council Resolution has 20 sponsors, including Speaker Christine Quinn. It was referred to the Council Education Committee.

http://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=1143517&GUID=5674B3D8-2C63-4B65-A054-1322EA719B1A&Options=ID

We are deeply concerned that there may be other persons with serious criminal histories working or volunteering in the nonpublic schools. Last year, the media reported about convicted sex offender Joseph Denice volunteering at Catholic schools in Queens.

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-05-18/news/29572547_1_church-scam-queens-prosecutors-body-scan

In today's Jewish Press, an op-ed by David Mandel, CEO of Ohel Children's and Family Services, a large New York City nonprofit organization, calls for mandatory fingerprinting of nonpublic school employees.

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/a-call-to-action/2012/07/04/

We once again respectfully urge the State Legislature to immediately pass the mandated fingerprint, background check bill for nonpublic school employees.

The longer we wait, the more likely it is that more disasters will happen.

Elliot Pasik, Esq.

President, Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, Inc.

52 East Olive Street

Long Beach, NY 11561

Telephone: (516) 371-2800; (516) 578-0250

California: Acquittal in Beating of Retired Priest!



"This is a major victory," said Paul Mones, one of Lynch's two attorneys. He said it was remarkable because Lynch told the jury he punched the priest several times. Prosecutors called Lynch a vigilante and implored the jury not to be swayed by his dramatic testimony. Jurors told the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper that none wanted to convict Lynch after hearing his testimony about the alleged abuse. The jurors asked to remain anonymous.

San Jose, California (CNN) -- A California jury Thursday acquitted a man charged with assaulting a retired Catholic priest, in a case that prosecutors had described as a vigilante attack.

William Lynch, 44, was accused of confronting the Rev. Jerold Lindner, 68, during a visit at Sacred Heart Retirement home for Jesuit priests in Los Gatos, California, where Lindner had been living since retirement in 2001.

Prosecutors claimed that Lynch walked into the retirement center on May 10, 2010, under the pretense of delivering news about a relative, and attacked his former pastor.

Lynch and his younger brother had claimed more than a decade earlier that Lindner sexually molested them during church-led camping trips in northern California when they were 7 and 5 years old.

During Lynch's assault trial, Lindner denied abusing the boys and maintained his innocence from the witness stand.

But two days into Lindner's testimony, his attorney notified the court that his client was invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and would not testify further for fear of a perjury prosecution.

 Lynch also took the witness stand and testified that he only had wanted the priest to sign a confession, and he said he had punched him after experiencing an irrational fear triggered by memories of the alleged abuse.

Lynch's defense attorney, Pat Harris, claimed Lindner was responsible for his client's actions.

"Society is the victim in all this ... because there's a man sitting up there at Los Gatos who is a rapist, who molests children, and he's allow to go free," Harris said.

The statute of limitations on criminal molestation allegations had expired when Lynch and his brother went public with their allegations in 1997.

But in a civil lawsuit that was settled in 1998, Lynch and his brother asserted that Lindner sodomized them and forced them to have sex with each other while Lindner watched. In that suit, Lynch and his brother received a $625,000 settlement with the Jesuits of the California Province.

In the assault case against Lynch, he faced four counts stemming from the 2010 incident. The jury Thursday acquitted him on three counts and was unable to reach a decision on the fourth charge. The judge declared a mistrial on that count, and dismissed the charge.

Dozens of Lynch supporters, including his parents, gathered with demonstration signs outside the Santa Clara County Courthouse proclaiming the defendant's innocence.

Before the trial, prosecutors offered Lynch a plea deal offer that would have required a year in jail.

In closing arguments, prosecutors urged the jury to refrain from being swayed by Lynch's emotional testimony describing the alleged childhood trauma he claimed to have endured at the hands of Lindner.

After the verdict, Jim Muyo, a spokesman for the California Province of the Society of Jesus, released a statement saying they respect "the legal process and the findings of the judge and jury in the case of William Lynch."


A jury acquitted a man Thursday of assaulting a retired priest he says molested him more than three decades ago, causing him trauma that led to alcohol abuse, depression and suicide attempts. The defendant, William Lynch, took the witness stand and acknowledged punching the Rev. Jerold Lindner several times on May 10, 2010, at a Jesuit retirement home. Mr. Lynch said he hoped to use the case to publicly shame Father Lindner and bring further attention to the Catholic Church clergy abuse scandal. Prosecutors called Mr. Lynch a vigilante. Priest abuse victims and their supporters contributed to a defense fund and packed the courtroom every day for a trial. The retired priest also testified and denied abusing Mr. Lynch, who received $625,000 in a 1998 confidential settlement with the Jesuits.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/us/california-acquittal-in-beating-of-retired-priest.html?_r=1

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-07-05/priest-assault-verdict/56045368/1

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/05/justice/california-priest-assault/index.html

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

Those who cover up child abuse must be charged along with those who committed the abuse.


Nat Lewin just called - he promised to get Justice Roberts to call child-rape a kiddie tax!
It's time for the chief rabbis, the cardinals, the prominent university officials — and the institutions themselves — to be tried and convicted in criminal courts, too.

Covering up child abuse as reprehensible as pedophilia itself.

There's been a great deal of sensational news lately concerning pedophiles in the United States. The common denominator is these individuals preyed upon children while religious and educational institutions established upon foundations of trust and morality ignored or covered-up such disgusting and illegal behavior.

The most sensational: the trial of Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach,. He was convicted last week on 45 of 48 counts for sexually abusing several young boys over a number of years while they attended camps sponsored by Sandusky's Second Mile charitable organization at Penn State.

The riveting testimony at his trial from several victims not only showed that Sandusky, who had worked most of his career under legendary Coach Joe Paterno, and one of the nation's most lucrative and revered football programs in the county, abused these boys on the Penn State campus, but that university officials failed to act on them when sexual abuse reports were made.....

In New York, a growing scandal concerning both child and spousal abuse is now being played out in the ultra-orthodox Jewish Hasidic community of New York City.

There, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes is being taken to task for adhering to an arrangement with very politically powerful rabbis. The rabbis control massive blocs of voters. The rabbis called for Hasidic victims to first report allegations to their rabbis rather than police. And they also demanded that Hynes not publish the names of those arrested and convicted in that community.

Investigative reports by the New York Times, and subsequent reports by CNN and other news outlets, have raised other issues. The reports stated that instead of encouraging victims to press charges, the influential rabbis in the 250,000-person community protected child abusers and actually punished and ostracized victims who spoke out or called the police.

So far, out of 51 molesting cases involving Hasidic defendants in Brooklyn since 2009, nine were outright dismissed and others plead out to other charges because the victim's and their families feared reprisal from those Rabbis and members of their communities for testifying at trial.

The enormous scale of abuse that has been revealed about cover-ups in the U.S. Catholic Church — involving 6,100 priests and 16,000 victims — has resulted in civil court settlements paid to victims amounting to $2.5 billion. These cases have been the most prominent example of the massive scale of forbearance for sexual abuse by a politically and socially powerful U.S. religious institution.

Yet, after years of such news, investigations, and convictions, there's a glaring lack of criminal prosecution and conviction of prominent officials, or the institutions themselves by prosecutors like Hynes. Prosecutors and public officials seem fearful of taking on these power institutions, perhaps to facilitate their re-elections, rather than protecting the community.

Putting the sensational aspects of the Sandusky trial aside, the true significance of that trial, as well as the Lynnhim conviction and the mess in the shtetels of Brooklyn, is that it highlights how powerful religious and educational institutions are also culpable accomplices in these crimes. And that their immoral leaders deserve to be punished as well.

It's easy for these religious and educational bodies to pay out millions in civil settlements from their endowments.

It's not that easy to change the mentality of those in ultimate power. It is they who condone, and thus encourage, the continued abuse of children under their watch in order to save their powerful institutions from bad publicity and warranted investigation.

Those who cover up child abuse must be charged along with those who committed the abuse. It's time for the chief rabbis, the cardinals, the prominent university officials — and the institutions themselves — to be tried and convicted in criminal courts, too.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/fl-skcol-sex--abuse-scandals-kurlander-0628-20120628,0,7271794.story

Monday, July 02, 2012

Fatally Flawed People In Leadership Positions is Not Only A Jewish Tragedy....

Two Criminal Indictments, One Locked Away for the Rest of His Life, and One Dead!

"In 2001 there was zero excuse to not stop Sandusky. Zero. Penn State's decision was pathetic.

It's a chief reason why Curley and Schultz are facing prison time for failure to report a crime. It's also why Spanier remains a candidate for similar indictment from the attorney general.

Did Spanier realize the stakes of his decision? You bet he did. His email back to Curley concerning not going to child welfare says as much. "I am supportive," Spanier wrote, according to CNN. "The only downside for us [is] if the message isn't heard and acted upon, and then we become vulnerable for not having reported it."

Graham Spanier is a bad person. That wasn't the "only downside" or even the primary downside of Sandusky not hearing "the message."  The fact that additional children would be abused was the downside. Spanier, ever the self-obsessed top administrator, cared only about his own liability, not some terrified 10-year-old in an empty shower room. At no point, apparently, did anyone write an email about finding the boy McQueary said was being molested.

What remains is the question of why otherwise "reasonable" people would make such an ethically bankrupt and criminal decision. These are highly educated, high-functioning men. The answer may never be determined."

MORE:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--joe-paterno-role-jerry-sandusky-coverup-grows.html

E-Mails Suggest Paterno Role in Silence on Sandusky

Joe Paterno appears to have played a greater role than previously known in Penn State’s handling of a 2001 report that Jerry Sandusky had sexually assaulted a boy in a university shower, according to a person with knowledge of aspects of an independent investigation of the Sandusky scandal.

According to e-mails uncovered by investigators, Joe Paterno may have influenced Penn State's decision not to report Jerry Sandusky to authorities.

E-mail correspondence among senior Penn State officials suggests that Paterno influenced the university’s decision not to formally report the accusation against Sandusky to the child welfare authorities, the person said. The university’s failure to alert the police or child welfare authorities in 2001 has been an issue at the center of the explosive scandal — having led to criminal charges against two senior administrators and the firing of Paterno last fall.

The university’s much maligned handling of the 2001 assault began when Mike McQueary, a graduate assistant in Paterno’s football program, told Paterno that he had seen Sandusky assaulting a boy of about 10 in the football building showers. McQueary has testified several times that he made clear to Paterno, and later to university officials, that what he had seen Sandusky doing to the child was terrible and explicitly sexual in nature.

To date, the public understanding of Paterno’s subsequent actions has been that he relayed McQueary’s account to the university’s athletic director and then had no further involvement in the matter.

But the e-mails uncovered by investigators working for Louis J. Freeh, the former F.B.I. director leading an independent investigation ordered by the university’s board of trustees, suggest that the question of what to do about McQueary’s report was extensively debated by university officials. Those officials, the e-mails show, included the university’s president, Graham B. Spanier; the athletic director, Tim Curley; the official in charge of the campus police, Gary Schultz; and Paterno.

The existence of the e-mail correspondence was first reported by CNN. The person familiar with aspects of the Freeh investigation would not be identified because the investigation is continuing and no one is authorized to speak about it.

The Penn State e-mails, according to the person with knowledge of the Freeh investigation, indicate that Spanier, Curley and Schultz seemed at one point to favor reporting the assault to the state child welfare authorities, recognizing that if they did not, they could later be vulnerable to charges that they had failed to act.

But in one e-mail, Curley wrote that after talking to Paterno, he no longer wanted to go forward with that plan. In the end, the university told no one other than officials with Second Mile, the charity for disadvantaged youngsters founded by Sandusky.

The e-mails suggest that the officials decided that Sandusky could be dealt with by barring him from taking children onto the campus and encouraging him to seek professional help.  Not reporting the accusation to the authorities, the men determined, was the more “humane” way to deal with Sandusky, according to the e-mails.

Curley and Schultz were indicted last fall on charges of failing to report the assault to the police and child welfare authorities, and then lying about their conduct under oath before a grand jury. Curley and Schultz, through their lawyers, have insisted that they were never told of the graphic nature of the assault in the showers, saying they were under the impression that it had amounted to little more than “horsing around.”

Lawyers for Curley and Schultz, contacted about the e-mails, issued a statement saying in part: “For Curley, Schultz, Spanier and Paterno, the responsible and ‘humane’ thing to do” in 2001 “was to carefully and responsibly assess the best way to handle vague but troubling allegations. Faced with tough situations, good people try to do their best to make the right decisions.”

Spanier, who resigned as Penn State’s president in November, declined to comment when reached by phone on Saturday.

If accurate, the recently uncovered e-mail correspondence could further damage Paterno’s reputation and legacy. When he was fired, the university’s board of trustees said that his failure to act more aggressively after learning of the attack amounted to a failure of leadership. But if Paterno played a role in the decision not to report the attack to the child welfare authorities, his failure of leadership would seem more grave.

When they testified before the grand jury, none of the four men — Spanier, Curley, Schultz and Paterno — detailed internal discussions about what to do with Sandusky. Certainly, none of the men spoke of any involvement by Paterno beyond his initial report to Curley.

Freeh’s investigation, begun last fall, is expected to be the most thorough examination of the university’s dealings with Sandusky, including the question of whether there was a cover-up involving the 2001 accusations.

To that end, Freeh’s investigation has identified previously undisclosed billing records showing that officials of the university, when deciding what to do in 2001, consulted with the law firm that served as its outside counsel on their legal obligation to report the assault, the person familiar with the inquiry said. It is unclear from the billing records whether the officials disclosed the nature of the accusations against Sandusky or simply made a general inquiry. Several hours were billed, beginning on a Sunday night, the person said. The lawyer who represented the university at the time did not return a phone call requesting comment.

Freeh’s investigators are also exploring the circumstances surrounding Paterno’s decision to eventually hire McQueary as an assistant, the person familiar with the investigation said. McQueary, a former quarterback for Paterno at Penn State, has testified under oath that when he first contacted Paterno to inform him of what he had seen in the showers, Paterno assumed he was calling to ask for a job, and that Paterno brusquely told him he would not be hired.

McQueary was ultimately hired over another, more experienced candidate, and investigators are curious about whether that development came as a consequence of what he told Paterno that morning in 2001.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/sports/ncaafootball/paterno-may-have-influenced-decision-not-to-report-sandusky-e-mails-indicate.html?_r=1&hp