Judge appoints former judge to oppose DOJ decision to drop Flynn case

The federal judge overseeing the case against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn appointed a hard-charging former prosecutor and judge to oppose the Justice Department’s effort to drop the case and to explore a perjury charge against Mr. Flynn, reported the New York Times.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan’s appointment of the former judge, John Gleeson, was an extraordinary move in a case with acute political overtones. Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty twice to lying to investigators as part of a larger inquiry into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Mr. Flynn later began fighting the charge and sought to withdraw his guilty plea. Then last week, the Justice Department abruptly moved to drop the charge after a long campaign by Mr. Trump and his supporters, prompting accusations that Attorney General William P. Barr had undermined the rule of law and further politicized the department.

Judge Sullivan also asked Judge Gleeson to explore the possibility that by trying to withdraw his pleas, Mr. Flynn opened himself to perjury charges.

The Justice Department declined to comment. Judge Gleeson did not respond to a request for comment. Judge Sullivan had said on Tuesday that he would consider briefs from outsiders known as amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” who opposed the government’s request to dismiss the case against Mr. Flynn.

While judges do sometimes appoint such third parties to represent an interest they feel is not being heard in a case, Judge Sullivan’s move was highly unusual, said Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches criminal law at Duke University.

Judge Sullivan, he said, is essentially bringing in an outsider to represent the point of view of the original prosecutors, who believed Mr. Flynn had committed a crime before Mr. Barr intervened and essentially replaced them with a prosecutor willing to say he had not.

“This is extraordinary for the judge to appoint somebody to argue against a prosecutors’ motion to dismiss a criminal case,” Mr. Buell said. “But it’s extraordinary for a prosecutor to move to dismiss this sort of criminal case.”

 “What the Justice Department did in the first case is, as far as any of us can figure out, unprecedented,” he added. “So the fact that this is pretty unprecedented too is not that surprising.”

It was not immediately clear what Judge Sullivan was focused on with his request for input on whether to essentially accuse Mr. Flynn of criminal perjury.

Mr. Buell said he doubted it would qualify as perjury for Mr. Flynn to embrace the Justice Department’s claim that he committed no crime because his admitted lies were purportedly immaterial to a proper investigation — whether or not that legal theory is true. But, Mr. Buell said, there could be a legitimate issue if Mr. Flynn were to claim that he did not lie after all — a notion the Justice Department’s filing also hinted at — despite previously telling judges that he had.

To read more CLICK HERE

NEWSWEEK: EX-WHITE HOUSE ETHICS CHIEF CALLS MCCONNELL A 'PERJURER' AFTER SENATOR TAKES IMPEACHMENT OATH: HE SAID 'THE EXACT OPPOSITE'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was branded a "perjurer" by former President George W. Bush's ethics chief, after the Republican senator took an oath swearing impartiality in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, reported Newsweek.

McConnell has explicitly indicated he has no intention of being impartial, vowing to work closely with White House counsel and Trump as the trial approached. Richard Painter, Bush's chief ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007, denounced the senator on Twitter for contradicting himself by taking the oath.

"This man just swore an oath saying the exact opposite. This man is a perjurer," Painter tweeted, accompanied by a December NPR article featuring McConnell vowing to be anything but impartial during the trial.

To read more CLICK HERE

PA conviction overturned, witness lied and DA knew it

An appeals court has overturned the 1998 conviction of a New York man in a fatal Pennsylvania shooting, saying a witness lied, and prosecutors knew it, resulting in an unfair trial, reported The Associated Press.

Erie County, Pennsylvania prosecutors must now decide whether to retry 48-year-old Vance Haskell in the 1994 slaying of Darrell Cooley at Jethroe's Steakhouse in Erie or let Haskell go free from the life sentence he's serving.

Haskell was convicted of first-degree murder after the woman claimed she saw the Rochester, New York man shoot at Cooley 11 times with an Uzi-like machine gun.

Haskell's attorney argued before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March that she lied by telling a jury she got nothing in return for her testimony. They contend Erie County prosecutors helped her get probation for an unrelated retail theft conviction in a neighboring county.

To read more CLICK HERE

Testilying: The art of manipulating the criminal justice system

Changing stories told on the stand after convictions is so common, court watchers have a name for it: "Testilying." A stark reality of the criminal justice system is that people lie. They lie to stay out of jail, to get out of jail, to curry favor with cops, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Police sometimes lie, too. Untangling who is lying in criminal cases can be “absolutely daunting,” said lawyer Richard Scheff, who recalled wrestling with the issue when he was a federal prosecutor. "There can be any number of reasons why people change their statements."

Scientific advances in crime solving — especially DNA testing — have freed the wrongfully convicted and proven guilt. Almost as a rule, experts say, courts don’t like to reopen old cases without compelling scientific evidence. Jennifer Creed Selber, former chief of the Philadelphia District Attorney's office’s homicide unit, acknowledged witness recantations are a “pervasive” problem. She believes witnesses usually recant because they fear retaliation from defendants. “If we attempted to prosecute every witness that perjures themselves, it would be a completely unworkable and impossible situation.”

Five years ago, the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University's law school started a database of criminal exonerations since 1989. The National Registry of Exonerations has catalogued over 2,000 cases.

DNA evidence spurred many, but the growing number of exonerations has led to a “profound change” in the perception of convictions, said Samuel Gross, senior editor of the registry.

“What the DNA cases showed everybody,” he said, “is that a lot of criminal convictions that no one had thought to think about were wrong.”

More than half of his registry’s cases involve perjury and/or false accusations.

Much lying stems from misconduct by police and prosecutors desperate to solve crimes, researchers say. “Witnesses are pressured, threatened, subjected to violence, offered secret deals such as reduced charges in the case at hand or for other crimes, or otherwise coerced or persuaded to falsely accuse the defendant,” a 2013 registry report concluded.

James McCloskey, the founder of Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey-based organization that has helped exonerate more than 50 prisoners since 1980, said about three dozen witnesses have recanted their testimony in Centurion cases.
“They want to reconcile themselves, really help right a terrible wrong,” McCloskey said, but they fear getting in trouble. It can take years to get a witness to publicly acknowledge the lie — and then additional years to actually win an exoneration.

To read more CLICK HERE

AG Kane survives removal attempt, faces impeachment and criminal trial...oh, and decides not to seek reelection

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane has survived a removal attempt by the state Senate, but the House has opened an investigation that could lead to her impeachment, reported Newsworks.org.. Kane is also awaiting trial in August for perjury and other counts for allegedly leaking confidential investigative information and lying about it under oath and, surprise, she has decided not to seek reelection. 

House members voted overwhelmingly to begin the probe, tasking a subcommittee to determine whether Kane could be impeached based on any "misbehavior in office."

House Democratic Minority Leader Frank Dermody led the 1993 probe into the late Supreme Court justice Rolf Larsen, the last Pennsylvania official to be impeached.

"The impeachment process, you know, it doesn't have to be a crime," said Dermody. "The constitutional standard is misbehavior in office. And it's up to the legislature to determine what that is, what that means. It's a political trial."

Some lawmakers openly speculated that the Senate vote on Kane's removal might have tainted any impeachment proceeding against her. An impeachment vote in the House would result in a trial before the Senate.

"They are potential jurors," said Dermody. But he doubts that the removal effort leaves any whiff of bias on senators because their inquiry was so narrow.

"It might not have poisoned the whole well," said Dermody. "The reason they were going to consider removal was because of her law license."

The Senate's removal effort was focused on whether Kane could fulfill her duties with a suspended law license. The state Supreme Court ordered the suspension in October and upheld the ruling last week.

To read more CLICK HERE

PA Senate begins process to remove AG Kane

The Pennsylvania Senate has initiated proceedings to remove Attorney General Kathleen Kane from office, beginning with the creation of a committee tasked with assessing whether Kane is able to perform the functions of attorney general, reported The Legal Intelligencer.

Plans to form the bipartisan special committee were announced by state Sen. Joseph B. Scarnati III, R-Jefferson, president pro tempore of the upper house, on Oct. 23. Scarnati said the move was motivated by the suspension of Kane's law license going into effect last week.

Article VI, Section 7 of the Pennsylvania Constitution details the removal of civil officers. It states: "All civil officers elected by the people, except the governor, the lieutenant governor, members of the General Assembly and judges of the courts of record, shall be removed by the governor for reasonable cause, after due notice and full hearing, on the address of two-thirds of the Senate."

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an order Sept. 21 announcing the suspension of Kane's license. The order took effect last week. The Supreme Court's suspension order came about six weeks after Kane was criminally charged with leaking secret grand-jury material and lying under oath about it.

To read more CLICK HERE 

Exonerations continue to grow nationwide

Why do false convictions occur? Victims identify the wrong person; prosecutors withhold exculpatory evidence from the accused; false or misleading forensic evidence points to the wrong person; defendants receive inadequate legal representation; witnesses perjure themselves.

Last May, the National Registry of Exonerations, a joint project of the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, released its first report analyzing 873 exonerations between January 1989 and February 2012. The number of identified exonerations in the registry has grown to 1,050 since the report was issued.

In the 873 cases that were studied, the registry found the most common reasons for wrongful conviction were perjuryor false accusation (51 percent), mistaken witness identification (43 percent) and official misconduct (42 percent).

Ninety-three percent of those exonerated were men, 50 percent were black, 38 percent were white and 11 percent were Hispanic. DNA evidence helped clear 37 percent of them.

To read more: http://www.chron.com/exonerees/essay/

Former Penn State president to be charged today

Graham B. Spanier, the Pennsylvania State University president ousted last year for his handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, is expected to face criminal charges today in connection with the case, sources close to the investigation told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Attorney General Linda Kelly is expected to announce perjury and obstruction of justice charges against the ex-administrator at a noon news conference in Harrisburg, the sources said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case.

To read more:  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20121101_Sources__Spanier_to_be_charged_with_perjury__obstruction.html

Penn State: Defense attorney invokes Brooklyn justice

Defense Attorney Tom Farrell: "what I would have done, which is get the boys in the car with a few baseball bats and crowbars and take it to the fellow."

Former Penn State University vice-president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley, had a preliminary hearing in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on December 16th related to the Penn State sex scandal and cover-up involving Jerry Sandusky. Schultz's attorney, Tom Farrell, predicted his client would be acquitted.

According to ABC News, Farrell also took a shot at Paterno, saying, "I'm an Italian from Brooklyn, and he may not have called the police but he may have done what I would have done, which is get the boys in the car with a few baseball bats and crowbars and take it to the fellow."

Interesting that Farrell said he "may not have called the police," but he would have taken some extreme action like going over and physically assaulting Sandusky.  However, his client--who over saw the university police department--chose to do nothing for 10 days.  Schultz didn't grab a a bat or crowbar, he didn't pick-up the phone and inform the campus police chief--his direct subordinate.  Instead, he waited 10 days to talk to Mike McQueary, then talked with Sandusky and the Second Mile and ultimately deep-sixed the whole matter.

By Farrell's own "old school Brooklyn" standards Schultz failed miserably in responding to the alleged rape of a child on the Penn State campus.

Defense lawyers argued that a perjury charge in Pennsylvania cannot be based solely on one person's oath versus another's. The defense said uncorroborated testimony from McQueary is not enough. Curley's attorney, Caroline Roberto, said prosecutors "will never be able to reach their burden of proof at a trial," in part because McQueary "minimized" the alleged assault to Paterno.

To read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/accused-penn-state-higher-ups-face-perjury-hearing-15168296

Penn State: McQueary to Testify at Curley/Schultz Preliminary Hearing

Has given several different versions of events in Penn State locker room in 2002

Tim Curley, the former Penn State athletic director, and Gary Schultz, former university vice president, will have their joint preliminary hearing in Bellfonte, Pennsylvania.  The men are charged with perjury and failure to report alleged child abuse relating to the Penn State sex scandal and cover-up.

The purpose of the preliminary hearing is to establish that prosecutors have enough evidence to go to trial. Defense attorneys are not expected to call witnesses, according to the Harrisburg Patriot-News, and their cross-examination is limited to the truth of witnesses’ statements. Jerry Sandusky waived his right to a similar hearing and will proceed to trial.

Mike McQueary is the key witness in the case against Curley and Schultz. McQueary told a grand jury  that he reported to Curley and Schultz that he observed Sandusky raping a young boy in the shower of the football locker room. The grand jury found McQueary credible, but, since then, he allegedly has emailed friends with details that are inconsistent with the grand jury report. In addition, according to the Patriot-News, McQueary's original verbal account to a friend after the incident and a written account to state police in 2010 contain other inconsistencies, reported the Washington Post.

To read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/post/penn-state-scandal-mike-mcqueary-expected-to-testify-in-tim-curley-gary-schultz-preliminary-hearing/2011/12/15/gIQAYZ4RwO_blog.html




 

The Altoona Mirror: Examining the Legal Fallout from McQueary Email

Below is a pretty thorough legal analysis by William Kibler of The Altoona Mirror with regard to the recent email by Mike McQueary which seems to contradict his testimony before the grand jury investigating the Penn State sex scandal and cover-up.

Kibler writes, that McQueary may have damaged his credibility this week as a prosecution witness in the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse case, when he claimed he contacted police after allegedly witnessing Sandusky raping a boy, according to legal experts.

The claim seems at odds with the grand jury presentment in the case and with local police agencies, which said McQueary didn't report the rape in 2002.

McQueary's claim, made to a friend in an email and released to The Associated Press, "absolutely" damages his credibility as a witness, said Thomas M. Dickey, an Altoona defense lawyer.

Other legal experts aren't so sure, writes Kibler.

McQueary's claim was the good news for Sandusky's defense this week - after the bad news of Sandusky's televised interview with Bob Costas on NBC, in which he admitted to showering with boys, Dickey said.

While Sandusky's admission gives ground unnecessarily, McQueary's claim is "a hole," an opening that the defense can exploit at trial, Dickey said.

"Pin him down, turn that one lie into 30 lies" by "pounding" for inconsistencies among all the scraps of communication the defense can find, he said. "Everything that person ever said or thought relative to that case."

But even one lie helps, reported Kibler.

"False in one, false in all," he said.

It's not surprising the opening came as it did, Dickey said.

"Usually when you find the good stuff, it's when people have their guards down, like an email to a friend," he said.

Defense lawyer Patrick Artur of Philadelphia was more circumspect.

The grand jury presentment isn't evidence, merely a summary of what the grand jury found, Artur said.

"That summary could well leave out a lot of specific information," former Blair County District Attorney William Haberstroh said. "You almost would need to see the transcript."

Whether the email statement contradicts McQueary's grand jury testimony depends on exactly what prosecutors asked him and how he answered, Haberstroh said.

If prosecutors didn't ask directly whether he went to police, it's not necessarily surprising he didn't volunteer the information, because prosecutors generally keep their questioning narrow and focused in grand jury proceedings, Haberstroh said.

They don't want to bring up extraneous issues that could get in the way of convincing the grand jury there's probable cause to recommend charges, Haberstroh said.

"So we don't know whether [McQueary's email statement] is contradictory or not," Artur said.

McQueary made his recent claim under duress. Media commentators have attacked him for not stopping the rape and not reporting it to police, based on the grand jury presentment, writes Kibler.

"He wanted to leave the impression he did something," Artur said. "That he didn't just whistle past the showers and keep on going."

But prosecutors and his own lawyer should tell him to "zip it," Artur said.

Likewise, it's natural for defendants to want to talk, but Sandusky needs to bide time until trial, Dickey said.

"If I were representing Sandusky, I would be sitting back watching them all unravel," he said.

The upcoming preliminary hearing will be an opportunity for the defense to gather ammunition to inflict further damage, generating lots of specifics it can exploit at trial for inconsistencies, Dickey said.

"You have to attack, attack, attack their credibility," Dickey said. "To show these people are lying, stretching the truth, exaggerating, whatever."

Those kinds of attacks can be fruitful, writes Kibler.

"The truth of the matter is that most people exaggerate, say things they don't mean, even say things that are not true, all the time," said John Burkoff, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

And defense lawyers can turn an acorn into an oak tree, Artur said.

Marshaling witnesses to present credible testimony at trial in a case like Sandusky's is a path fraught with peril for the prosecution, Burkoff said.

The "scorching" coverage of the case may have given other victims the confidence to come forward to reveal abuse by Sandusky, whose community stature could have been intimidating before, he said.

But that coverage also might embolden false victims to come forward, he said.

If the prosecution isn't careful enough to cull them out, and if one gets into the witness group at trial, and the defense exposes that victim, it could jeopardize the whole case, he said.

Conversely, if there's an absolutely convincing case against one victim, the "spillover effect" can help convince the trial jury about the rest, he said.

In the grand jury presentment, the alleged 2002 rape stood out as probably the most convincing incident, so the doubt that may be cast by McQueary's recent email could be especially damaging, it seems.

"I'm willing to predict you're going to see more and more inconsistencies," Dickey said.

Still, a single exaggeration or lie - if such was the case with McQueary's email - is rarely enough to totally discredit testimony, Burkoff said.

McQueary's claim isn't going to destroy the state's case, Artur predicted.

Visit The Altoona Mirror: http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/555549/McQueary-credibility-called-into---.html

Penn State: McQueary Deals Cover-up Investigation a Hit

Mike McQueary--Penn State assistant football coach, and witness to the alleged sexual assault of a child by Jerry Sandusky--is, at this point, the case's only known disinterested witness.  He has nothing to gain by testifying against Sandusky.  Prosecutors have a fondness for disinterested witnesses.  However smitten the prosecution was with McQueary that love affair might be starting to fade.

On November 8, McQueary wrote an email to a friend, "I did stop it, not physically ... but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room ... I did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police .... no one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds ... trust me."

The problem is that McQueary didn't tell the grand jury about stopping the sexual assault or that he called the police.  More importantly, there seems to be another, bigger problem.

Both Penn State's campus police and the State College police department say they never received a report from McQueary related to an allegation of child sexual abuse by Sandusky.

A spokesperson for Penn State's campus police told CBS News that they never received a sex abuse report from McQueary. Separately, State College Police Chief Thomas R. King told CBS News that his department has no record of ever being contacted by McQueary regarding an alleged sexual assault by Sandusky.

The university also has its own police force. Penn State administrators said they were looking into whether McQueary contacted campus police. A university official also told CBS News Tuesday that, to her knowledge, no police report was filed.

Now, McQueary will have to explain himself.  Maybe not to CBS News but he will have to explain himself in some court room to a judge and a jury. 

To read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57326703-504083/no-record-of-mike-mcqueary-reporting-jerry-sandusky-child-sex-abuse-say-cops/

Penn State: McQueary Changes Story, Credibility at Issue

Mike McQueary told a friend from Penn State that he stopped an alleged assault by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on a 10-year-old boy in 2002 and went to the police about it, reported The Associated Press.

In the email dated November 8 from McQueary’s Penn State account and made available to The Associated Press by his friend, the assistant coach writes that he stopped the sexual assault and discussed it with police afterward.

The email, if authentic, seems to contradict McQueary's grand jury testimony.  McQueary testified, according to the grand jury presentment, that he observed Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy in the shower of the football locker room.  "The graduate assistant (McQeary) was shocked but noticed that both victim 2 (the boy) and Sandusky saw him.  The graduate assistant left immediately distraught."

McQueary then testified that he called his father, went to his father's home and the following morning went to Head Coach Joe Paterno's home to report the incident. 

He never told the grand jury that he stopped the assault nor did he tell the grand jury that he spoke with the police.  In fact, the presentment is very specific, "the records reveal that the 2002 incident (shower assault witnessed by McQeary) was never reported to any official," police or child protective service agency.

McQueary's apparent revised version of the incident could have profound impact on the perjury charges against former Athletic Director Tim Curly and former University Vice-President Gary Schultz.  Their perjury charges are based on the grand jury finding McQueary to be "extremely credible."  Now that credibility is at issue. 

Did McQueary omit pertinent facts from his testimony before the grand jury?  Did he intentionally mislead the grand jury?  Could it be that McQueary was so embarrassed by his epic failure to stop the rape of a 10-year-old boy that he would lie to his friends to save some face.  One way or the other, if the email is authentic, McQueary's credibility has taken a hit and so has the prosecution's case against Curley and Schultz. 

To read more:  http://www.suntimes.com/news/crime/8857655-418/mcqueary-email-i-stopped-sandusky-went-to-police.html 

Grand Jury Presentment:  http://media.centredaily.com/smedia/2011/11/07/17/52/togjq.So.42.pdf

The Cautionary Instruction: PSU Administrators Circle the Wagons

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Ipso Facto
November 11, 2011

Two Penn State University officials arrested this week, Athletic Director Tim Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz, are certainly not accused of direct involvement in the sexual abuse of children -- allegedly perpetrated by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky -- but their alleged conduct, if true, is appalling, outrageous and an affront to all professionals associated with institutions of higher education.
Both men are charged with violating Pennsylvania’s mandated reporter law and perjury for allegedly lying to a state grand jury.
The mandated reporter law in Pennsylvania provides, "a person who, in the course of employment, occupation or practice of a profession, comes into contact with children shall report or cause a report to be made in accordance with (the act) when the person has reasonable cause to suspect…that a child under the care, supervision, guidance or training of that person or of an agency, institution, organization or other entity with which that person is affiliated is a victim of child abuse.” 
Attorney General Linda L. Kelly was asked at a recent press conference about the suggestion that the statute requiring reporting incidents of child abuse did not apply to Curley and Schultz. “I think that we are confident that that statute will cover the kind of activity that occurred late that night … the administrators of the university, who are representatives of the head of the university, that have that information in their possession have an obligation to report that."
With regard to perjury, Pennsylvania law provides, “a person is guilty of perjury, a felony of the third degree, if in any official proceeding he makes a false statement under oath or equivalent … when the statement is material and he does not believe it to be true.”
Schultz's attorney Thomas J. Farrell accused the Attorney General of setting a ‘perjury trap.’ "You bring someone into a grand jury to investigate something that can’t be prosecuted, something that isn’t a crime, and then you take that persons’ inconsistencies or inaccuracies, or failure to remember what happened nine years ago," said Farrell. "Then you manufacture a charge out of it. That’s what the Attorney General has done to these men."
A perjury trap materializes when a prosecutor calls a witness before the grand jury with the intention of securing a perjury indictment, rather than indicting the witness for a previously committed crime.
A perjury trap defense asks the court to take the unlikely step of looking favorably upon someone who lied under oath to a grand jury and is now blaming the prosecutor for ‘trapping’ the defendant into committing perjury.
Some legal commentators suggest that the perjury trap is a ‘superfluous’ defense. The perjury statute requires that the untruthful statement be material. If the statement is material it’s perjury; if the statement is not material it’s not perjury. The trap is inconsequential.

Visit Ipso Facto

Penn State: Why the Cover-Up?

Legendary football coach Joe Paterno fired

Penn State University is reeling, students are rioting in the streets.  Head football coach Joe Paterno and University President Graham Spanier are out of jobs.  Why?  A Pennsylvania grand jury indicted former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on 40 counts of sexual assault against eight children. 

Two university administrators Athletic Director Tim Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz have been charged with violating Pennsylvania's mandated reporter law and perjury for lying to the grand jury.

Here is what we know from the grand jury presentment.  The presentment alleges that Sandusky was caught in the act of raping a young boy in the locker room shower at the Penn State football complex.  Paterno was notified.  Paterno notified Curley.  Curley and Schultz met with the witness.  They notified President Spanier.

No one notified the police.  The witness did not, the head coach did not, the AD did not, the vice-president did not and the president did not.  Some of those individuals were aware that Sandusky was accused of very similar conduct with children a fews years earlier.

Why would these accomplished, well-educated men choose not to take action against a former football coach who was accused of sexually assaulting children?  These men knew or should have known better.  Could these men have been blinded by the reputation or esteem of a legendary football program?  Could they have been paralyzed by their fear of the fallout that would come with a Sandusky arrest?

Is there more to this story?  The Pennsylvania Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Eduction investigations need to reveal why a group of men--intelligent, experienced, revered men--would not intervene and protect children from an alleged predator.

To read more:  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/10/penn-state-students-riot-after-joe-paterno-s-firing.html
 
Grand Jury Presentment: http://media.centredaily.com/smedia/2011/11/07/17/52/togjq.So.42.pdf

Penn State: Defense Strategy Revealed

The Centre County Times printed the following statements issued by Attorney Caroline Roberto and Attorney Thomas J. Farrell on behalf of their clients Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz:

Caroline Roberto, representing Curley , issued the following statement following his arraignment on charges of perjury and failure to report:

“Tim Curley is innocent of these charges. We will vigorously confront these challenges in court.
“Now I have three observations. First, as you heard in the courtroom, the duty report charge is a summary offense. That’s like a speeding ticket. Under the law, a duty to report didn’t even apply to Tim Curley or to his situation at Penn State.
“Number two, even if it did apply to Tim Curley, the evidence will show he reported what he knew up the chain of command, just like others in this case did.
“Number three, the charge of perjury. You should all know that perjury is a prosecutor’s charge of last resort. They charge it when they can’t prove the person did anything wrong.
“In this case, the offense occurred in 2002, and they’re trying to charge Mr. Curley with perjury for something he said nine years later. It is a distraction in this case, the charge of perjury, and it is unconscionable that the AG’s office would level such a weak case against a man of integrity like Mr. Curley.
“I will tell you, and you should know that this perjury charge is a red flag for all of you today that the charges against Mr. Curley are weak. After 18 months investigation, if this is all the AG’s office could bring we are ready to go toe to toe with them in court. We’re reader to fight this case, and we’re ready to win.”
Thomas J. Farrell, the attorney representing Gary Schultz, issued this statement following Schultz's arraignment on charges of perjury and failure to report:

“Rather than follow the law, the AG has fabricated a fiction here.
“This child protection statute does not apply to our clients, number one. And number two, they did what they are supposed to do under the statute. They reported these allegations to their boss, the president of Pen State University, as well as the executive director of the Second Mile.
“They did exactly what Mr. McQueary did, which was report to Joe Paterno, his boss. They did exactly what Mr. Paterno did, which is reported to Mr. Curley. There’s no reason they should be charged with this offense, a summary offense.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on here. The prosecution is [holding] it to the grand jury to manufacture a charge. It’s a form of prosecutorial misconduct called a perjury trap. You bring someone into a grand jury to investigate something that can’t be prosecuted, something that isn’t a crime, and then you take that persons’ inconsistencies or inaccuracies, or failure to remember what happened nine years ago. Then you manufacture a charge out of it.
“That’s what the Attorney General has done to these men. These men are the best of men. Mr. Schultz was in charge of the Penn State police and over his career insisted that time and again they investigate misconduct, alleged misconduct by professors, by coaches, by star football players. It was all investigated thoroughly.
“Most importantly he told the truth. He told the truth, as did Mr. Curley. You folks may have seen Mr. Paterno’s statement. Mr. Paterno’s statement matches their statement. They were given a general allegation of inappropriate conduct. That’s what Mr. Paterno told them. That’s what Mr. Paterno told you folks yesterday. And that’s what he testified to in the grand jury.
“They’re innocent.”
He later added, addressed to the Penn State community:
“It’s difficult because these are such good men. This will do nothing to their reputations.”

To read more: http://www.centredaily.com/2011/11/07/2977774/attorneys-for-psu-administrators.html#ixzz1dCujlGeb

Penn State: Pennsylvania's Perjury Statute

Penn State University Athletic Director Tim Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz have been charged with Perjury relating to false testimony offered during the grand jury investigation into sexual assault by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Below is the Perjury statute in Pennsylvania:

 § 4902.  Perjury.
        (a)  Offense defined.--A person is guilty of perjury, a
     felony of the third degree, if in any official proceeding he
     makes a false statement under oath or equivalent affirmation, or
     swears or affirms the truth of a statement previously made, when
     the statement is material and he does not believe it to be true.
        (b)  Materiality.--Falsification is material, regardless of
     the admissibility of the statement under rules of evidence, if
     it could have affected the course or outcome of the proceeding.
     It is no defense that the declarant mistakenly believed the
     falsification to be immaterial. Whether a falsification is
     material in a given factual situation is a question of law.
        (c)  Irregularities no defense.--It is not a defense to
     prosecution under this section that the oath or affirmation was
     administered or taken in an irregular manner or that the
     declarant was not competent to make the statement. A document
     purporting to be made upon oath or affirmation at any time when
     the actor presents it as being so verified shall be deemed to
     have been duly sworn or affirmed.
        (d)  Retraction.--No person shall be guilty of an offense
     under this section if he retracted the falsification in the
     course of the proceeding in which it was made before it became
     manifest that the falsification was or would be exposed and
     before the falsification substantially affected the proceeding.
        (e)  Inconsistent statements.--Where the defendant made
     inconsistent statements under oath or equivalent affirmation,
     both having been made within the period of the statute of
     limitations, the prosecution may proceed by setting forth the
     inconsistent statements in a single count alleging in the
     alternative that one or the other was false and not believed by
     the defendant. In such case it shall not be necessary for the
     prosecution to prove which statement was false but only that one
     or the other was false and not believed by the defendant to be
     true.
        (f)  Corroboration.--In any prosecution under this section,
     except under subsection (e) of this section, falsity of a
     statement may not be established by the uncorroborated testimony
     of a single witness.

Penn State: The Cover-Up

At times the cover-up can be worse than the crime, case-in-point Richard Nixon.  That is certainly not the case with Penn State. The sexual molestation allegations against former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky have the entire nation aghast.

Although  Sandusky is charged with 40 different counts of child sex abuse, their are two other school officials charged.  This is were the cover-up comes in. These two officials, Athletic Director Tim Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz are in no way  implicated directly in the sexual abuse, but their alleged conduct if true is appalling, outrageous and an affront to all professionals associated with institutions of higher education.

What is so outrageous is that their alleged cover-up permitted an alleged predator to continue to assault children.  Nixon only covered-up a single break-in and his entire presidency collapsed.

Contrition is not the approach that Richard Nixon took nor is it the course being pursued by these two leaders from an esteemed university.  It appears instead these guys are circling the wagons.

The Associated Press reported that Thomas J. Farrell, a Pittsburgh Attorney said that Pennsylvania law requiring some school officials and others to report suspected child abuse does not apply to a Penn State administrator who's accused of keeping quiet about allegations that a former football coach molested a boy in a shower, the administrator's attorney said Sunday. "We'll bring every legal challenge that is appropriate, and I think quite a few are appropriate," Farrell told the Associated Press.

The mandated reporter law in Pennsylvania provides "a person who, in the course of employment, occupation or practice of a profession, comes into contact with children shall report or cause a report to be made in accordance with section 6313 (relating to reporting procedure) when the person has reasonable cause to suspect, on the basis of medical, professional or other training and experience, that a child under the care, supervision, guidance or training of that person or of an agency, institution, organization or other entity with which that person is affilitated is a victim of child abuse…" (PA Child Protective Services Law, §6311).

 Farrell offered a preview of the defense he plans to use on the charge of failing to report faced by his client, Gary C. Schultz, the university's senior vice president for finance and business. Farrell said he will seek to have the charge dismissed, reported the Associated Press.

Schultz, 62, and Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, 57, were both charged with failing to report to state and county officials that a witness told them he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a naked boy in the showers of a team practice facility in 2002.

Schultz and Curley were both also charged with perjury. Lawyers for all three men say they are innocent.
Farrell told the Associated Press on Sunday that the mandated reporting rules only apply to people who come into direct contact with children. He also said the statute of limitations for the summary offense with which Schultz is charged is two years, so it expired in 2004.

The grand jury report that lays out the accusations against the men cites the state's Child Protective Services Law (included above), which requires immediate reporting by doctors, nurses, school administrators, teachers, day care workers, police and others.

The law "applies only to children under the care and supervision of the organization for which he works, and that's Penn State, it's not The Second Mile," Farrell said of his client, reported the Associated Press. "This child, from what we know, was a Second Mile child."

Farrell said he plans to seek dismissal at the earliest opportunity. Both Schultz and Curley turned themselves in at a district judge's office in Harrisburg today. As a summary offense, failure to report suspected child abuse carries up to three months in jail and a $200 fine.

"As far as my research shows, there has never been a reported criminal decision under this statute, and the civil decisions go our way," Farrell told the Associated Press.

Curley and Schultz met with the graduate assistant about a week and a half after the alleged attack, Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly said Saturday. There is no indication that anyone at school attempted to find the boy or follow up with the witness, she said, reported the Associated Press.

"Despite a powerful eyewitness statement about the sexual assault of a child, this incident was not reported to any law enforcement or child protective agency, as required by Pennsylvania law," Kelly said.
Curley and Schultz also are accused of perjury for their testimony to the grand jury that issued a 23-page report on the matter.

Below is the perjury statute in Pennsylvania from onecle:

§ 4902.  Perjury.
        (a)  Offense defined.--A person is guilty of perjury, a
     felony of the third degree, if in any official proceeding he
     makes a false statement under oath or equivalent affirmation, or
     swears or affirms the truth of a statement previously made, when
     the statement is material and he does not believe it to be true.
        (b)  Materiality.--Falsification is material, regardless of
     the admissibility of the statement under rules of evidence, if
     it could have affected the course or outcome of the proceeding.
     It is no defense that the declarant mistakenly believed the
     falsification to be immaterial. Whether a falsification is
     material in a given factual situation is a question of law.
        (c)  Irregularities no defense.--It is not a defense to
     prosecution under this section that the oath or affirmation was
     administered or taken in an irregular manner or that the
     declarant was not competent to make the statement. A document
     purporting to be made upon oath or affirmation at any time when
     the actor presents it as being so verified shall be deemed to
     have been duly sworn or affirmed.
        (d)  Retraction.--No person shall be guilty of an offense
     under this section if he retracted the falsification in the
     course of the proceeding in which it was made before it became
     manifest that the falsification was or would be exposed and
     before the falsification substantially affected the proceeding.
        (e)  Inconsistent statements.--Where the defendant made
     inconsistent statements under oath or equivalent affirmation,
     both having been made within the period of the statute of
     limitations, the prosecution may proceed by setting forth the
     inconsistent statements in a single count alleging in the
     alternative that one or the other was false and not believed by
     the defendant. In such case it shall not be necessary for the
     prosecution to prove which statement was false but only that one
     or the other was false and not believed by the defendant to be
     true.
        (f)  Corroboration.--In any prosecution under this section,
     except under subsection (e) of this section, falsity of a
     statement may not be established by the uncorroborated testimony
     of a single witness.

According to the Associated Press, Curley denied that the assistant had reported anything of a sexual nature, calling it "merely 'horsing around,'" the grand jury report said. But he also testified that he barred Sandusky from bringing children onto campus and that he advised Penn State President Graham Spanier of the matter.

The grand jury said Curley was lying, Kelly said, adding that it also deemed portions of Schultz's testimony not to be credible, reported the Associated Press.

Schultz told the jurors he also knew of a 1998 investigation involving sexually inappropriate behavior by Sandusky with a boy in the showers the football team used.

But despite his job overseeing campus police, he never reported the 2002 allegations to any authorities, "never sought or received a police report on the 1998 incident and never attempted to learn the identity of the child in the shower in 2002," the jurors wrote. "No one from the university did so."

Farrell said Schultz "should have been required only to report it to his supervisor, which he did."  Schultz reports to Penn State president Graham Spanier, who testified before the grand jury that Schultz and Curley came to him with a report that a staff member was uncomfortable because he'd seen Sandusky "horsing around" with a boy. Spanier was not charged, reported the Associated Press.

About the perjury charge, Farrell said: "We're going to have a lot of issues with that, both factual and legal. I think there's a very strong defense here."