Posted on 09/03/2013 9:21:06 PM PDT by FlJoePa
Another key figure in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case weighed in Tuesday with his take on whether former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno was an active participant in efforts to cover up Sandusky's sex crimes.
In an interview recorded for CBS 60 Minutes Sports, former Chief Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina said flatly: "I did not find that evidence."
That was after Fina stated that he did come to believe, as the state's probe of Sandusky progressed, that former Penn State president Graham Spanier and several of his top aides had tried to interfere with the probe for years.
"Now they're going to be tried on that... But I investigated that case," Fina said of Spanier, retired senior vice president Gary Schultz and former Athletic Director Tim Curley. "They deserved to be charged, and I hope justice will be served there."
Spanier, Curley and Schultz are currently awaiting trial in Dauphin County court on charges of perjury before a grand jury, obstruction of justice, and endangering the welfare of children.
As for Paterno, Fina carved out a space that sounded pretty close to the legal responsibility / moral responsibility divide first raised by Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan at a press conference on Sandusky's arrest in November 2011.
Paterno met minimal legal obligations, officials said then, because he did alert his superiors at Penn State to a 2001 eyewitness account of alleged sexual abuse by Sandusky, his longtime defensive coordinator, at a football shower facility.
That report was never turned to police or child welfare authorities for investigation.
Paterno was dead from complications from lung cancer months before before the state's probe of Penn State's response to the Sandusky probe was completed.
When pressed by interviewer Armen Keteyian on Paterno's role, and the common perception that he had a controlling hand in all university affairs, Fina suggested the former coach's words will have to speak for themselves.
"He (Paterno) said it best," said Fina, who has since left his state post for a position with the Philadelphia District Attorney's office. "He said: 'I didn't do enough... I should have done more.'" [actual quote: "With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more"]
Fina's reference appeared to be to a statement issued by Paterno in the days following Sandusky's arrest in which the longtime coach announced his intent to resign as head football coach at the end of the 2011 season.
Paterno, faced with growing questions about his role in the case, said in part that day: "This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."
Penn State trustees instead fired him that night.
Paterno's role in the scandal has become an unending debate for Pennsylvanians and Penn State fans, in part because of a communal need to know what to make of the coach so many lauded for his commitment to "success with honor" for so many years.
The segment released Tuesday night on CBS Evening News was excerpted from a longer presentation set to air on "60 Minutes Sports" on the Showtime network at 10 p.m. Wednesday.
It is the first broadcast interview Fina and colleague Joseph P. McGettigan III have done about the case since Sandusky's June 2012 conviction for the serial sexual abuse of 10 different boys between 1994 and 2008.
The state's investigation, meanwhile, is currently the subject of an internal review by current Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who promised during her campaign last year to try to review the case's management by her predecessors, including now-Gov. Tom Corbett.
Kane has given no indication when that probe will run its course.
It also looks like the state and the corrupt b.o.t. are finally letting loose w/ their false narrative about Joe Paterno and turning their full ire on Curley, Schultz, and Spanier. After all, SOMEONE has to be guilty, or the fingers end up pointing right back to the state and the b.o.t.
Armen Keteyian is a scumbag loser. Fina is one of a few within that prosecutor's office that is going to be charged with crimes. He ironically left that office the day after Kathleen Kane announced she was going to investigate the handling of this mess.
Nice job by the state to further poison the jury pool for Curley/Schultz/Spanier. This might be another crime in itself.
Needless to say, John Ziegler immediately BEAT DOWN CBS, Keteyian, Fina, and others in a radio interview on KDKA tonight at 10PM - link to replay here
Disgusting if they destroyed this man’s reputation with spin and lies. Just goes to show how destructive the media are.
Do I have to post the No This Chit Again picture?
Armen Keteyian is a horrible reporter. Sports media is just as bad as the mainstream media...liberal and agenda driven
Of course, this story really is bad news for the NCAA in the Paterno family suit. Anyone who claims the NCAA will win has to be a total fool...
If you think you got it from the media or louis "liar for hire" freeh, then go ahead and post it.
That is precisely what happened. It was a disgraceful lynch mob that included the cowardly, knee-jerk university board. Shallow little scum always go after people of great accomplishment, and the big name they set their sites on was the old man, Joe Paterno. After all, nobody ever heard of the real culprits.
Wait'll you see some of the shallow little scum show up on this very thread to beat up Paterno.
3... 2... 1...
I think Coach Paterno died of heartbreak as much as the cancer. The Judgment rests in the hands of God.
The mainstream media are not worthy of trust. They are as bloodthirsty as wolves yet they conduct themselves as lemmings. They show the same initiative as Soviet State Media.
The alternative media/blogs are not much better since it’s often more about web hits and revenue than truth. I have a difficult time trusting some of them and it seems like the more extreme ones get the most attention.
One of the reasons I get my news here - despite the overwhelming number of snarky or meaningless responses (yep, I do it too) you can still find some thoughtful posts that challenge the conventional wisdom.
And you 'conservatives' think that was enough, and removes guilt from Paterno, the most powerful man on campus?
It isn't the MSM that is responsible for Paterno's guilt, it is Paterno, who didn't do what HE WAS SUPPOSE TO AS A MAN, NOT AS A HEAD COACH.
By the way, most people didn’t think Paterno was involved in an actual cover-up, that wasn’t the issue, it was his failure to followup on a serious accusation involving a former asst. coach and a young boy.
Actually Sandusky had been gone as a coach for about 3 years at the time of the incident.
All of the NCAA sanctions were for Sandusky actions after he left Penn State, not while he was a coach there. He was at Second Mile but using Penn State facilities.
412truthonhold
Sorry folks, this really doesn't help Paterno at all. It's the same line as Noonan used. These facts remain:
1. McQueary reported Sandusky doing something sexual with a child in the showers. Keep in mind Sandusky is naked in the showers with somebody else's kid after hours when nobody else would be in the building.
2. Paterno tells Curley, Schultz and Spanier.
3. Curley, Schultz and Spanier do nothing other than tell Sandusky he can't bring his "guests" on to PSU facilities. And one of the 3 stooges tells the second mile there was an incident, but there was nothing to it.
4. Paterno sees Sandusky occasionally for the next 10 years at PSU and at other functions.
5. Paterno never follows up to see what was done about Sandusky. Never informs the police that he reported a suspected case of child sexual abuse and that nothing was done about it.
None of the above heroes attempts to find out who the child was or if the child was safely out of Sandusky's perverted evil ways.
Epic moral failure on Paterno's part. Moral and legal epic failures on the part of the 3 stooges.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)
Charles VonG
412truthonhold: You should have included this exchange between Paterno and Agent Sassano. So very appropriate:
"SASSANO: Did Mr. Curley get back to you at some point in time after that to advise you what actions were taken…
J. PATERNO: No, no, I didn’t, I had other things to do, we had… As I said, Jerry was not working for me."
"I had other things to do" Someone should instruct us as to what part of "success with honor" Joe Pa was displaying here.
re-posting troll comments (cherry picked from an interview with a sick, 84 year old man) doesn’t really phase me. You need to do better.
I don’t care what Joe said in 2011. He obviously had to be refreshed on almost every aspect of what happened. I care what Mike McQueary told him in 2001. THAT is the key to this case.
Even so, how does this explain the fraudulent actions of louis freeh (who WORKED with the OAG to pen his novel) and the ncaa?
This is the level of understanding of this case that our media has bestowed upon normally intelligent, rational people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seems like anyone who disagrees with your pathetic defense of the pedophile enabler Joe Paterno is a troll, a fraud, a liar or worse.
I'm still waiting for you to answer my question to you about the origin of your user name. Come on now, tell us how you have assumed the persona of the enabler of pedophilia at Pedophilia State University. You say you are into the truth, so let's hear it.
Lots of name calling. Not a lot of fact digesting or truth seeking. That keeps kids in PA in harms way, btw.
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