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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

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is still hope to lay criminal charges against Eric Holder. Congress could sue the DA for D.C. who will be taking his orders from Obama not to enforce the contempt charge. The process in court would take years however.

YTT misnaged said...

I don't get it. It was reported that Yudi Kolko was found not guilty on the contempt charges but the State criminal index says he is due back in court again on July 24th as the case is still undecided. What's pshat?

Munkatcher Putz said...
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Munkatcher Putz said...
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Munkatcher Putz said...
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Hahahahaha!!!! said...

http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2012/06/26/korachblogspot-com/

Korach@ blogspot.com

By Avi Shafran

Beit Shemesh said...

Letter to the editor that Shafran refused to publish:

Dear Editor,

Ami Magazine has once again demonstrated its knack for reveling in self-righteous arrogance that benefits no one. Two articles in your 30 Sivan issue demonstrate this tendency in particular.

The first is Rabbi Avi Shafran's comparison of Orthodox bloggers with Korach. While he accepts that there are some responsible bloggers, the examples he enumerates (those "who seek to share community news or ideas... [or] explore concepts in Jewish thought and law... [or] focus on Jewish history and society") demonstrate by omission that those who attempt to expose anything negative in Chareidi society are comparable to the villains in Parashat Korach. If a blogger discusses the shameful lack of accountability in cases of abuse and neglect, he apparently violates the negative commandment, "Do not be like Korach and his congregation." Thus, someone who attempts to improve Chareidi society by protecting its most vulnerable members is, in fact, comparable to one of Judaism's greatest internal enemies. This statement is so offensive that I might have assumed that I misunderstood the article, except that it typifies the self-righteousness inherent in your magazine's journalistic ethos.

Less egregious but equally tone-deaf is the examination of the recent New York Federation population study, which found that the Orthodox community in Greater New York is growing. Your analysis is nothing more than meaningless triumphalism, which preaches to a select choir that Orthodoxy is the only future for Klal Yisrael. Is that really what our community needs to hear? Were we in danger of doubting such a view? By citing such studies coupled with self-serving analysis, we blind ourselves to the genuine issues that face religious Jews. Did the nevi'im spend their time telling the People of Israel how great they were, or did they enable them to look for their flaws in order to correct them?

Only by avoiding self-righteousness and engaging in authentic cheshbon hanefesh can Orthodox Judaism achieve its genuine aims: that is, to create a society which is based on the precepts of Torah in fact, not merely in theory. Once again, Ami Magazine has chosen the easy and religiously irresponsible way out.

Sincerely,
Rabbi S. Kahn
Rosh Yeshiva, Yesodei HaTorah
Beit Shemesh, Israel

SmellyMelech Kornfeld said...

We know how to care of local troublemakers who question the Agudah...

Anonymous said...
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LAPD said...

Is Zalman Manela an ex-relative of Luzi?

http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/7354/l-a-mortuary-director-gets-a-two-year-prison-term/

LOS ANGELES -- The director of the local Chevra Kadisha Mortuary has been sentenced to two years in prison, and the facility has been temporarily closed.

Zalman Manela, the founder of the 21-year-old mortuary, was incarcerated after pleading no contest to charges of forgery and grand theft.

According to the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, Manela, 49, admitted stealing thousands of dollars from a deceased woman, Celia Klein.

Manela said he took the money to pay for Klein's funeral and to donate funds in her memory to a charity.

The mortuary, though a religious nonprofit organization, was not a true chevra kadishah or burial society, which traditionally provides a corps of volunteers who perform taharah, the ritual care of the dead.

Unlike many other cities, Los Angeles does not have a volunteer, community-run chevra kadishah, and Manela's mortuary was among the few in town run by Orthodox Jews strictly according to halachah, or Jewish law.

In a written statement to the sentencing judge, Manela recounted that he was visited by Klein's caregiver, Carina Cabellero, who had found the mortuary's card among her employer's belongings after the elderly woman died.

Manela believed that Klein had no heirs, he wrote, and presumed she would have wanted her estate to go to charity, rather than to the state. He also wanted to compensate Cabellero for her lengthy care of Klein.

Subsequently, Manela and Cabellero forged documents giving Manela power of attorney for Klein's estate. They told bank employees that Klein was alive and withdrew some $55,000 from her accounts, according to Manela's attorney, Thomas Mesereau Jr.

Manela used his share of the money to pay for Klein's funeral and put the rest into a charitable account, Mesereau said. Manela, who was arrested at Klein's bank as he was trying to withdraw additional funds, confessed immediately. He has made full restitution, according to his lawyer.

About 60 observant Jews, including some Orthodox rabbis, attended the sentencing hearing, the Jewish Journal reported. Many pleaded for Manela, testifying that he had frequently provided free funerals and donated generously to charities.

A hearing has been set for Jan. 26 before an administrative law judge to determine whether the Chevra Kadisha Mortuary will be permanently closed or allowed to reopen.

Big shot from LA said...

Doesn't this Manela putz have his Torah tapes in every shul?