Given the conviction of former coach Jerry Sandusky on 45 charges related to pedophilia, cascading accusations that he was prostituting boys, and the $647,000 contributed to the Tom Corbett’s campaign for governor by trustees of Sandusky’s Second Mile Foundation, it is timely to re-visit the January article by Newslanc reporter Bill Keisling:

“Tom didn’t want to do it” but Narcotics Agent nabs Sandusky

Posted on January 9th, 2012 in Keisling on Pennsylvania Politics, News and Commentary

A part of a RealReporting.org/Newslanc.com series

by Bill Keisling

In March 2009, Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira referred the Jerry Sandusky pedophile investigation to Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett. DA Madeira cited a personal conflict of interest involving a relative.

AG Corbett told key members of his staff that he did not want to actively pursue the Sandusky case. “Tom didn’t want to do it,” one Corbett associate explains. At the time AG Corbett had plans to run for governor.

Per standard procedure, the case was assigned to a state trooper and a prosecutor. Nevertheless, without Corbett’s approval and without the active shepherding of the AG, the investigation went nowhere.

By late 2010, AG Corbett had been elected governor of Pennsylvania. Corbett was engaged in his transition to the governor’s office, and so was no longer an obstacle to the Sandusky investigation

Also, in November 2010, a separate investigation involving AG office narcotics Agent Anthony Sassano finally broke the Corbett-imposed logjam in the Sandusky case. Sassano is an agent in the Office of Attorney General’s Bureau of Narcotics Investigation and Drug Control.

At the time the pedophile case was first received by the AG’s office in 2009, particulars of the case were routinely entered into the Office of Attorney General’s Police Automated Computer Entry (PACE) computer system database.

The PACE system is a computerized indexing and intelligence system. It allows law enforcement personnel to discover if a potential target is under investigation by other law enforcement officers or agencies.

Agent Sassano’s investigation involved, among other allegations, the use of steroids in the State College area, we have been told. Steroids are used by athletes to enhance performance

At the start of Agent Sassano’s investigation, the narcotics agent conducted a routine “toll search.” A toll search involves the search of phone calls made by criminal suspects.

In the standard course of such an investigation, a narcotics agent such as Sassano must file an ‘affidavit of probable cause’ with a court to receive the suspects’ phone records. The object is to discover the parties who are talking to an alleged drug distributor, the frequency and duration of the calls, who is talking to whom, and so forth.

Narcotics Agent Sassano routinely entered information about those involved in his investigation into the PACE cross-indexing and intelligence system. Sassano got a “hit” and discovered that Sandusky was also under investigation for a pedophile complaint by Corbett’s heretofore-inactive state trooper and prosecutor.

Pedophile cases for diverse social or political reasons can languish for years, experts say. Not so narcotics cases.

From the moment Sassano made this indexing hit, in November 2010, the case against Sandusky took on new life.

The grand jury presentment that netted Sandusky states, on page 5, without elaboration:

“Office of Attorney General Narcotics Agent Anthony Sassano testified concerning phone records that establish 61 phone calls from Sandusky’s home phone to Victim 1’s home phone between January 2008 and July 2009. In that same time, there were 57 calls from Sandusky’s cell phone to Victim 1’s home phone. There were four calls made from Victim 1’s home phone to Sandusky’s cell phone and one call from Victim 1’s mother’s cell phone to Sandusky’s cell phone. There were no calls made to Sandusky’s home phone by Victim 1 during that time period.”

Narcotics Agent Sassano personally testified at the preliminary hearing against Penn State officials Tim Curley and Gary Schultz on December 16, 2011. Agent Sassano was asked only about when, and what, he learned of the 2002 shower room incident involving Sandusky.

“When did you learn about the incident?” A defense attorney asks agent Sassano.

“I believe it was November 2010,” Sassano answers.

Sassano nevertheless was not asked at the hearing the key questions of how, and why, he came to be involved in the Sandusky investigation.

A Police Criminal Complaint filed against Sandusky on December 7, 2011, lists the three individuals who ultimately brought the charges against the former football coach and founder of the Second Mile charity.

The first listed in the complaint is Jonelle H. Eshbach, a Deputy Attorney General in the state AG’s office. Eshbach is the prosecutor.

The second name listed in the criminal complaint is Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Robert Yakicic.

The third name listed on the criminal complaint is AG’s office Bureau of Narcotics Investigation and Drug Control Agent Anthony Sassano. Sassano is a long-time narcotics agent in the AG’s office, and has also served as the Blair County (PA) Drug Task Force Coordinator.

The Attorney General’s Bureau of Narcotics Investigation and Control evolved from the Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act of 1972, passed by the Pennsylvania legislature in that year.

Included in the act was a Schedule of Controlled Substances, including anabolic steroids.

Working under the attorney general to enforce these controlled substances are the agents, like Sassano, in the Bureau of Narcotics Investigation and Drug Control.

A narcotics agent such as Sassano is empowered by, and gets his law enforcement authority from, the Commonwealth Drug Device Safety and Cosmetic Act of 1972.

Diverse internal rules and labor agreements in the AG’s office prohibit a narcotics agent from participating in investigations unrelated to narcotics conducted by the AG office’s other bureaus, such as the criminal investigations conducted by the Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BCI), or the Child Predator Unit.

There is a firewall between these divisions and, usually, the twain never meets. “Years back there was a big blow up about using BCI guys to do drug work, and drug agents doing BCI work,” one observer explains.

The full story behind Agent Sassano’s investigation won’t be known until, and unless, Sassano’s affidavit of probable cause is unsealed at trial.

What is known is the narcotics division was investigating the distribution of controlled substances. The involvement of Sandusky, Second Mile, and Penn State’s football program in the investigation is as yet unknown.