Statement of Louis J. Freeh in response to King and Spalding

“… the self-serving report the Paterno family has issued today does not change the facts established in the Freeh Report or alter the conclusions reached in the Freeh Report. Joe Paterno’s own testimony under oath before the grand jury that investigated this horrific case is of critical importance. Mr. Paterno testified in 2011 that he knew from Michael McQueary in 2001 that McQueary had seen Sandusky “fondling, whatever you might call it — I’m not sure what the term would be — a young boy” in the showers at the Lasch Building. Mr. Paterno explained, “[o]bviously, he was doing something with the youngster. It was a sexual nature. I’m not sure exactly what it was. I didn’t push Mike to describe exactly what it was because he was very upset.” Years later, Mr. Paterno would explain to a reporter he chose to discuss the event with that he told McQueary, “I said you did what you had to do. It’s my job now to figure out what we want to do.”

“As detailed in my report, the e-mails and contemporary documents from 2001 show that, despite Mr. Paterno’s knowledge and McQueary’s observations, four of the most powerful officials at Penn State agreed not to report Sandusky’s activity to public officials. As made clear in the attachments to our report, on February 25, 2001, Messrs. Spanier, Curley and Schulz agreed to report Sandusky’s abuse to the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. On February 27, 2001, these men agreed that reporting to DPW was not required, reasoning in the words of Graham Spanier that “[t]he only downside for us is if the message isn’t ‘heard’ and acted upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it.” The only known, intervening factor between the decision made on February 25, 2001 and the agreement not to report on February 27, 2001, was Mr. Paterno’s February 26th conversation with Mr. Curley regarding what to do about Sandusky. Again, this conversation was memorialized in the contemporary email, where Mr. Curley said “[a]fter giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday — I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps.” Curley’s message continued:

“‘I am having trouble with going to everyone, but the person involved. I think I would be more comfortable meeting with the person and tell him about the information we received. I would plan to tell him we are aware of the first situation. I would indicate we feel there is a problem and we want to assist the individual to get professional help. Also, we feel a responsibility at some point soon to inform his organization and [sic] maybe the other one about the situation. If he is cooperative we would work with him to handle informing the organization. If not, we do not have a choice and will inform the two groups. Additionally, I will let him know that his guests are not permitted to use our facilities. I need some help on this one. What do you think about this approach?…'” …  (more)

EDITOR:  Is that Freeh’s best evidence?  Curley isn’t saying what Paterno said.  Curley says “”[a]fter giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday — I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps.”  He is addressing the person to whom he is sending the report.  He is speaking for himself, not Paterno.  He doesn’t say “we were uncomfortable” he says “I was uncomfortable.”

What happened was Sports Illustrated miss paraphrased Curley and made it sound as though he was expressing Paterno’s views.   The media, unlike NewsLanc which fact checked the actual quote and first reported on Sports Illustrated’s  error, went off and running with the wrong information.