April 5, 1986: 19-year-old Lehigh University freshman Jeanne Ann Clery is raped and murdered while sleeping in her residence hall room in northeast Pennsylvania.
August 1, 1991: Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, or simply, the Clery Act, takes effect, requiring institutions of higher education to disclose campus security policy and crime statistics.
The Clery Act was sponsored by Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter and, in the House, Rep. Bill Goodling of York, PA
October 3, 1995: Tom Corbett is appointed Pennsylvania Attorney General following the resignation of AG Ernie Preate, who is indicted on federal mail fraud and corruption charges for taking payoffs from organized crime and gambling interests. Interim AG Corbett fills out Preate’s term until January 22, 1997
May 1998: Report of Jerry Sandusky in PSU shower room lifting Victim 6 up to shower head. After Sandusky brought her son home with wet hair, Victim 6’s mother reports the incident to Penn State University police. The complaint was referred to Ray Gricar, the District Attorney of Centre County. The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare also becomes involved, but does nothing of substance to stop Sandusky
While there were nominal investigations by the PSU police, Ray Gricar’s District Attorney’s Office, and the PA Department of Public Welfare, there was no real follow through. And while law enforcement had been notified, in compliance with the Clery Act, there was no campus-wide notification of the outstanding allegations against Sandusky, in apparent violation of the Clery Act.
February 2001: Graduate assistant Mike McQueary says he observes Jerry Sandusky apparently having anal sex with a young boy in the Lasch Building shower room. There would be no investigation. Penn State is currently under investigation by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice for apparent Clery Act reporting violations.
January 18, 2005: Tom Corbett is sworn in as Pennsylvania’s 46th Attorney General (and the state’s fourth elected AG) having won election the previous November.
March 31, 2005: AG Corbett holds a press conference with Centre County DA Ray Gricar to announce the prosecution of Taji ‘Verbal’ Lee in the “largest heroin operation that we have ever seen in Centre County, feeding a drug trade that stretched throughout the region and allegedly resulted in at least one deadly overdose,“ AG Corbett says.
April 15, 2005: Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar vanishes. There would be no prompt or serious investigation of Gricar’s disappearance. The local Bellefonte police and AG Corbett’s office instead would fuel speculation that the soon-to-retire DA perhaps had wandered off.
March 2009: Citing a personal conflict of interest between himself and Jerry Sandusky, Centre County DA Madeira refers a pedophile complaint or complaints involving Sandusky to his former boss, Pennsylvania AG Corbett. Corbett associates say Corbett makes it clear to his staff that he does not want to prosecute the Sandusky case, and effectively places the Sandusky investigation in limbo.
September 14, 2009: AG Tom Corbett formally announces that he is running for governor of Pennsylvania.
November 2, 2010: AG Tom Corbett is elected governor of Pennsylvania. One year later, on November 16, 2011, deadspin.com tallies, “Past and Present Board Members of Sandusky’s Charity and Their Businesses or Families Gave $641,481.21” to the election campaign of Gov. Corbett.
January 18, 2011: Tom Corbett is sworn in as governor of Pennsylvania. At the moment of Corbett’s inauguration, he automatically becomes an ex officio trustee of the Penn State Board of Trustees. “Ex officio” is Latin meaning, “By right of office.” Corbett is a full trustee of Penn State; ex officio simply refers to the method by which Corbett became a trustee. At no time in the coming year does Corbett indicate to his fellow PSU trustees that Jerry Sandusky is subject of an ongoing criminal investigation. Nor would he recuse himself, as ethically demanded by his many conflicts of interest.
There would be no investigation of Corbett’s role by the Attorney General’s Office, Penn State University, or the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
July 20, 2011: Gov. Corbett’s budget secretary, Charles Zogby, writes in a letter to Jack Raykovitz, CEO of Sandusky’s Second Mile Charity, “The Office of the Budget has completed its review of The Second Mile Learning Center project and I am pleased to inform you that Governor Corbett has approved the Commonwealth’s commitment of $3,000,000 in RACP (Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program) funding for this project.” There would be no investigation of Corbett’s approval of this grant to Second MIle.
November 4, 2011: Grand jury presentment against Jerry Sandusky released.
November 9, 2011: Over a speakerphone, addressing a Penn State Board of Trustees meeting, Gov. Corbett engineers the firing of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and PSU President Graham Spanier. “I will say that I reminded the board that we must remember that ten year old child,” Corbett the next day recalls he told the Board of Trustees.
Also on November 9, 2011: the U.S. Department of Education announces it “will launch an investigation into whether Penn State University failed to comply with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (the Clery Act) in regard to allegations of sex offenses on campus by a former school official. … The investigation of Clery Act violations will be conducted by the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA). ED officials formally notified Penn State of the investigation in a letter today. As the FSA investigation proceeds, the Office for Civil Rights will also assess whether further investigations or enforcement actions are warranted.”
The U.S. Justice Department will soon also become involved in investigating Penn State. It is not known the extent to which these federal agencies will investigate trustee and Gov. Tom Corbett’s role in the long-running Sandusky case.
November 21, 2011: Penn State Board of Trustees announces it hired former FBI Director Louis Freeh to investigate Penn State’s handling of the Sandusky case. Freeh will be paid $6.5 million, but the scope of his investigation will be limited solely to Penn State, and not the errors committed by state and local government agencies, or Gov. Tom Corbett
At the time, Gov. Tom Corbett calls Freeh’s selection “a good one.”
February 8, 2012: In an interview with WJAC TV, Gov. Corbett, contradicting his own earlier statements, denies he mentioned “the boy in the shower” to the PSU Board of Trustees on November 9.
July 12, 2012: Louis Freeh issues his report, completely ignoring PSU trustee (and Gov.) Tom Corbett’s long-running role in the Sandusky scandal. Corbett would only be mentioned in passing in Freeh’s report.
July 19, 2012: At a press conference in Harrisburg, Gov. Tom Corbett tells reporters he “recommended” the Penn State Board of Trustees hire Louis Freeh to produce his controversial report.
Corbett was at the Harrisburg Armory, addressing a small business program for vets. He told reporters that prosecutors were “probably” investigating whether Penn State officials obstructed justice. Corbett made no mention of whether he himself had obstructed justice, or whether he should be investigated.
McQueary has contradicted himself and should submit to a lie detector test; it would certainly hone in on what he actually reported in 2001 and whether PSU administrators are culpable, or just dupes in the witchhunt by Corbett.
Bill: Please stop barking at the moon and investigate something meaningful. There are possibly dozens of people who could be prosecuted for not saying something. Other than being governor, why Corbett? Your politics are showing.
Reply from Bill Keisling: This series will contemplate the shortcomings of the Clery Act. Doesn’t the buck stop with attorney General and Governor Tom Corbett? Should Corbett’s actions or inactions in keeping students and young people safe be off the table? If so, who and what else should we ignore?