If a Bombshell Goes Off in the Forest and Sara Ganim Misreports It, Does it Still Make a Sound?

Monday afternoon Pultizer Prize winning reporter Sara Ganim (the media darling of the Sandusky scandal) published an article that, in a rational world, has information which would have exploded into the national news and instantly shaken the entire narrative of Penn State/Joe Paterno’s role in the entire affair to its core.

Instead, mostly because her column reads like it was written by a sixth-grader high on caffeine, with a headline which makes very little sense, almost no one, (except bizarrely the notoriously anti-Paterno/Penn State website Deadspin), has even noticed.

Without completely confusing you with what Ganim wrote, here is the bottom line of the information in her “analysis”: We now know with 100% certainty that Mike McQueary’s shower story is NOT backed up by a credible victim.

Ganim reports that during Sandusky’s sentencing that the state was speaking on behalf of two victims (#2 and #8, both of whom were allegedly involved in the most prominent cases connected to Penn State) who have NOT been identified.

An utterly perplexed Ganim then goes on to explain that this is very odd because “Victim 2” had supposedly come forward twice already. Once to Sandusky’s defense team and then a second time after Sandusky’s criminal trial when his civil attorney’s announced that they were suing Penn State. Ganim then says that “no one involved with these cases wants to talk about this” (which is very strange since I have spoken openly about it to two of the lawyers directly involved) because it could be “messy” for “both sides.”

The reality is that the only thing “messy” here is Ganim’s account of what is really going on.

Whether it is because of her well known ties to the prosecution or because she doesn’t want to be seen as criticizing a “victim,” (or maybe just her incompetence) Ganim is simply not telling the full truth about what we now know to be true about the McQueary shower episode.

What REALLY happened here is that the prosecution has declared that, at least for purposes of the record, they don’t believe that the person suing Penn State is really the victim in that the infamous shower incident. That is why they are saying that they are speaking on behalf of an “unidentified victim.”

That, at the very LEAST, means is that, according to the prosecution, there is no corroborating victim in the case that caused so much damage to Penn State and the legacy of Joe Paterno. That in itself is a remarkable statement, especially given the fact that McQueary’s testimony has dramatically evolved and that several witnesses, as well as other evidence, contradict important elements of his story.

But to be clear, this is the BEST interpretation of the current situation from the prosecution’s standpoint.

A far more credible interpretation is that, as I have been theorizing on these pages and on video for months, the prosecution knows that “Victim 2” has given statements to an FBI-trained investigator which directly contradict Mike McQueary’s account of what happened in the shower and they are essentially, to mix a metaphor, hedging their bets by throwing “Victim 2” under the bus. In effect, the prosecution is saying that they would rather have McQueary's story not backed up by ANY victim, than by the ACTUAL victim!

In other words, the person who Jerry Sandusky called back and left a voicemail telling him to “go forward” during the grand jury investigation, and who came to Sandusky’s defense team after the indictments and told them nothing happened, really IS “Victim 2” and the prosecution knows it. But they have to protect themselves from questions about why they didn’t call “Victim 2” to the stand, so they are claiming that they don’t know/think that he is the real victim. Thanks to Ganim, they are so far being allowed to do that without even having to take criticism for questioning the credibility of a “victim,” which is apparently against the law in the Land of Political Correctness.

But the more likely reality is, the person claiming to be “Victim 2” actually IS “Victim 2,” its just that his story would have destroyed Mike McQueary’s credibility and the entire “case” against Penn State (because he has given a statement saying nothing happened in the shower), so the prosecution decided not to call him.

Unfortunately for Penn State/Paterno, the overall story of “Victim 2” is now also bad for Jerry Sandusky (at least since "Victim 2" found lawyers who apparently convinced him that he could make a ton of money by just going along with the parade) and that is why the defense didn’t call him either. The worst part of all of this is that, with the Penn State BOT wetting themselves at every given moment, there is zero likelihood that “Victim 2” will even be forced to tell his story before getting his check from PSU.

So here is the infuriating situation with which we are apparently currently left:

Joe Paterno and Penn State didn’t react like an assault occurred in the PSU showers because no such thing happened (what Mike McQueary actually told them happened is another story for another day, though, laughably, Deadspin is already trying to latch onto claims that it isn’t relevant what McQueary actually saw, only what he said he saw, as if there is no connection). The “victim” in that episode has been very clear that it didn’t happen and the prosecution decided not to call him, but, because he may have been abused at other times, his testimony is also no good for the defense. Civil lawyers then find him and convince him to “flip” on Sandusky and then AFTER he can no longer be called to testify criminally, file a civil suit against Penn State knowing that no one on the BOT or in the media will ask any questions before the check clears.

The only losers in all of this? Joe Paterno, Penn State, State College, the Football program, and the truth.

So what can be done? The only way I see for this injustice to be curtailed/halted is for the Penn State Board of Trustees to vote down any measure in their October 26^th meeting (where this issue is scheduled to come up) which would allow any victim to cash in without at least having to answer serious questions about what really happened. It may be the only way we will ever actually get to the truth here and I strongly urge everyone to forward to this article to as many members of the BOT as possible.

UPDATE:

The lawyer for Gary Schultz has just released a statement (it apparently took him a while to figure out what the heck Ganim's article actually said) which sheds both more light and confusion on the situation. The bottom line from his perspective is that he doesn't seem to think this person is "Victim 2" at all or, at the very least, thinks that his credibility is totally destroyed.

What I can't figure out yet is why Schultz's lawyer thinks it is to his advantage to have "Victim 2" perceived as a fraud rather than as a witness who originally said nothing happened in the shower but who later flipped when civil lawyers convinced him he could make a lot of money out of the deal.

Most the most confusing aspect of this is that we KNOW that "Victim 2" was, as Schultz's lawyer admits, very close to Jerry Sandusky, so it is not as if there is no basis whatsoever for him coming forward. Also, it is very clear that Sandusky's defense team believes that this is indeed "Victim 2," even though, at least on the surface, it would seem that they would have less incentive for that to be true than the Schultz team does.

The pessimist in me says that, since Sandusky has always insisted that this was indeed the kid in the shower, maybe "Victim 2" was put up to this by Sandusky as a way of getting him off the hook. But that makes absolutely no sense in light of the voicemail message which is clearly Sandusky returning the call of "Victim 2" well before anyone in the public could have even known about the allegation.

In short, I don't yet know what exactly to make of this most recent development except that it further corroborates the most important thing we have learn this week: that we are now POSITIVE that there is absolutely no credible victim to back up the story which caused so much damage, and it would now seem impossible for there to ever be one.

That should be a major headline everywhere. Unfortunately, given the scandalous media coverage of this case, it will not be.