Our Statement on the Release of the Indentity of "Victim 2"

There has been a remarkable amount of media speculation regarding our plans to release all of the information we have about who "Victim 2" is and why it is extremely relevant to the case against Joe Paterno and Penn State in the Jerry Sandusky scandal. There are a few things which need to be made very clear about this issue.

The only reason we would ever do this is because "Victim 2" has already "outed" himself as a public figure on this story by having written published letters to the editor in support of Sandusky after allegations first surfaced. If this was not the case and, if his biography was not both so incredibly central to the case as well as different from what is publicly known, we would never consider breaking the accepted rules of victim anonymity.

It should be noted that I have consulted with several high profile experts in this area, including the "Paterno Report" sex crimes expert, Jim Clemente, who agree with me that there is a solid case to be made here that "Victim 2" does not have the same right to anonymity here that would be normally afforded alleged victims of sex abuse.

I is my intention to release all of the voluminous information/documentation we have about this issue today (Tuesday March 26th). However, Jim Clemente called me last night to tell me that he had reconsidered his position on this issue because he had been told that "Victim 2" was upset about this prospect and he asked me to reconsider. I told Jim that if "Victim 2" agreed to speak to me and explain this to me himself, that I would gladly consider not releasing his identity.

We will likely be deciding later today what to do about this matter, but this is NOT a case where we are callously and without consideration outing a victim simply because we can for for cheap publicity.