Not alerting authorities to Jerry Sandusky’s disgusting behavior has come back to bite several Penn State officials.
On June 02, 2017 the former-president of Penn State University and two other upper-echelon school administrators were sentenced to jail time for their role in the Jerry Sandusky sex-scandal case. Ex-President Graham Spanier, former-vice President Gary Schultz, and former athletic director Tim Curley all became associated with Jerry Sandusky’s sexual exploits of boys when each were informed of Sandusky’s activities. None of these three defendants reported the alleged crimes to law enforcement, as required by law, civic duty to report, and the university’s very own policies.
Tacitly doing nothing amounts to aiding and abetting a sexual deviant who has since been tried, adjudicated and legally classed by the Courts as a sexual predator whose conviction garnered a 30- to 60-year prison stint. Jerry Sandusky currently serves his sentence at Greene State Prison in southwest Pennsylvania. As Penn State’s assistant football coach, Sandusky had access and rein over a male population, including locker rooms and athlete shower stalls.
According to an ESPN report, Sandusky was convicted of “45 criminal counts for sexual abuse of 10 boys during more than fifteen years. He has maintained his innocence and is pursuing appeals.”
Billed as a serial rapist and child molester, Sandusky spent three decades as a football coach with Penn State, plenty of access and time to perpetuate his deviancy. Incarcerated in protective custody, Sandusky is maintained in the death-row unit at the prison site. Traditionally true that convicted child molesters do not fare well among prison populations, Sandusky’s sentence has the added attachment of survival while serving time. The decisions that humans make can and often do come back to sting, including the decision to do nothing.
Despite the university relations and larger-than-life reputation of Penn State, its ultra-leadership at the time abjectly stayed silent after becoming privy to the buzz about Sandusky’s sexual proclivities. Negligent in responsibility and void of morality, Spanier, Graham and Schultz failed to follow the “See something, say something” credo bannered by police departments all across the nation.
For his part, Spanier claims “I deeply regret that I did not intervene more forcefully” while contradicting his own words by stating he plans to appeal his “child endangerment” conviction. I did it but I should go free? Nope! Surreptitious involvement does not equate to a Get-out-of-jail-free card.
“I am very remorseful I did not comprehend the severity of the situation. I sincerely apologize to the victims and to all who were impacted because of my mistake,” were Curley’s words before the judge. A learned man in a learned situation dropped the ball, and his failure to speak up before more victims were subjected to Sandusky’s vileness surely scarred many lives, including his own.
Then there is Schultz. For his silence in the face of depravity, Schultz said “It really sickens me to think I might have played a part in children being hurt. I’m sorry that I didn’t do more, and I apologize to the victims.” All-encompassing, it is indeed sickening.