Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The family of Joe Paterno commissioned a report that suggests the Penn State University coach did nothing wrong and was the victim of a rushed investigation, CBS News and the Associated Press report.
The report argues that the probe into the handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, which was led by former FBI director Louis Freeh, contends the evidence against Paterno is not supported by the facts, the CBS News and AP wrote.
One of the experts used in the report, Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, said the Freeh investigation was incomplete and flawed.
Freeh’s report reached “inaccurate and unfounded findings related to Mr. Paterno and its numerous process-oriented deficiencies was a rush to injustice and calls into question” the investigation’s credibility.
Freeh defended the probe.
“I stand by our conclusion that four of the most powerful people at Penn State failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade,” he told the AP.
I read the just-released Paterno family Critique that portrays the Freeh report as deeply-flawed. I think the Critique makes a compelling argument that Joe Paterno was not involved in a cover-up or, at least, that there is no legal basis for having drawn that conclusion from the evidence. The initial reaction of Freeh and the media has been dismissive, concerned, I’m sure, about not having to eat crow (and, in the case of Freeh, not having to pay back the $1 million to Penn State for an incredibly shoddy, biased and unfair report). I’m curious to know what Ross Parker thinks of the Critique, since he too accepted the faulty conclusions of the Freeh report with its great leaps in faith.