Another Ugly Aspect of the Penn State Child Abuse Scandal

This Time Involving Upper Penn State Management

It is of course, impossible to read anything about the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State sexual abuse case without feeling dirty all over.  Mr. Sandusky is of course likely to spend the rest of his life in jail, and hopefully even after his life is over he will suffer torment.  But there are others involved besides Mr. Sandusky.  Two Penn State officials have been charged in the case on issues involving a cover up of the crimes.

The two officials so charged moved to have the case tossed out of court, and those actions were denied.

A judge on Wednesday upheld perjury charges against two Penn State administrators accused of lying to a grand jury that investigated allegations ex-assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abused children.

Dauphin County Judge Todd Hoover ruled against the motions by former vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley that would have thrown out the count of perjury against each man.

This Forum is more than willing to await a trial to pass judgment on the officials.  But what is most disturbing is the other charge they are faced with, failure to report child abuse.  Again we can await the judiciary proceedings, but everyone should think on this for a moment, or hopefully longer.

The perjury counts are felonies, while failure to report suspected child abuse is a summary offense, less serious than a misdemeanor.

Think about that, failure to report child abuse in Pennsylvania does not even rise to the level of seriousness as a misdemeanor.  Is that really what Pennsylvanians want to say about the horrific crime of child abuse?

Oh, and the defense of Mr. Schultz and Mr. Curley on this charge.

The judge did not rule on the other count they each face, failure to properly report suspected child abuse. In that case, the defendants have argued the statute of limitations has expired. The judge said that dismissal request would be ruled on separately.

Get past the legalese and what Mr. Schultz and Mr. Curley are saying is “Yeah, we may be guilty as charged but you didn’t catch us in time so now you can’t charge us with the crime”.  All this leaves one pretty significant question, how does anyone, including themselves associate with these men?