In the best and most enlightening interview on the Penn State scandal to date, Dr. Eli Newberger, a renowned expert on child abuse and pedophilia, talks about what Sandusky said in his interview and the victims of Sandusky's alleged abuse.
Watch this great interview here.
Okay, I'm finally speechless. The Penn State scandal has finally done it. This post needs no further commentary:
Sandusky lawyer impregnated a teen
The lawyer for accused child molester Jerry Sandusky apparently likes his women young.
Defense attorney Joe Amendola, 63, representing Sandusky in the sexual molestation case roiling Penn State and Joe Paterno’s legendary football program, impregnated a teenager and later married her, The Daily has learned.
According to documents filed with Centre County Courthouse, Amendola served as the attorney for Mary Iavasile’s emancipation petition on Sept. 3, 1996, just weeks before her 17th birthday.
The emancipation request said Mary graduated from high school in two years with a 3.69 grade point average and maintained a full-time job — but makes no mention of any special relationship between her and her lawyer.
Roughly around the same time, however, Iavasile became pregnant with Amendola’s child, and gave birth before she turned 18, her mother, Janet Iavasile, alleged in an interview with The Daily.
He was born in 1948 and was around 49 at the time.
“At the time, I didn’t know the extent of the relationship,” said Janet of when her daughter first began spending time with the attorney. Amendola seemed more like Mary’s “mentor,” she added.
“She met him through the school district; she was interested in the law,” Janet said.
Read this entire story here at The Daily.
This just arrived in my inbox from the Massachusetts Citizens for Children Enough Abuse Campaign. It is well worth repeating here:
An Open Letter to Massachusetts Citizens About the Penn State Scandal
How We Can Prevent Child Sexual Abuse in Our State
While the Penn State child sexual abuse scandal and cover-up grab national attention, the fact is that cases of child sexual abuse continue to be exposed with unrelenting regularity in every state and community across our country. In Massachusetts alone just in the past six months, we have learned about the decades-long sexual abuse of boys treated by renowned pediatrician Dr. Melvin Levin of Children’s Hospital, the revealed boyhood sexual abuse of Senator Scott Brown by a counselor at a Cape Cod summer camp, the sexual abuse of young female tennis players by former Massachusetts coach and International Tennis Hall of Famer Bob Hewitt. Many more current incidents of child sexual abuse involving less well-known abusers appear weekly in local newspapers all across our state.Predictably, the Sandusky/Paterno case has prompted the media to focus on who knew what and when. Legislators rush to file bills to strengthen reporting requirements, the alleged abuser is arrested and charged, and we all express sorry for the children who have been violated and for their families who are distressed beyond what we can even imagine.
But the truth is that these after-the-fact responses are insufficient to address what the American Medical Association has labeled “…a silent, violent epidemic.” It’s time to support efforts aimed at preventing child sexual abuse from happening in the first place. This is what Massachusetts Citizens for Children (MCC), lead agency for the Enough Abuse Campaign, has been working to do since the Campaign was launched in 2002.
A public opinion poll conducted in 2007 by the Campaign documented that:
- 80% of citizens believe child sexual abuse is a serious problem in our state
- 75% said they believe it is preventable
- 64% said they would be willing to participate in local community trainings about child sexual abuse and how they can prevent it—up from 48% in a poll conducted four years earlier
Clearly, citizens like you are critical partners in getting the word out that child sexual abuse can be prevented and that in Massachusetts, through the Enough Abuse Campaign, we have the tools and the tested strategies to get the job done.
As a parent, grandparent, or concerned citizen, we are asking you to:
- Educate yourself about the real facts of child sexual abuse so that you can be an informed advocate for your children and all the children in your family and community.
- Get involved with the Enough Abuse Campaign, a Massachusetts effort that has been recognized nationally as an effective model to mobilize communities and educate parents, youth, and a range of professionals and other adults about child sexual abuse and how to prevent it.
- Support the Campaign with your dollars so we can achieve our goal: By 2015 every city and town in Massachusetts will be actively engaged in learning about child sexual abuse and preventing it.
Here are the DetailsThe Enough Abuse Campaign is overseen by the Massachusetts Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Partnership, a collaboration of twenty statewide public agencies and private organizations. The Campaign was formed in 2002 under a 5-year grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, our nation’s leading public health agency. The Campaign is now operating in Greater Gloucester, Newton/Waltham, Orange/Athol area, Greater Lowell, Springfield, and in western rural counties. Efforts are currently underway to expand the Campaign to Cape Cod and other communities.
The Campaign’s work has caused the CDC to call Massachusetts “one of the first states in the nation to lead a trailblazing effort to prevent child sexual abuse….” The Ms. Foundation for Women has called the Campaign “an effort that breaks the mold on child sexual abuse in many ways. Its emphasis on community collaboration truly sets it apart from previous efforts.” The Campaign was selected earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as one of 12 exemplary projects in the country working to end child maltreatment.
While the Campaign mobilizes communities and trains their leaders to deliver free in-person community workshops and presentations, a new effort has been launched to educate concerned citizens in the privacy of their own homes and offices. By “Joining the Movement” on the Campaign’s homepage, members receive by email our “10 Conversations” series; a new short educational piece is sent twice each month for five months filled with critical information every concerned adult should know and can use to prevent sexual abuse. Topics include:
- What is Child Sexual Abuse? Touching and Non-Touching Offenses
- Who are the Abusers? How Can We Identify Them?
- Grooming Tactics used by Sexual Abusers
- Behavior and Physical Signs that Might Indicate Child Sexual Abuse
- Sexual Behaviors of Children: Typical or Problematic?
- Responding to Sexual Behaviors of Children: Building Skills to Respond Appropriately
- Talk to Your Children: It’s Easy if You Begin Early and Communicate Often
- Impact of Child Sexual Abuse on Children
- Keeping Children Safe on the Internet
- The Public’s Opinion on Child Sexual Abuse
The series is followed with regular email updates about the latest information in the field, activities of Campaign communities, special events and trainings, and profiles on outstanding prevention advocates.
So please take these actions today. Go to www.enoughabuse.org and view our brief video, “a silent epidemic.” (Many have called it “powerful”, “compelling”, “a real eye opener.”) Then be sure to “Join the Movement” on the homepage so you can begin immediately receiving our “10 Conversations” series online. Tell family members, friends and colleagues about how they, too, can get educated and encourage them to join.
In a series of interviews last night, accused Penn State child molester Jerry Sandusky was asked if he is “sexually attracted to underage boys?” He responded, “No. I enjoy young people.” When asked to explain Sandusky's alleged rape of a ten year old boy in the Penn State locker room on a Friday night in 2002, his lawyer Joe Amendola replied that “the kid was messing around and having a good time” in the shower with Sandusky:
“Jerry Sandusky is a big, overgrown kid. He's a jock,” Amendola told CNN's Jason Carroll. “The bottom line is jocks do that—they kid around, they horse around.”
Amendola told NBC's Today show the apparent person in question claims the alleged rape never happened.
“We believe we've found him and if we have found him, he's telling a very different story than Mike McQueary and that's big news,” Amendola said.
Clearly, the effort to whitewash the overwhelming evidence against Sandusky is in full swing. Unfortunately the willingness of otherwise honest and decent people to ignore and justify the actions of pedophiles and child molesters is nothing new and all too common.
Just last week in the New York Times, respected Ohio State law professor Douglas Berman referred to child pornography as nothing more than “dirty pictures.” This kind of flippant belittling effectively desensitizes and normalizes the collection and broad dissemination of pictures and videos of pre-pubescent children being raped and sexually exploited.
What Berman fails to recognize is that “in the context of children … there can be no question of consent, and use of the word pornography [let alone “dirty pictures”] may effectively allow us to distance ourselves from the material’s true nature. A preferred term is abuse images and this term is increasingly gaining acceptance among professionals working in this area. Using the term abuse images accurately describes the process and product of taking indecent and sexualized pictures of children, and its use is, on the whole, to be supported.” Sharon W. Cooper, et. al., Medical, Legal, & Social Science Aspects of Child Sexual Exploitation p. 258 (2005).
Not surprisingly, Professor Berman is a defense expert witness in child pornography cases and a critic of mandatory minimum sentences for inter alia producing, collecting and sharing child pornography.
In an interview with Cincinnati.com, Professor Berman claimed that “because the Internet has made this kind of material more readily available, it's not as obvious that someone who looks at these images will be a serious threat to do harm to a child.” Rationalizing the wide and ubiquitous availability of child pornography, Berman intoned “we're to a point now where it's just one click. There may be a lot of serendipity as to whether that one click gets you one picture or a thousand pictures.”
Berman is not alone in providing intellectual cover for child molesters. None other than the Administrative Office of the United States Courts has taken the position that “the only appropriate judicial role” is to deny restitution requests for victims of child molesters who are convicted of collecting child pornography.
That's right. In an illegal advocacy brief written by the federal court system itself, Assistant General Counsel Joe Gergits suggested that “even though federal law prohibits him from lawfully “engag[ing] directly or indirectly in the practice of law in any court of the United States,” his “legal advice” is something which might “coincidentally” be beneficial to judges around the country.
After its release in August 2009, Mr. Gergits' brief quickly became exhibit number one for child molesters across the country who were seeking to avoid paying criminal restitution to child pornography victims. The brief was reportedly distributed to the chief probation officer in every federal judicial district in the country.
By actively taking such a position, the United States federal court system itself injected bias and prejudice against child crime victims into the "independent, national judiciary providing fair and impartial justice."
New York University law Professor Amy Adler explained that since the legal war against child sex abuse images has already been lost, there is “the possibility that certain sexual prohibitions invite their own violation by increasing the sexual allure of what they forbid.” Adler argues that “the dramatic expansion of child pornography law may have unwittingly heightened pedophilic desire.”
In the Berman-Gergits-Adler justice system, the very existence of laws against child sex abuse images and the wide availability of those images creates unwitting offenders who are then prosecuted in a justice system which is biased against the “alleged victims” depicted in the images and who are ultimately given little or no criminal sentence.
Add to this mix yellow journalists like the New York Times' Erica Goode—whose recent article on an absurdly rare “life sentence” for child pornography gave carte blance acceptance to a defense attorney's proclamation that “a growing body of scientific research shows that that someone who looks at child pornography is not a child molester or will become a child molester”—and Debbie Nathan—whose so-called National Center for Reason and Justice is a wholly owned subsidiary of the pedophile defense bar and whose work for the movie Capturing the Friedmans vigorously advocated for the absolution of convicted child molesters Jesse and Arnold Friedman—and it's not a stretch to believe that Sandusky was just behaving like one of the boys.
Everything can be explained away. Things are not what they seem. A little fun in the shower never hurt anyone.
Sadly, the effort to silence, marginalize and de-legitimize victims of child sex crimes is alive and well in 2011.
To quote the Pope, again, approvingly:
In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children. This, however, was part of a fundamental perversion of the concept of ethos. It was maintained—even within the realm of Catholic theology—that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a “better than” and a “worse than.” Nothing is good or bad in itself. Everything depends on the circumstances and on the end in view. Anything can be good or also bad, depending upon purposes and circumstances. Morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the process it ceases to exist. The effects of such theories are evident today.
The rationalization and justification of child sex abuse in all its forms not only discredits the victims, it corrupts justice and society. Morality ceases to exist. Evil becomes a construct. Punishment disappears.
Understanding the sexual exploitation of children means accepting that evildoers actively exploit the naivete of youth by grooming victims, establishing trust, normalizing deviant behavior and enforcing loyalty. When caught perpetrators sow doubt and confusion.
No wonder Sandusky's victims feel sadness, shame and even complicity. As one of the Penn State victim's attorney, Ben Andreozzi, revealed yesterday on the Today show:
The eight victims currently involved in charges against Sandusky all became part of the Penn State football team’s inner circle and developed deep attachment to the program.
“I think it’s fair to say the victims could be thinking to themselves right now that as a result of (my) coming forward, look what’s happened to this football program,” Andreozzi said.
“These folks were involved in the Penn State football community—they were on the sidelines at football games, they were spending significant amounts of time travelling with the team and/or in the locker room with the team and getting to know members of that football team.”
Andreozzi added that his client, who is now in his 20s, is grieving. “To say that he’s torn apart, I think would be an emotion that would really explain where he’s at right now.”
As I wrote on this blog in July, “The Secret" is the key to understanding child sex abuse.
In my post Pedophiles Lobby for Acceptance I explain how politically motivated child molesters and pedophiles actively discredit social science research which indicates a substantial rate of recidivism by convicted child sex offenders.
Sandusky and his defenders fit into a well-established dialectic which minimalizes the crime and co-opts the victims. Let's hope that this time around, voices of reason and justice prevail.
As anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows, there's something rotten in the state of Pennsylvania when it comes to protecting children. From Masha Allen (who was adopted from Russia by a pedophile with the help of one of Pittsburgh's premier adoption agencies), to the Luzerne county kids for cash scandal, to high school students being spied on at home by school administrators; the list of woe goes on and on.
Now Hank Grezlak, the editor-in-chief of The Legal Intelligencer—Pennsylvania's influential legal daily—has articulated what many of us have known for years: It's Open Season on Children in Pennsylvania.
In this hard-hitting commentary, Grezlak writes:
In light of the Penn State sex abuse scandal, Pennsylvania really needs to change its nickname from the Keystone State to the Child Abuser State.
The shameful moniker fits. After a decade that has already included the Archdiocese of Philadelphia priest sex abuse scandal and the Luzerne County judicial scandal featuring "kids-for-cash," how can anyone argue that it isn't a fitting label?
In all three instances, powerful people and powerful institutions failed to protect the most vulnerable and innocent in society: children.
In all three instances, authorities were made aware of harm or wrongdoing being committed, and did nothing.
In all three instances, people have made excuses for those in power who failed to act, either by failing to report or investigate, allegations of misconduct.
As with the previous two scandals, in the wake of the Penn State disgrace, there will be much hand-wringing and demonizing of a few, along with committees and panels appointed. Inevitably, recommendations will be made that will largely be ignored.
There will be a push to put more laws on the books and stiffen penalties, but those largely will be punitive and after the worst has already been done. We're not hurting for prosecutors bringing high-profile cases and getting convictions. But again, that's about seeking justice after the worst has happened, not about protecting kids in advance.
We, as a society in Pennsylvania, have failed to protect our kids.
It's an excellent sobering commentary. A big shiny gold star to Mr. Grezlak for boldly stating what needs to be said and DONE and which should have been said and DONE years ago. Changing the culture will take time and vigilance. Grezlak takes a bold first step in the right direction.
Read his entire well-deserved invective here.
According to this post in the AmLawDaily blog, numerous lawyers—including a mysteriously disappeared district attorney—are at the center of the widening Penn State child molestation scandal:
Curley and Schultz stepped down from their respective posts Monday, not long after news of the charges levied against them and Sandusky broke over the weekend. Sandusky himself retired in 1999, but remained active with The Second Mile children's charity, which he founded in Penn State's hometown of State College, Pennsylvania, in 1977. Prosecutors, led by Pennsylvania attorney general Linda Kelly, claim that Sandusky met the eight boys he is accused of sexually assaulting over a 15-year period via his association with the Second Mile charity.
In an added wrinkle, the 23-page grand jury report laying out the state's charges against the Penn State trio notes that the university's former outside general counsel, Wendell Courtney of State College-based McQuaide Blasko, served as an attorney for Second Mile. According to the grand jury report, Courtney reviewed a 1998 report prepared by Penn State police that detailed inappropriate interactions between Sandusky and an underage boy. The incident never led to any formal charges, and efforts to understand why are complicated by the fact the former local district attorney, Ray Gricar, went missing under mysterious circumstances in 2005, according to The New York Times.
McQuaide Blasko's Web site identifies Courtney as pro bono counsel to Second Mile. He did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday about his work for either the charity or Penn State. The university replaced Courtney and McQuaide Blasko as general counsel last year.
I won't repeat what has already been said about the child sex abuse scandal engulfing Penn State. Everything which needs to be said can be found in the Grand Jury Findings of Fact and Recommendation of Charges.
Yesterday, National Center for Victims of Crime, released the following statement which is worth repeating.
Washington, DC: The National Center for Victims of Crime today called on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and all educational institutions to respond quickly and forcefully to sexual abuse. The arrest of a former Penn State athletic coach for allegedly abusing eight young men shows why—for every institution in our society—protecting young people must become a top priority.
“For too long, institutions have sought to protect their reputations by ignoring allegations of abuse,” said Mai Fernandez, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime. “Instead of explaining away or covering up these allegations, administrators can actually protect their institutions by rooting out individuals who commit abuse.”
Research shows that abusers—except for the fact that they abuse children—usually appear to be respectable, ordinary citizens. They may be teachers, camp counselors, Boy Scout leaders, tutors, or coaches or tutors. Their one common trait is that they look for situations where they can be trusted with access to victims.
“Sex abusers win the trust of kids and the people those kids look up to—such as coaches and other officials,” says former Philadephia Eagles linebacker Al Chesley, who was abused by a neighbor who was a police officer when Chesley was 13. “Predators camouflage themselves so it’s hard for anyone to figure out what they’re doing, and they use organizations to keep hurting kids. It’s in everyone’s interest to find out who these people are and shut them down.”
Institutions can take steps to protect themselves from harboring predators. They can conduct background screenings for prospective employees, especially those who work with young people. They can respond immediately to any allegations of abuse—making sure that victims report incidents and that these reports are investigated thoroughly. And they can follow the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s best practices for preventing sexual abuse in youth serving institutions.
Legislators throughout the nation can also do their part. Right now in Pennsylvania, for example, Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Ron Marsico is holding up a bill (HB 878) that would create a “window” of opportunity to allow child sexual abuse victims to sue, no matter how long ago they were abused. Similar legislation passed in Delaware in 2007 resulted in civil suits that exposed many previously unreported predators. Because it can take victims decades to address the abuse, and because many of these predators continue to abuse children, Pennsylvania should pass this legislation to help heal victims and prevent future crimes.
“When institutions take steps to eliminate sex abusers and legislators act to protect victims and prevent them from hurting children, we will make progress in preventing this crime,” Fernandez added. “Institutions must earn their good reputations by responding forcefully to child sexual abuse.”
Finally, The Legal Intelligencer has a good article explaining why the prosecution trying the cases against former Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and former Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz might have difficulty proving one of the charges pending against the two administrators.
According to the article, Curley and Schultz are charged with both failure-to-report an incident of child abuse and perjury. Frank Cervone, executive director of the Support Center for Child Advocates, told The Legal that the defendants might have a “credible, if not very satisfying defense” on the failure to report charges because the alleged incident occurred when a more restrictive version of the law was in place.
Under the statute at issue—23 Pa.C.S. Section 6311—a mandated reporter must “[come] into contact with children” as part of his or her position. In 2002, when the alleged incident occurred, a prior version of the statute required an abused child to come directly into contact with a person “in their professional or official capacity” in order for them to be a mandated reporter. The law widened in 2007 to include those who hear the information secondhand.
