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Dredging up the Sandusky trial and the allegations that led to his conviction is among the least comfortable things I've ever written about. More than two dozen men ultimately came forward claiming they had been abused as boys while under his care. When those stories surfaced in 2011, they unleashed a tidal wave of pain and outrage that engulfed Penn State and much of the country.
I'm not here to tell readers what to think. But I've been shocked--although perhaps not entirely surprised--by some of the questions now being raised by his defense and defenders, particularly about how evidence was gathered, how memories evolved, and how some of the allegations against him ultimately took shape.
My husband attended several of Sandusky's football camps when he was in high school. So I find it particularly interesting that when investigators began looking for additional abuse victims before the trial, they turned to the roster of Sandusky's charity, The Second Mile. Many of those boys came from disadvantaged or troubled circumstances; some had unstable homes and families under considerable financial strain.
No one ever called my husband to ask whether anything inappropriate had happened to him at those camps. Nor, to his knowledge, did investigators contact anyone he knew who had attended them. Instead, the search for additional victims appears to have concentrated heavily on former Second Mile participants.
Why just Second Mile and none of the other organizations Sandusky was involved with? Did they believe the charity participants were more vulnerable?
And now that Ryan Whittenmore has come forward to challenge his earlier account, it inevitably casts a new light on the process by which the abuse cases that ultimately went to trial were discovered and developed. It does not prove the other allegations false. But it does make the methods used to find and interview potential victims a legitimate subject of scrutiny.
The questions become even more uncomfortable when memory therapy enters the picture. Some of the men who eventually accused Sandusky reportedly did not initially describe themselves as victims, while some accounts changed or became more serious over time. The defense contends that therapy, repeated questioning and the investigative process itself played a role in the evolution of some of those accounts.
So it is worth asking: Did investigators uncover a body of independent evidence, or did an extraordinary national scandal create an environment in which allegations, memories, therapy, money, publicity and investigative expectations begin interacting with one another?
Penn State ultimately paid more than $100 million to settle claims connected to Sandusky. The enormous amount of money involved makes the process by which claims were identified and evaluated worthy of examination.
The institution itself also suffered extraordinary consequences. Penn State's leadership was upended, its football program was devastated and the university's power structure underwent enormous change. What interests me now is that some of the changes imposed upon Penn State after the scandal appear remarkably similar to changes political leaders in Harrisburg had sought before most Americans had ever heard Jerry Sandusky's name.
That coincidence, by itself, proves nothing. But it deserves a closer look. If state officials had previously sought greater control over Penn State, changes in its governance or reductions in its public funding, those efforts belong in the chronology of what happened next. The question we should be asking is whether the political history surrounding Penn State has been adequately examined alongside the criminal one.
Then there is the unsettling case of Allan Myers, a former Second Mile participant who had been extraordinarily close to Sandusky. Myers initially defended him, reportedly telling investigators that Sandusky had never done anything to make him uncomfortable. Sandusky had been part of important moments in his life, and Myers continued to associate with him well into adulthood.
But Myers' account eventually changed. After obtaining attorney Andrew Shubin--who represented other Sandusky accusers and had a connection to Myers' mother through employment, Myers came to allege that Sandusky had abused him. He was never called as a witness at Sandusky's trial, but later received a reported $6.9 million settlement from Penn State. Myers died this past May at just 39. None of this tells us which version of his story was true. But the dramatic evolution of his account, the involvement of attorneys and investigators, and the substantial financial settlement make Myers another uncomfortable chapter in a case increasingly filled with uncomfortable questions.
The number of people involved in the whole affair--from therapists and paid investigators to lawyers, prosecutors, police, civil attorneys, university officials, trustees, insurance companies, compensation administrators, consultants, politicians and journalists--created an extraordinary ecosystem around the Sandusky case.
There's something off putting about it all when you look back at it. Power and greed showed up in this greatly publicized case as it always does, circling the wreckage, and awaiting its prize.