[trigger warning: sexual assault] ESPN article about serial rapist who played for Joe Paterno
ESPN just published a LONG piece about a maniac serial rapist who played at Penn State for Joe Paterno in the late 70's. He was dismissed from the team and expelled from the university after he was convicted of rape, but unfortunately, the story doesn't end there.
I had some downtime today so I was able to read the whole thing. I have no connection to this story and I'm not female, and yet even I was shaken by this sordid tale.
As an aside, Penn State University and all that it stands for can go straight to hell. Burn that place to the ground.
April 11th, 2022 at 11:40 PM ^
Got any good COVID posts to share too?!
April 12th, 2022 at 12:00 AM ^
Wow burn that place down because of the actions of a few people. Should we burn Michigan down also?
April 12th, 2022 at 12:19 AM ^
Yep... just like JoePa, Bo knew too!
Gotta find someone to blame instead of the Michigan Administration.
Helps Bo isn't here to defend himself.
April 12th, 2022 at 11:07 PM ^
Who is it that said this?
“Every coach, every executive, every leader: They all know right from wrong. Even those Enron guys. When someone uncovers a scandal in their company, I don't think they can say, "I didn't know that was going on." They're just saying they're too dumb to do their job! And if they really are too dumb, then why are they getting paid millions of dollars to do it? They know what's going on.”
I see the Bopologists are coming out of the woodwork...
... just like with Penn State and JoePa. But since it's our team, feel free to look the other way while casting stones at others.
And if you think Bo wasn't the administration, you're a fool.
It's easy to defend Bo. You should defend people whom you know by character are unlikely to have done what they have been accused of, but aren't here to actually defend themselves.
JoePa, I still don't understand. He fired the guy (so far so good), then did nothing to keep him off campus nor did he report him to the police (in a nutshell) once the guy went full pedo. I'd like to say his character would refute those facts, but it cannot.
Both administrations covered things up though. Because that's what administrations do.
April 12th, 2022 at 11:56 AM ^
It’s almost as if there is some nuance to things and the comparisons we make.
I think it's terrible that Robert Anderson abused student-athletes for decades, but I don't agree that it is just like the Sandusky situation. Anderson was an actual doctor, whose job entailed giving physical examinations to athletes. Bo probably figured that, having no medical training himself, it wasn't his place to tell the team physician how to do his job. If so, that obviously turned out to be a mistake, but a comprehensible one. I see the Anderson case as an institutional failure above all.
OTOH, I really can't understand what JoePa was thinking, allowing Sandusky (a football coach, not a doctor) access to kids even after the allegations piled up.
That's a good theory about Anderson and Bo. Very possible.
Also, Doctors tend to police themselves, sometimes completely outside even normal administration's purview. I've seen more than a couple doctor's conduct reviews (nothing like this) disappear into Physician's committees never to be heard from again.
That's not what happened at Penn State.
Burn Eastern Michigan down because of John Norman Collins
/s
I actually covered parts of his trial at the Washtenaw County courthouse for WCBN. To look at him, you never would have believed he could have committed those heinous acts.
Yeah. Jeffrey Dahmer looked normal too.
and randy craft. 64 murders to his 'credit', ghastly murders of young men including two here in michigan. he was pulled over one night near garden grove (CA) with an unconscious young man in his car. among the many things we found in the car, he had a list of his victims under the driver's side floor mat.
here is craft during trial:
April 12th, 2022 at 10:59 AM ^
Burn down Chicago!!
Oh wait, they did that once already. Stupid cow.
I'd never heard of him so I spent 20 minutes reading his Wikipedia page. Yikes. What an incarnation of evil.
What a stupid strawman, and it's somehow upvoted?
April 12th, 2022 at 12:32 AM ^
They kicked him off the team and kicked him out of the university. Seems like they did the right thing here unlike the Sandusky scandal.
There was the part about him not having bail revoked after a jury found him guilty of a violent rape, and discussed how rare this is, how it has not happened before or since… and the violent spree he went on just after. They also briefly mentioned the PSU “fixer” who gave free legal counsel to athletes and suggested that his relationship to the judge may have resulted in this strange handling of the case. I wouldn’t say they did the right thing if what the article suggests is accurate.
April 12th, 2022 at 10:00 AM ^
I would agree with your argument, but also say that I'm 99.9% sure Michigan had a 'fixer' in 1979. And I'm 99.9% sure Michigan has a 'fixer' today - along with PSU, OSU, MSU, This U, That U, and All Other U's also...
Having a "fixer" is part of the problem, at least as I see things. It is the program over everything which allows for institutional neglect to occur. There were numerous items from the PSU football program that allowed that scumbag to continue his reign of terror.
I suspect for every episode that comes to light, there are multiples more instances of abuse that are covered up. If we haven't learned that lesson from PSU, MSU, Michigan, OSU, and a bunch of etc's., I'm not sure what it will take to get that point across.
Tough read. Very good though.
Read this this morning, very long, very awful, and much more to blame joe pa and happy valley about. This kid was a real monster and enabled left and right.
“Just room him with someone with good morals” was not a good solution.
Now we know where Urban got this idea from.
The US justice system makes no sense to me. How did they let this guy out on parole knowing he had raped countless other women while awaiting his punishment the first time around!!?!?!?!?
Judge is probably corrupt and was paid off. Likely some association to football team.
That was the first time when he got bail for 25k and just went back to Long Island to end up raping more women and an underage girl.
I'm talking about the parole board in the 80s that unanimously decided to abate his sentencing at the minimum 7 years for him to only murder the taxi driver
Yeah that was equally insane.
I also can't believe his daughter didn't know what he did until this story was written. How is that possible? The lack of media coverage of this is stunning.
We barely take sexual assault seriously now and there's been a ton of progress on the issue so a ridiculously light sentence in the past shouldn't surprise us. Brock Turner wasn't that long ago and he has a ton of supporters still. And that was about as open and shut a rape case as you'll get.
There have been a couple of recent rape cases where the perpetrator is a young white educated male and the judge has given him probation or no sentence at all because he has his whole life ahead of him and they're sure he's sorry or some such nonsense. Brock Turner syndrome.
The Judge Aaron Persky was recalled, only the 2nd Judge in 82 years to be recalled in the state of California after the 6 month sentence with possibility of parole after 3 months with good behavior.
We know what we are told and that isn't much in the way of sentences. Yes it's all public record but they do make it difficult to comb through the records. As the case with the Penn St player proves.
I'm in my 50s and they've taken sexual assault seriously all my life. You must be real old.
I suspect buying a good lawyer and the multitudinous ways sexual assault can be committed has more to do with the various sentences you see.
Personally, involuntary rape ranks right up there with murder as crimes you should never see the light of day again, if convicted.
Agreed! If released on parole or sentence served should always have to wear a tracker ankle bracelet or something. Heck, I'm all for signifying tats to mark the person if they are out so everyone knows... There are debts that cannot be repaid. These are loans ie they paid their debt to society. Sure but that bullet can't be put in the chamber again and that victim can't be unvictimized...
April 12th, 2022 at 10:04 AM ^
The justice system is taking it more seriously now, but probably needs to take it more seriously. The Brock Turner case was a total fiasco. And the vast majority of rapes go unprosecuted, many are never reported at all.
April 12th, 2022 at 10:51 AM ^
The Brock Turner case itself was not a fiasco. He was caught, apprehended, the police, prosecutor and everyone did their job. His defense was flimsy at best. Everything was done right till the sentencing which was maddening the judge let him off. Heck, the judge went way out of bounds on that sentence. Prosecutors recommended 7 years, additional probation and under Megan's Law be registered as an offender for the rest of his life. Everyone did it right until the sentencing by the judge and the Prosecutor was going easy on the sentencing recommendation... 3 felony counts he was convicted of...
April 12th, 2022 at 11:05 AM ^
He served three months for raping an unconscious girl in an alley behind a dumpster. This is not a justice system success story.
April 12th, 2022 at 11:16 AM ^
There are minimum sentences for a reason to prevent this bs from happening. Judges aren't held to recommendations of the prosecuting attorney. The only one to not make this case a success story of how they should be handled was the Judge, and he was recalled and removed from the bench for it. That is a success story of holding a judge accountable and many more need to be held accountable.
April 12th, 2022 at 12:14 PM ^
Don't look at Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's record on federal sex cases, which have greater sentencing times than most states. She regularly gave much less time than the guidelines called for.
You have any evidence to support this beyond Sen. Hawley's extremely misleading tweet stream?
"Andrew C. McCarthy, a conservative former federal prosecutor, defended Judge Jackson in an essay for National Review, saying that while he did not support her nomination, Mr. Hawley seemed to be misleadingly conflating “sex offenders,” who consume offensive imagery, with criminals who “prey on children” through acts of sexual violence.
The allegation that Judge Jackson had shown “an alarming pattern” of being soft on “sex offenders, especially those preying on children,” as Mr. Hawley put it, “appears meritless to the point of demagoguery,” Mr. McCarthy wrote."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/us/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-child-abuse-case.html
"Reviewing a brief accounting of nine CP cases sentenced by Judge Jackson (which I believe was produced by GOP Senators and/or staff and was forwarded to me), I was first struck by the fact that in a majority of these cases (5 of 9) the prosecution advocated for a below-guideline sentence and in three others the prosecution advocated for only the guideline minimum. In other words, Judge Jackson was generally sentencing CP defendants in cases in which even the prosecution concluded mitigating factors meant that the guidelines were not a proper benchmark range in light of congressional sentencing purposes."
https://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2022/03/contextualizing-judge-jacksons-mainstream-sentencing-record-in-federal-child-porn-cases.html
Yes. There are several cases that she was involved in that are easily looked up. She even gave only 3 months on one case. And in your own rebuttal, it says 5 of the 9 cases the prosecutors advocated for below guidance sentences. Which means, you are ok with the other 4 being not be advocated for lesser terms. Get out of here with your double standard because you want to win politically. It's either wrong or it's not to give lesser sentences for sex crimes. Not all of those cases were CP, there were contact cases too. There are too many ideological idiots on this board that won't be consistent in their outrage if it has to do with their side politically.
April 13th, 2022 at 10:17 AM ^
"Yes. There are several cases that she was involved in that are easily looked up."
No, no. You need to provide evidence of what you are saying. What are these cases? What were the contact cases and what were the outcomes?
You see I provided actual evidence and commentary including from a conservative prosecutor who called what you are doing ".. meritless to the point of demagoguery.” How many cases did she actually sentence that sets your definition of "regularly"?
Funny you accuse me of trying to win politically when I was clearly responding to YOUR attempt to throw out a political post with no backing. All I did was ask a question and provide some links. And I know the National Review is a liberal rag but:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/senator-hawleys-disingenuous-attack-against-judge-jacksons-record-on-child-pornography/
One more time, do you have any actual evidence beyond Sen. Hawley's tweets?
April 13th, 2022 at 11:34 AM ^
You didn't post one thing of evidence. Only an opinion. That is the funny thing about you ideologs. You will post opinion as fact. And why do you refuse to address the point I made about your rebuttal? I pointed out by your own rebuttal that only 5 of 9 prosecutors thought a lower sentence was necessary. By default, that means you are ok with the other 4 cases that didn't have prosecutor recommending lesser sentences. By the way, if you know anything about practicing law, you would know their recommending lesser sentences would be part of the plea deal that was worked out with the defense.
Since you are too lazy to look these up, I will post the cases. Not opinions, not spin, just the straight cases. I don't need a "liberal" or "conservative" rag. I can just list all the cases and you can see for yourself, but of course, your ideology won't let you accept that either. So, once again, get out of here with you stupid ideological double standard. Either be against it or for regardless if it's your political side. In case you didn't know, criminals rarely serve out their full sentence. They can take classes to reduce the term and also get time for good behavior. In the federal prison sentence. Good behavior reduces the term by 54 days every year. With classes and good behavior, a 5 year federal sentence could only be about 3 years of actual incarceration.
- U.S. v. Hawkins, where sentencing guidelines called for up to 10 years in prison for a man convicted of possession of multiple images of child pornography. Jackson sentenced him to three months.
- U.S. v. Stewart, where sentencing guidelines called for 97 to 121 months in prison for a man convicted of possessing thousands of images of child porn and attempting to travel across state lines to abuse a 9-year-old girl. Jackson sentenced him to 57 months.
- U.S. v. Cooper, where the guidelines called for 151 to 188 months for a sex offender convicted of posting 600 images and videos online. Jackson sentenced him to 60 months, the lowest sentence allowed, according to Hawley.
- U.S. v. Chazin, where the guidelines called for 78 to 97 months for possession of child porn. Jackson’s sentence was 28 months.
- U.S. v. Downs, where the guidelines called for 70 to 87 months for someone convicted of posting sexual images of children, including at least one under age 5. Jackson handed down 60 months.
- U.S. v. Sears, where the guidelines called for 97 to 121 months for a perpetrator convicted of distributing 102 child porn videos as well as photos of his 10-year-old daughter. Jackson gave him 60 months. (Jackson, however, later denied him compassionate release in 2020 when he said diabetes mellitus and asthma placed him at greater risk of serious complications from COVID-19, according to a Congressional Research Service report.)
- U.S. v. Savage, where the guidelines called for 46 to 57 months for a man convicted of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and also transporting child porn. Jackson sentenced him to 37 months.
A story that needed to be written for sure and extremely unsettling to read, as it should be. Very well written too. I have to wonder though, why post this to a Michigan sports blog? This is just... well... "unnecessary" is the word that comes to mind first.
This is a Michigan sports blog, not a CNN message board or something of that nature. Lets all try to keep the posts at least SOMEWHAT related to university athletics.
Should the story of Haskins dying been on here since you know, this is a Michigan sports blog? Dumb take.
"This is a Michigan sports blog, not a CNN message board or something of that nature. Lets all try to keep the posts at least SOMEWHAT related to university athletics."
No kidding. FrankMurphy (not a bad poster overall here) forgot the "Way OT" prefix.
You needed "OT" for this to...understand it wasn't Michigan related? Yikes.
I feel like you've been around here long enough to know we discuss college sports as well as news relating to college sports. This shouldn't come as a shock
This was a really well written piece. The journalists did a ton of homework. Mesmerizing story
The judge in the 1st case does not deserve his place on the bench. The parole board is also guilty. The system failed. Repeat crime happens way to often. This dude destroyed so many lives.
Betsy Sailor showed incredible courage. As did the anonymous 16 year old girl. What a remarkable fighter. They both have strength of character and saved lives
Irv Pankey is on my hero list. it’s no wonder he became captain of the team. What a great young man he was.