Bulletin Board v303

2 Former Penn State Administrators Plead Guilty To Roles In Abuse Scandal — Two former high-level Penn State administrators pleaded guilty Monday to misdemeanor charges of child endangerment, for their roles in covering up child sex abuse by disgraced assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Former Vice President Gary Schultz and former Athletic Director Tim Curley each took a plea bargain that — if accepted by the judge — will carry a penalty of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. As part of the plea bargain, the felony charges they originally faced were reduced to misdemeanors.

Battered Men: The Hidden Hurt — Battered men desperately sought help for years in California, but their efforts consistently fell on deaf ears. It took four battered men and a 2008 lawsuit by the National Coalition for Men for the California Supreme Court to recognize that men are entitled to equal protection and advocacy support from domestic violence shelters. Domestic violence accounts for a surprising proportion of violent crime in the United States. Close to one in six murder victims is killed by an intimate partner. Nearly three-fourths of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner.

Dozens Say Christian Leader Made British Boys ‘Bleed for Jesus’ — Having disclosed his “sin” of masturbation, Mark Stibbe, age 17, was ordered to strip naked and lean over a wooden chair in the garden shed of a lavish Hampshire mansion on the southern coast of England. Then came the first blow from a cane, its impact so ferocious that it sent the boy into a state of paralysis that lasted through at least 30 more strokes that left him collapsed on the floor, blood oozing down his legs.

Jeffrey Sandusky arrested for sexting stepdaughters

Jeffrey Sandusky, the son of Jerry Sandusky, faces 14 counts of sexual abuse against his two stepdaughters. According to police, Jeffrey repeatedly sent sexually explicit texts to both teen girls over the years:

Police launched an investigation in November 2016 after one child claimed to receive text messages from Sandusky, who was suspended without pay from his job as a corrections officer at Rockview State Prison.

In a news release, Pennsylvania State Police said Sandusky assaulted the two female accusers—who were 15 and 16 at the time—in spring 2013 and in March 2016. They were solicited by Sandusky for oral sex and nude cellphone pictures, police say.

The charges Jeffrey faces:

Bulletin Board v293

Boy ‘abused with a dog’ by Army recruits-inquiry — Senior recruits at an army apprentice school used a dog to abuse a boy who was training to join the Army Band, a national inquiry has heard. The abuse survivor, given the pseudonym CJU, told a royal commission hearing on Friday he had spent 38 years carrying the burden of his abuse. ‘Not only was I raped by my seniors and by staff at Balcombe (a Victoria-based school) who I thought I could trust, I was mentally abused with a dog, the lowest of the low, bestiality,’ he said.

Britain’s worst pedophiles convicted of historic abuse of young boy — Ex-Navy chief Douglas Slade, 74, and racing driver Christopher Skeaping, 71, were members of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). The pro-paedophile activist network openly campaigned for legal sex between adults and children in the 1970s and 80s, and wanted the age of consent to be axed or lowered. Twisted supporters of the group – which Jimmy Savile has been linked to – shared obscene material and advice with fellow deviants.

Ex-altar boy who spoke out about being sexually abused by priest found hanged in home — A Pennsylvania man who spoke out against clergy abuse after publicly identifying himself as a victim of a predator priest has killed himself, authorities said. Brian Gergely, 46, was found hanged in his home in Ebensburg on Friday, Cambria County Coroner Jeffrey Lees told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Gergely went public in 2003 while suing Monsignor Francis McCaa and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, saying he was abused as a 10-year-old altar boy.

Penn State settlements covered 1971 Sandusky abuse claim

I wrote about the recent court filings that claimed Joe Paterno knew about Jerry Sandusky abusing boys as far back as 1976. It appears the claims of abuse go back further:

Penn State’s legal settlements with Jerry Sandusky’s accusers cover alleged abuse dating to 1971, which was 40 years before his arrest, the university said Sunday, providing the first confirmation of the time frame of abuse claims that have led to big payouts.

The disclosure came as Penn State President Eric Barron decried newly revealed allegations that former football coach Joe Paterno was told in 1976 that Sandusky had sexually abused a child and that two assistant coaches witnessed either inappropriate or sexual contact in the late 1980s. Paterno, who died in 2012, had said the first time he had received a complaint against Sandusky was in 2001.

Barron said the accusations were unsubstantiated, and suggested that the university is being subjected unfairly to what he called rumor and innuendo.

Responding to questions about the president’s statement and claims against the school, university spokesman Lawrence Lokman told The Associated Press he could confirm that the earliest year of alleged abuse covered in Penn State’s settlements is 1971.

Sandusky graduated from Penn State in 1965 and returned as a full-time defensive coach in 1969.

I suspect the allegations will go back further than the 1970s. It appears that Sandusky was a prolific serial rapist, and it is unlikely he began abusing boys after he graduated from Penn State. 

New revelations about Joe Paterno

“[…] in 1976, a child allegedly reported to PSU’s Head Football Coach Joseph Paterno, that he (the child) was sexually molested by Sandusky.”

This line appeared in a court order from an insurance coverage case for Penn State. That one line brought back questions about Joe Paterno’s knowledge about Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of boys at Penn State University.

Paterno died shortly before Sandusky faced dozens of charges of sexual abuse. The question at the time was how much did Paterno know about the abuse. The former head coach was known for his legendary achievements in college football. That history was marred by the abuse allegations. His family denied that he participated in any cover-up, however, Penn State funded an investigation that found that Paterno may have known about the abuse in 1998. The current implication from the court order suggests he may have known earlier than that:

The order also cites separate references in 1987 and 1988 in which unnamed assistant coaches witnessed inappropriate contact between Sandusky and unidentified children, and a 1988 case that was supposedly referred to Penn State’s athletic director at the time.

All, the opinion states, are described in victims’ depositions taken as part of the still-pending insurance case, but that, according a PennLive review of the case file, are apparently under seal.

“There is no evidence that reports of these incidents ever went further up the chain of command at PSU,” Judge Gary Glazer wrote, in determining that because Penn State’s executive officers – its president and trustees – weren’t aware of the allegations, he would not bar claims from that time frame from insurance coverage.

There is no evidence verifying these claims.

Jerry Sandusky found ‘perfect victims’ at the Second Mile

Matt Sandusky spoke to a group about the abuse he suffered at the hands of Jerry Sandusky:

Matthew Sandusky walked the crowd at the Pinnacle Center through the subtle and gradual grooming process of building trust with children through attention and activities before the sexual abuse actually takes place. He told them of a dysfunctional and abusive childhood that made him easy prey when steered to Sandusky’s Second Mile nonprofit for disadvantaged youth when he was 7.

“The Second Mile was feeding this man the perfect victims,” said Sandusky, 36, who said he was age 8 when the abuse began at the nonprofit’s summer camp and 17 when it ended.

He said Jerry Sandusky had all their backgrounds, knew who didn’t have a father in their lives, so all he had to do was choose who to target. He said the kids were taken to football games with seats on the 50-yard-line and the coach began spending more time with the boy’s family.

There are people who abuse children who do so merely because they are sexually attracted to children. There is no intent hurt the child or just to use them. Many of these people do genuinely care about their victims despite their actions.

Then there are people like Sandusky. The true predator.

Bulletin Board v257

Ayaan to Liberals: Get Your Priorities Straight — Few figures on the intellectual scene today are as controversial or as compelling as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A Somali-born author, speaker, activist, and former politician, Ali, 45, became a hijab-wearing radical Islamist as a teenager in Kenya, then a liberal atheist as an immigrant in the Netherlands; the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001 led her to a final break with faith.

B.C. teacher suing over ‘unimaginable hardship’ after false accusations of rape, torture — A Vancouver Island teacher falsely accused of sexual assault and torture by a Grade 9 student — accusations that were later shown to be ripped off from TV episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — is seeking compensation for more than two years of “unimaginable hardship.” In an arbitration hearing last year, the student described a series of sadistic rapes that left her beaten and bloody, as well as torture, including waterboarding and being buried alive.

Binghamton woman accused of sexual abuse of infant — A Binghamton woman is accused of sexually abusing an infant boy and producing child pornography. Thirty-four year-old Latasha Mitchell was charged in federal court recently after a complaint was made on the New York child abuse hotline. She was arrested by Binghamton Police in February for allegedly committing a criminal sexual act in connection with the child abuse.