No, that's not a reasonable conclusion! Absolutely not! It totally ignores that part of Curley's plan to report to the Department of Welfare in the extremely probable event that Sandusky refuses to confess and seek treatment.
Clearly, the Freeh Report has overreached. And I can't avoid the suspicion that this overreach led to another--the barely supported conclusion that the need "to avoid the consequences of bad publicity" explains the cover up.
Nevertheless, it's worth noting that the Freeh Report's erroneous "gotcha" moment--which specifically identifies the day when the cover-up by Spanier, Schultz and Curley commenced--excludes Joe Paterno.
Perhaps as a silver lining in its dark cloud of journalistic malpractice, Messrs. Roebuck and McCoy also have little to say about Joe Paterno. Appropriately so. Nevertheless, they appear to not only have swallowed the unreasonable gotcha conclusion reached by the Freeh Report, but also to have attempted to work backward from that false conclusion in order to demonstrate that the decision not to report actually can be traced back to Schultz's notes dated 2/12/01. It's shoddy journalism at its worst!
An unbiased reading of the sketchy evidence would indicate that the decision not to report McQueary's allegations to the Department of Welfare occurred after 7 March 2001, the day Curley actually met with Sandusky.
The available evidence suggests that Curley never confronted Sandusky and Sandusky confessed to nothing. Worse, Sandusky (brazenly?) offered to give Curley the name of the boy who was in the Lasch building shower with him that night--and Curley refused to take it.
If this information is correct (a very big "if"), then, according to the plan all three agreed to, one of them was obligated to report Sandusky to the Department of Welfare. But that didn't happen and we still do not know why--even after the publication of the Freeh Report.
In the Freeh Report [p. 77], Spanier claims that Curley subsequently told him that Sandusky had confessed and agreed to get professional help. But, we know that didn't happen, so somebody's lying.
Moreover, in that same Freeh Report [p. 78], the lawyer representing the Director of the Second Mile charity claims that Curley told his client that "nothing inappropriate occurred." That's the story being told by Spanier, Schultz and Curley today -- and they're sticking to it.
(Personally, I find it difficult to believe that both Curley and Schultz came to the conclusion that "nothing inappropriate occurred," especially after Joe Paterno reported to them McQueary's allegations of something sexual between Sandusky and a young boy, and especially given the fact that both of them knew about the investigation of Sandusky in 1998. Paterno's report, alone, should have triggered an automatic message to the Department of Welfare.)
Let's hope that the trial of Curley and Schultz brings resolution to that assertion
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