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District Attorneys: PSU Fine Should Fund Children’s Advocacy Centers

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Now that the NCAA has slapped Penn State with a $60-million dollar fine to fund programs that prevent child sex abuse and assist its victims, the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association is weighing in on how that money should be used.  Association president Shawn Wager has written the presidents of both PSU and the NCAA to say those funds would be best used supporting the Children’s Advocacy Centers across the state.

“The DA’s Association has chosen to weigh in on this discussion regarding the use of the NCAA endowment funds because we as district attorneys believe Children’s Advocacy Centers best fulfill the obligations laid out in the consent decree by the NCAA,” Wagner says, “to provide direct services to child abuse victims and to focus on public education & child abuse prevention.  I can assure you Children’s Advocacy Centers do both of those things.”

Adams Co. District Attorney Shawn Wagner is president of the PDAA.

Wagner was joined by fellow prosecutors and victim advocates from across the state at news conferences in State College, Harrisburg and Philadelphia on Wednesday.

Victim advocate Jennifer Storm has been involved in the Jerry Sandusky case, and supports the district attorneys efforts:STORM

In a statement, Penn State lauded the work of both the DAs and the CACs.  It continues: “The University is working to formulate a plan to create and administer the fund. It is our hope the fund will produce countless opportunities to help children in need. We appreciate this valuable input and will provide additional details when they become available.”

Pennsylvania is home to 20-Childrens Advocacy Centers, which do not have a consistent or dedicated funding stream.  Advocates add that for every child served, there are hundreds of additional child victims in PA that do not have access to CACs.

S.E.S.A.M.E. Act Seeks to End Educator Sexual Misconduct

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The acronym stands for Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation.  “It’s an absolute real, significant and predominant problem in all of our states,” says S.E.S.A.M.E. board member John Seryak.  A retired teacher from Ohio, Seryak traveled to Harrisburg this week to urge action on SB 1381. 

The group is fighting for new laws across the country, but Pennsylvania is on the frontlines, in part because of the high-profile Jerry Sandusky scandal. 

The bill would put an end to a practice dubbed ‘passing the trash,’ in which a teacher accused of sexual abuse resigns or retires and is allowed to quietly move on to another district.  Specifically, it would tighten abuse reporting laws, require schools to obtain all prospective employees’ work records and prohibit confidentiality agreements between a school and an alleged abuser. 

“This legislation was crafted to allow school districts to know who they are hiring,” says state Senator Anthony Williams (D-Philadelphia), the prime sponsor of Pennsylvania’s S.E.S.A.M.E. Act. 

SB 1381 already received a unanimous vote in the Senate Education Committee.  Now, supporters want to see action by the full Senate before the new school year. 

Seryak says that in more than one-third of sexual misconduct cases teachers do not lose their certification. “I think it raises the bar as far as responsibility goes… for all the people that work for the school district.”

Attorney General Speaks Out in Sandusky Sex Abuse Scandal

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Jerry Sandusky

Jerry Sandusky

The allegations against 67-year-old Jerry Sandusky, the former defensive coordinator at Penn State, span roughly a decade from the late 1990s through 2009.  The 23-page grand jury presentment goes into graphic detail of the alleged sexual assaults of young boys, both while Sandusky was coaching and after his retirement.  Attorney General Linda Kelly says they’ve identified six of the eight young victims discussed in the presentment, all of whom Sandusky met through his involvement in The Second Mile, a charity he founded in 1977.

Equally significant to the sexual assault charges Sandusky faces, Kelly says, are the alleged roles of two school administrators charged with perjury and failure to report.  “Their inaction likely allowed a child predator to continue to victimize children for many many years,” Kelly says. 

Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and Senior Vice President Gary Shultz each face one count of perjury and one count of failure to report.

“This is not a case about football, it’s not a case about universities,” says State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan, “It’s a case about children who have had their innocence stolen from them, and a culture that did nothing to stop it.” 

 

Administrators Arraigned:

Tim Curley

Tim Curley

While Sandusky will be prosecuted in Centre County, where the alleged assaults took place, Curley and Shultz will be prosecuted in Dauphin County, where the alleged perjury took place.  Both were arraigned in a suburban Harrisburg magistrate’s office Monday afternoon. 

Curley’s lawyer, Caroline Roberto, proclaimed her client innocent and says they will vigorously fight the charges in court.  She calls perjury prosecutors’ charge of last resort.  “They charge it when they can’t prove the person did anything wrong.”  Roberto calls the duty to report charge a summary offense, similar to a speeding ticket.  Under the law, Roberto says the duty to report didn’t even apply to the situation at Penn State. 

Gary Shultz

Gary Shultz

The Attorney General’s office disagrees.  “Given the circumstances here, with information that was provided to top administrators about a sexual assault in the locker room, on the Penn State campus, we feel very confident that those administrators are responsible under the law,” says spokesman Nils Frederiksen. 

 

Paterno Not a Target:

Asked about coach Joe Paterno’s grand jury testimony, Attorney General Linda Kelly says the 84-year-old coach has been cooperative and is not a target at this point.  The grand jury report indicates that a grad student who witnessed a sexual assault in 2002 called Paterno to share what he had seen.  “We believe that under the statute he had an obligation to report it to school administrators, and he did that,” Kelly says of Paterno’s involvement.

In a statement, Paterno says he’s shocked and saddened by the allegations contained in the grand jury report.  “I understand that people are upset and angry, but let’s be fair and let the legal process unfold,” the statement reads.  “In the meantime, I would ask all Penn Staters to continue to trust in what that name represents, continue to pursue their lives every day with high ideals and not let these events shake their beliefs nor who they are.” 

Attorney Genral Linda Kelly, Jerry Sandusky

The media gathered en masse at Attorney General Linda Kelly's capitol news conference.