By Mike Lupica
New York Daily News
November 16, 2011
www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/joe-amendola-led-media-blitz-shaky-defense-jerry-sandusky-penn-state-child-sex-abuse-case-article-1.978218
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| Lawyer Joe Amendola appears with Bob Costas on NBC and doesn't seem to do his client, Jerry Sandusky, any favors by having him speak about the child sex abuse allegations. |
We talk about the presumption of innocence in this country, and the law says that it is supposed to apply even to Jerry Sandusky. The law says it applies to Sandusky even after Joe Paterno has already said he should have done more about Sandusky, and after Mike McQueary tells the grand jury what he saw once in a Penn State shower room, Sandusky with a 10-year-old boy pressed up against a shower room wall.
Joe Amendola, the lawyer who represents Sandusky around trying to make himself famous, talks and talks about how his client deserves that presumption of innocence, even after Amendola - in a creepy, lounge lizard way - sends Sandusky out to look guiltier than ever during that interview with Bob Costas on "Rock Center" Monday night.
At that moment, the unspeakable out of Penn State turns stupid, because of a small-time lawyer.
Here was Tom Harvey, the New York City criminal and civil rights attorney who has been in this paper for more than a week making so much sense out of his own outrage about this Penn State story, talking Tuesday about Amendola:
"He seems more focused on getting himself on as many national news shows as he can, rather than protecting his client. This is rather ironic, since the only person in the United States legally obligated to vigilantly defend Sandusky has taken it upon himself to encourage his client to waive the most basic constitutional right every criminal defendant in the country has, which means the right to remain silent. Instead, this guy Amendola has practically begged his client to talk."
In the morning Tuesday, I was talking to Bob Costas, and he told the story of getting the telephone interview with Sandusky Monday night. He, Costas, had reached out to this Amendola the week before, set up an interview with him. Amendola showed up at NBC Monday night and about 15 minutes before that interview was to begin, he said to Costas, "How about I put you on the telephone with Jerry?"
He gave up his own client in that moment, not that anybody cares about that happening to Jerry Sandusky.
After that, you saw what you saw and heard from Sandusky. When asked by Costas if he was sexually attracted to underaged boys, Sandusky actually had to repeat the question, taking himself further into a place only inhabited by the damned.
Right before that, Costas had gotten this amazing answer:
"In terms of - my relationship with so many, many young people. I would . . . I would guess that there are many young people who would come forward. Many more young people who would come forward and say that my methods and . . . and what I had done for them made a very positive impact on their life. And I didn't go around seeking out every young person for sexual needs that I've helped. There are many that I didn't have . . . hardly had any contact with who I have helped in many, many ways."
If you were listening to this part of it, what you really heard from Sandusky was that he hasn't been sexually attracted to nearly all of the young men with whom he's come in contact over the years.
Not only does Amendola send Sandusky out there to say what he said on Monday night to Bob Costas, he basically gives away his legal strategy at the same time, if you can call it a strategy, that all Sandusky was really doing in his middle 50s was having naked jock towel-slapping hijinks in the shower with 10- and 11-year-old boys.
Tom Harvey said, "My colleagues and I are absolutely baffled as to why a licensed attorney would allow Sandusky to go on national TV and admit that he was naked in the shower with little boys and that he touched little boys all the time. Perhaps Mr. Amendola is one of those attorneys who promises to get you out of jail when you've done all of your time.
"This guy (Sandusky) has actually been out of the headlines the past few days while the media's attention was focused on the apparent coverup by Joe Paterno and many others at Penn State. And what does his lawyer do? He talks his client into going on national TV to be interviewed by Bob Costas and make numerous statements that will surely come back to haunt him in any criminal or civil case.
"And on top of all that, and in his desperate desire to get his 15 minutes of fame, Amendola shows amazing lack of judgment by trashing child abuse victims on national TV in hopes of getting some positive publicity for his client. These two are made for each other."
First Joe Paterno says more than he should have when he said he wishes he had done more. Then Sandusky says what he says to Bob Costas, sounding like a punch drunk fighter. Now Mike McQueary is on CBS last night, briefly, giving a doorstep interview and talking about his emotions right now.
"All over the place, just kind of shaken," McQueary says.
McQueary wants it out there that he tried to stop Sandusky that night in the shower room. We will find out about that eventually, even as McQueary has been called out by the Pennsylvania governor for not doing enough that night in 2002. But then nobody at Penn State did enough when they had a chance.
There is so much more to know about that night, about Joe Paterno, about the coverup at Penn State, about all of it. Eventually we will hear from the ones we really want to hear from: the victims in this case. The ones Jerry Sandusky's lawyer, Amendola, suggests were on the make. He ought to know.
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