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	What Did Second Mile Know and When Did It Know It? By Wendy J. Murphy Patriot Ledger November 17, 2011 http://www.patriotledger.com/opinions/opinions_columnists/x1821248941/WENDY-J-MURPHY-What-did-Second-Mile-know-and-when-did-it-know-it The Second Mile Foundation, formed by ex-Penn State coach Jerry Sandsuky in 1977 ostensibly to help troubled kids and which appears to have provided him with the grooming ground he needed to find and possibly sexually violate dozens of young boys, is now saying they had no idea of the seriousness of what police allege was Sandusky's sexually inappropriate conduct with children until 2008. It's a nice cut-off date if you're trying to limit your liability exposure. If true, Second Mile will save itself a lot of money and grief because in2008 they banned Sandusky from access to kids, which means they're off the hook for all the anticipated lawsuits by victims involving abuse that happened earlier. Mind you, they banned Sandusky only after he told the foundation that he was under police investigation, which suggests Second Mile only became interested in protecting children when it was apparent the organization might be implicated and dragged into a criminal investigation. Even at that, Second Mile maintained its relationship with Sandusky until 2010 - which raises disturbing questions the foundation has yet to answer about why they felt a need to stay tethered to the guy after apparently determining he was unsafe to be around children. Even more troubling for Second Mile is that there's a lot of evidence they suspected Sandusky was dangerous long before 2008. The indictment charging Sandusky with 40 crimes against eight victims covers offenses during the time period 1994-2009, but at least one victim from the 1970s has also reportedly come forward. Claims from the 1970s might fall outside the statute of limitations but would likely be admissible as pattern evidence and proof of Sandusky's Modus Operandi, to show not only that Sandusky was a long-term predatory offender but that his ulterior motive in creating the foundation was to generate a population of particularly vulnerable victims who would be easy to manipulate into compliance and silence. Whether Second Mile knew about incidents from the 1970s remains to be seen, but there's little doubt they believed Sandusky was dangerous at least as early as 1998 when incidents involving two boys in the shower on Penn State's campus were investigated by law enforcement officials and the District Attorney. An attorney advising Second Mile at the time, Wendell Courtney, was also employed as counsel to Penn State. Courtney was well aware that the 1998 incidents were under investigation and he knew the claims included that Sandusky and the children were naked and that Sandusky touched the children. A lengthy report was generated and included information about police listening in on a telephone call made by one boy's mother to Sandusky during which call Sandusky admitted being nude with her son, said his penis "may have" touched the boy while he was hugging the child and that his conduct was wrong. Sandusky added that he would never do it again and he begged her forgiveness. He told her he deserved to die for what he did. As counsel to Penn State and Second Mile, Courtney had a fiduciary responsibility not only to inform both organizations about the allegations, but also to ensure high-ranking officials and board members of their rights, responsibilities and liability exposure. If Second Mile's claim is to be believed - that they were not aware that Sandusky may have been sexually inappropriate with children until 2008 - then we have to assume that Wendell Courtney completely abandoned his legal and ethical responsibilities as an attorney. If Second Mile is audacious enough to claim that Courtney never told them the specifics, and Courtney goes along with this laughable assertion, then the victims can and will file lawsuits against Courtney - and he will likely lose his license to practice law for committing such an egregious act of professional misconduct. Second Mile also knew about Sandusky’s 2002 alleged anal rape of a child on Penn State's campus because the Grand Jury report states that Athletic Director Tim Curley told the chief executive of Second Mile, Jack Raykovitz, about the incident. Raykovitz, who headed up Second Mile for 28 years until his resignation last week, said he was aware but unconcerned because Penn State had investigated the matter and found "no corroboration" for the allegation. Aside from the fact that "corroboration" of a child abuse allegation is never required as a matter of law, and that the word of a child, or, as was the case in the 2002 incident, the word of eyewitness Mike McQueary, is always sufficient to sustain a charge, it is extraordinary and offensive in the extreme that Second Mile would apply a corroboration requirement to its internal policies as a shield to inhibit their effective response to a report of extremely serious child sexual abuse. Any organization that purports to be dedicated to helping children at risk would never require corroboration as a prerequisite to taking action to protect children from harm given that child sex abuse rarely produces corroboration because of its secretive nature and because of how easy it is to manipulate a child into compliance and secrecy. It makes far more sense to believe that they all knew more than they have admitted- especially about the heinous nature of the alleged 2002 incident - because Sandusky apparently cooled his heels from 2003-07, if the Grand Jury report is an accurate reflection of his activities with children. This break in reports of abuse suggests Sandusky restrained himself for a while because people around him, maybe Paterno himself, read him the riot act. Maybe the answer to some of this craziness can be found in the money trail between Penn State and Second Mile. An awful lot of cash went back and forth during the time that children were reported to be victimized and nobody was making reports to outside law enforcement officials. Penn State reportedly donated thousands of dollars to Second Mile even after 2008 - and Sandusky himself was making money off the foundation - as was Raykovitz and his wife. Second Mile ran its summer camp on Penn State's campus, reportedly without paying a fee. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett this summer approved a $3 million grant to Second Mile, even though he knew about the sexual abuse investigation. Reasonable people are asking about why so much money was floating around. With Second Mile offering to conduct only an "internal investigation", the results of which they have said will not be released to the public, it's fair to say there's lot of there there. With any luck, prosecutors will file “corporate criminal charges” against Penn State and Second Mile, which will force public disclosure of all the facts about who knew what when, and why reports were not made. In the absence of corporate criminal charges, a decent civil attorney on behalf of the victims will sue the pants off (pun very much intended) all the adults affiliated with Penn State and Second Mile, put them all under oath and force them to produce documents that will reveal the truth about the apparent cover-up. The public, in a sense, is Penn State’s boss, as it is a publicly funded university. They have a right to know everything about what went wrong, and who is responsible. As a non-profit organization, Second Mile is also accountable to the public and will be compelled one way or another to reveal how a seemingly benevolent organization founded to help kids in need may have facilitated the systematic destruction of so many lives.
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