by Travis Normand

I don’t like copy/pasting articles to my blog that I find elsewhere. However, every now and then I have to make an exception. This is one of those times.

I wanted to share someone elses opinion on the corrections that have been made to the Freeh report. I posted earlier my thoughts on the changes, but I also found the following article and wanted to share it as well.

Please note: The following is not my own as it was originally posted on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s website (www.Post-Gazette.com). Please visit their website as they have much more coverage on the Penn State situation as well as much more! Link

The following was written by Paula Reed Ward [emphasis added]

Attorney: Amendments to Penn State’s Freeh report ‘disconcerting’
July 25, 2012 12:49 am

By Paula Reed Ward / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The attorney for a former Penn State official charged with perjury in relation to the Jerry Sandusky case called corrections that have been made to the Freeh report since its release “disconcerting.”

The lengthy Freeh report has now been corrected by its authors six times since it was issued on July 12. The earlier edits, from July 14 and July 20, were for seemingly minor errors, including incorrect dates for meetings and an incorrect word choice — “council” instead of “counsel.”

But the correction that was posted Monday at 2 p.m. appeared to be a significant one.

On pages 28 and 52 of the report, it cites an email in which the writer said, “I was never aware that Penn State police investigated inappropriate touching in a shower’ in 1998.”

The original report attributed that email to Gary Schultz, Penn State’s former vice president of finance.

However, in the correction, the Freeh report now says the statement was by Penn State’s former outside legal counsel, Wendell Courtney.

Mr. Schultz is charged by the state attorney general with perjury and failure to report a suspicion of child abuse stemming from an incident in February 2001 in which Mr. Sandusky sexually assaulted a young boy in a Penn State football locker room shower.

Mr. Schultz did not speak to Freeh Group investigators on advice of his attorneys.

“Given all the major decisions and actions being taken and lives, legacies and reputations being impacted based on the conclusions reached in the Freeh report, it’s disconcerting that any substantial factual inaccuracies exist in the report,” said Tom Farrell, who represents Mr. Schultz.

Mr. Courtney did not return a phone call seeking comment.

In a letter to the Penn State board of trustees dated Monday, former university president Graham Spanier also criticized the Freeh report, saying it is “full of factual errors and jumps to conclusions that are untrue and unwarranted.”

John Burkoff, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said that a report like that of former FBI Director Louis Freeh which encompassed 162 pages plus exhibits is unusual, though making corrections to it is not.

A spokeswoman for the Freeh group had no comment Tuesday.

Paula Reed Ward: pward@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2620.
First Published July 25, 2012 12:00 am

At this point in time, everyone seems to have taken the Freeh report as fact and infallible, while a few have claimed it contains factual errors.

Now that we have seen these factual errors for ourselves, are we willing to listen to what Spanier, Curly, Schultz, and the Paterno family have to say?  Are we going to listen intently while they tell their side of the story?  Or have we already made up our minds on what we believe is true?

It seems everyone wants to throw around phrases like “justice must be served.”  Well, in order for justice to be served to anyone, both sides of the story should be heard.