Gerry Sandusky was sentenced yesterday to at least 30 years in prison based on 45 counts of child sexual abuse. This means he will probably spend the rest of his life in prison. The 68 year old man was formerly a Penn State assistant football coach closely associated with the late Joe Paterno. Paterno was the widely admired former head football coach at Penn State University and one of the most successful football coaches of all time.
THE PREDATOR REFUSES TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY:
Like many sexual abusers, on the eve of his sentencing, Sandusky continued to insist he was innocent and blamed his victims stating, "They can take away my life, they can make me out as a monster, they can treat me as a monster, but they can't take away my heart. In my heart, I know I did not do these alleged disgusting acts. My wife has been my only sex partner and that was after marriage."
Further he said, "A young man who is dramatic and a veteran accuser and always sought attention started everything. He was joined by a well-orchestrated effort of the media, investigators, the criminal justice system, Penn State, psychologists, civil attorneys and other accusers."
Here the man is caught in the act, accused by a stream of witnesses, and finally found guilty by the Court, and he still denies his responsibility for his behavior.
Abusers in high conflict divorce are exactly the same way. Thus, even though the record shows that my ex stole considerable sums of money from me during our marriage, and now earns substantal income from sources he denied existed at trial, he still insists to me, our children, and to his entire family that he is poor and has no money.
He insists that despite the considerable medical documentation which states otherwise, he never harmed our children, and that my complaints are all a figment of my imagination. (Please note that in my case, I am not raising the issue of sexual abuse, but of other kinds of abuse.)
SOCIETY REFUSES TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY:
What does this behavior tell you about sexual predators and the way in which society responds to them?
First of all, no one ever wants to hold sexual predators accountable. Consider how long it took to catch this guy--pretty much 16 years in total. The first accusation was raised in 1995 and Sandusky was only arrested in 2011 after years of reported incidents.
How did Sandusky get away with it? Simply by doing what he is doing now--deny, deny, deny, and blame the victim. He does this because this is probably what he did all along. It was a very successful strategy for deflecting attempts people made to hold him accountable.
Sandusky relied on the fact that even when people see the evidence right in front of their faces, even when they witness incidents directly, very few want to get involved in reporting a predator to the police or speaking out about what they have seen.
From the moment an incident occurs, people start trying to find a way to avoid having to do something about it. I recall asking the pediatrician to write a letter documenting the abuse of my children. He refused to do it stating he had no basis for such a letter. I then said to him, all you have to do is say what you saw and summarize what you wrote in the medical records right in front of you. Still, the doctor continued to obstruct my access to documentation that was essential to protecting the children.
Later, when the custody evaluator called as part of his investigation, the pediatrician described me as rude and pushy. Why? All I asked him to do was do his job. But that was too much to ask apparently. When I asked him why, he was quite open in telling me he simply did not want to get involved in a custody matter. And that is the point. No one wants to get involved. No one wants to stand up for a child. No one wants to do what they know is the right thing to do.
SANDUSKY'S CRIMES:
Look at what Sandusky was accused of doing. He was accused of using his access to Penn State's football program to befriend and then sexually abuse young boys, all of them children from disadvantaged homes whom he met through his charity the Second Mile, which was organized to work with troubled youths.
According to Joe Drape of The New York times, "Sandusky had used the charity as his private hunting ground, scouting for potential victims. He gave them gifts and money, invited them to his home, took them to Penn State Football games, showered with them at the university's football building and slept with them in hotel rooms on the road."
Further Mr. Drape stated that "Eight men testified during the trial, offering graphic accounts of repeated assaults by Sandusky -- on the Penn State campus, in hotel rooms and in the basement of Sandusky's home. it was painful testimony, the men telling their horrifying stories in public for the first time." One witness, a janitor, wept when he described Sandusky raping his victim. The Janitor, a Korean War Veteran, stated that the rape was the most horrific thing he had ever seen.
All this went on and it took 16 years before anyone saw fit to stop him? I'll tell you why it took so long--because no one wanted to be involved. No one wanted to be thought of as rude and pushy, like me. Folks just wanted to get along. So when I spoke to witnesses and asked for their testimony, all of a sudden they couldn't remember exactly, they weren't quite sure. Only a tiny minority of courageous individuals stood up and spoke out.
PREDATORS EXPLOIT THE TRAPPINGS OF SUCCESS:
This leads me to another point. So many of these evil people are widely admired, fine upstanding members of the community. That's another reason why it takes so long to catch them. For example, in my case, the custody evaluator stated that my ex couldn't possibly have neglected my children because he is a professional.
As a matter of policy, predators make sure to surround themselves with all the paraphernalia of success--with high powered jobs, with influential community leaders, and with charitable endeavors. This means that anyone who might hold such a person accountable, a mother, a teacher or counselor at school, and in Sandusky's case, a janitor on a temp job, first questions his or her own eyes before questioning the predator.
Gerry Sandusky "was regarded as a local pillar", he played and worked with the highly regarded coach Joe Paterno. He was "a man [people] knew as a committed and selfless coach, a prominent fund-raiser for charity and a gregarious father figure to scores of aspiring football players." How could anyone accuse him?
THE WIDESPREAD COMPLICITY
One way predators like this protect themselves is by making their friends and associates complicit in covering up what is going on. Once such people begin to cover up for a perpetrator, some friends and coworkers become even more aggressive than the predator when it comes to denying and hiding the abuse.
Thus, what is most striking about this case is the long list of individuals who actively engaged in covering up Gerry Sandusky's crimes.
Here is the list:
1. Joe Paterno, Penn States Head Coach,
2. Graham B. Spanier, Penn State's President since 1995;
3. Tim Curley, Penn State's Athletic Director;
4. Gary Schultz, Penn State's Senior vice President for Fiunance and Business;
5. Mike McQueary, Penn State's Assistant Football Coach; 6. Jim Calhoun, Janitor;
7. Ronald Petrosky, Head Janitor;
8. Jay Witherite, Supervising Janitor;
9. Ray Gricar, Centre County District Attorney;
10. Ronald Schreffler, Campus Detective;
11. Jerry Lauro, Investigator with DCF;
12. Thomas Harmon, Director of Campus Police;
13. Ralph Ralston, Campus Police Officer;
14. Dr. Jack Raykovitz, Executive Director of The Second Mile;
15. Wendell Courtney, University Counsel.
That adds up to 15 well placed individuals who knew significant details about the sexual abuse attributable to Gerry Sandusky and did nothing about it. And these are simply the major players; how about all the other folks that knew of rumors but were not sufficiently notable for us to hear about them?
I had the same situation where the GAL in my case actively campaigned for my ex husband, provided him with legal advice, and sidelined any witnesses who spoke out against him.
THE TECHNIQUE OF DENIABILITY:
How is that lack of action justified in the minds of these people?
What they do is add deniability to the situation by relanguaging the descriptions of what occurred. Thus, Journalist Sara Ganim of "The Patriot News" points out how the report regarding what Sandusky had done was watered down as it went up the ladder of communication, such that Sandusky's criminal act was retranslated into something inoffensive.
Thus, McQueary reported an "anal rape". Paterno translated that into "something of a sexual nature". Schultz stated it was "inappropriately grabbing of the young boy;s genitals", while Curley described it as "inappropriate conduct or horsing around". Spanier stated it was "conduct that made someone uncomfortable", and Raykovitz simply heard that there was a ban on Sandusky bringing kids to the locker room at Penn State.
Once the element of deniability has been introduced through the process of redefining or relanguaging what happened, this alleviated the participants in the coverup from responsibility. Now they can all say to themselves and to others, we had no idea how bad it was. No idea? Really?
None of these people stopped to say to themselves, seriously, what we have is a dangerous person on our hands who could irreversibly harm and destroy the lives of young children. We have to do something to stop it now.
The same process takes place in family court where mothers seeking to protect their children from abuse often find themselves accused of being hypervigillant, or vengeful towards their former spouse. Others find themselves labeled, marginalized and silenced with psychiatric diagnoses such as Parental Alienation Syndrome, Munchausens by Proxy, or Shared Delusional Disorder (Folie a Deux).
DISREGARD FOR FEDERAL SAFEGUARDS:
What is notable is that The Clery Act, a federal law that requires the university to alert the campus body when a sex crime occurs on campus was never enacted at Penn State. Further, there was no action plan in place in the event that it was ever needed. That has been corrected.
In Family Court, we have the ADA, a federal law in place to protect the rights of citizens with disabilities, which is intended to safeguard children and parents who may have been abused. Yet Family Court in CT has simply flouted ADA law and refused to enact it. As a consequence, thousands and thousands of Connecticut Citizens who are desperately in need of the protection of the ADA are left vulnerable.
CONCLUSION:
As a person who speaks out against abuses in family court, I have personally experienced and observed how predators get away with their crimes using the very same techniques Gerry Sandusky used. It is horrifying to consider what happens to the children in these situations. They are denied contact with their mothers, put into the custody of the men who sexually abuse them, and harmed for life.
Medical Professionals such as Dr. Kenneth Robson and Dr. James C. Black deny the abuse and go along with even the most absurd fabrications that perpetrators offer to cover up their misdeeds. Then Mothers who try to protect their children often end up falsely accused, publically mocked and ridiculed, and labeled with specious psychiatric diagnoses.
Have we learned anything from Gerry Sandusky? Have we learned that it isn't right to make children wait for sixteen years before they can be safe? Have we learned to ignore the trappings of power and prestige and see the criminal who lies underneath it all? Gerry Sandusky's story is chilling, not so much because of what he did, but because we know he is not the only one.
Likewise, every day in family court there are abusers and predators who are using the court system to perpetuate their abuse. When will they be stopped? When will the court system cease to be complicit? It took 16 years to expose Gerry Sandusky. How much longer will it take our Family Court system here in Connecticut?
