Silent No More

by Aaron Fisher

  They took us back out through the basement labyrinth and the garage and to the waiting van with the blacked-out windows. They drove us to my car in the motel parking lot. But as we were leaving the building that day, this time I looked around at all the people in their cubicles and offices. For the first time, I was struck by all the Penn State souvenirs. There were emblems, banners, flags, and coffee mugs plastered with Nittany Lions. It was a sea of blue and white.

  On the three-hour drive home, we didn’t say much at all.

  25

  The Arrest

  Aaron

  IT WAS NOVEMBER 2011, THREE MONTHS AFTER OUR MEETING WITH the attorney general. I was certain that nothing would ever come of an arrest when it came to Jerry. Even though he had left the Second Mile, I figured he’d just lay low and everything would eventually die down. It didn’t matter that there was another victim, or maybe two others or whatever it was they were telling me. It didn’t matter that there were witnesses. It just seemed hopeless. It had been three long years since I first walked into Mike’s office at Children and Youth in my hometown, where I thought nothing much ever happened.

  Honestly, by November, I’d given up. Even though I tried to push all the thoughts away, they were always in the back of my mind and I thought about that day when I first met Jerry Sandusky and I was eleven years old. How different things could be if the school hadn’t suggested I go to the camp at the Second Mile. It sounded like it would be a lot of fun and besides, when you’re a kid and an adult like your mom or your teacher says that something will be good for you, you do it. I kept thinking how that week changed the rest of my life. What if I had just done what I did most summers and hung out with my friends? We played catch and chase and flag football. We swam in the dam. We rode our bikes around the neighborhood and hung out. That’s what you do when you’re eleven and it was good enough for me.

  In some ways, it was just a regular Saturday morning. Let me say it this way—it was as regular as Saturday mornings were for the last six years of my life, since everything changed. It was as regular as I tried to make any morning feel in the three years since I walked into Mike’s office and told him what had happened to me.

  I’d had therapy with Mike on Thursday. On Friday night, Mike called me with a heads-up that the attorney general’s office had called him and said the arrest of Jerry Sandusky was going to happen over the weekend.

  The truth is, we had been through this so many times before, with the attorney general saying there would be an arrest. This was the first time that Mike sounded real definite. He said it really was going to happen this time. I didn’t buy it. I said, “Yeah, right. We’ve heard this before.”

  I trusted Mike, but we had both been lied to so many times by the lawyers who said that Jerry was about to be arrested. My mind started racing ahead and I was thinking that I’d have to give more grand jury testimony and do more interviews with the state police until someone finally believed that what I was saying about Jerry was true. I really didn’t believe that Jerry would ever be arrested, because he was who he was. He just had all the power and the right people behind him and we didn’t. I felt like they were just saying that it was about to finally happen and then they’d find a way to get out of it again. I was frustrated and getting angry all over again.

  So, on that Saturday around noon, after another night when I couldn’t sleep and stayed up late because I thought if I did then the nightmares wouldn’t come soon, I was sitting in my living room, watching TV and playing video games and trying to get rid of all the thoughts in my head that were making me feel shaky. I was angry, but I felt sad, too.

  For whatever reason, I didn’t sleep late that morning even though I hadn’t slept much the night before. My cellphone rang, and not too many people have my cell number. It was Tony Sassano, who said that Jerry Sandusky had been arrested. It felt like what I was hearing wasn’t real. Just around the same time that my cell rang, Mike called my mom on her cell. He told me later that he called my mom because even though the news was real and exciting, he didn’t want to wake me with news like that if I was sleeping. I spoke to Mike and then it was like everything started going crazy. Mom’s cell was ringing about the arrest and then Mom got on the Internet and turned on the television and there was the news all over the place.

  So, now it was done. Finally, the arrest was made. I was sitting there and even though a part of me started to feel excited and happy, I was really more scared, to the point that I thought, Okay, now he’s been arrested, and if he goes to jail, someone is going to hurt me and my family. It was just weird. I never thought the arrest would happen, and when it did, something didn’t feel right about it. I guess I felt that just because he was arrested, it didn’t mean it was over. I also knew there were a lot of people out there who believed he shouldn’t have been arrested in the first place.

  I started thinking about the fact that there would be a trial and that meant more testimony from me and I didn’t want to do that again. I knew I would have to but I didn’t know how long it would take. I had already testified three times before the grand juries. A trial would mean testifying a fourth time. Mike told me there would also be a preliminary hearing and then there would be the trial. How much more could I tell my story to strangers and hope they believed me?

  The arrest came right before my eighteenth birthday. They say that eighteen is the emancipation birthday but that never occurred to me at the time. When I turned eighteen, I wanted to be excited, but instead I kept thinking about all the stuff I was about to go through and I just wanted it all to be over. With everything that happened in the last six years right up to now, even with Jerry’s arrest, I felt more like I was on a collision course. I had this awful feeling that just because he was arrested, it wasn’t over. There were too many people out there who still believed that Jerry was innocent. Once he posted bail, I thought, See, this is how they’ll treat him and he’s going to end up walking.

  Dawn

  THE DAY OF THE ARREST IS SUCH A BLUR IN MY MIND. I THINK IT WAS Tony Sassano who texted me the news, and then I remember being on the phone with Mike. Most of all, I remember telling Aaron not to answer his cellphone if he got calls from numbers he didn’t recognize. A couple of weeks later, I moved my family to a new apartment and got two big dogs, a Saint Bernard and a Lab, even though I already had two dogs. I figured that having dogs might keep out anyone who tried to get to us, and the more dogs the better. Honestly, all I remember thinking was that I was glad that Sandusky was in jail, but then he got out on bail and all the stuff with Penn State was happening on the news and it seemed like this was bigger than I ever dreamed it would be. I just wanted to protect my kids.

  Mike

  JONELLE CALLED ME ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 4, 2011, and said that the attorney general’s office filed charges to make an arrest of Jerry Sandusky the following week. I knew that once they filed, the petition would appear online, and I knew that newspaper reporters and all media monitor the Internet. I also knew that the press was keeping a close watch on this case, which was really starting to boil behind the scenes.

  The reporters caught news of the petition, and even though Jonelle said they took down the information really fast, it was too late and it was out there. No one can keep up with the transmission of electronic information. After all these years, I’m thinking, You’ve got to be kidding me. We’ve waited and waited and now it’s just so bungled and Jonelle said that because the media got wind of it all, they’d have to move up the arrest now. I guessed that Sandusky was a flight risk.

  Understand that as thrilled as I was, Dawn and I had wanted some notice so we could get her and the kids to a safe place. We wanted time for them to pack, and to explain to Bubby and Katie what was going on and not just make them run out of the apartment with the clothes on their backs.

  Once we heard that an arrest was impending, Dawn and I were communicating and trying to determine other measures to protect their identities from the press. Jonelle s
aid that Aaron’s name would never appear, but then she said that his initials would appear. It was ridiculous to think that reporters couldn’t figure out who Aaron was from initials. Ganim already knew, and had been at their house back in February. Now there was backlash from Penn State people—students, faculty, and fans—and the vocal ones were on the side of Sandusky. We were scrambling. A few days later, Dawn would move to a different address with the kids and get a Saint Bernard and a Lab in addition to the two old dogs she had, but we didn’t have a chance to get them anywhere safe before the arrest.

  I was at home on Saturday morning, November 5, 2011, when I got the news from Jonelle that the arrest had been made.

  The next thing we knew, Sandusky was released on bail the following day. Here you have this guy who was arrested on forty counts of child sexual abuse and he’s immediately released on one hundred thousand dollars bail? When I first heard the news anchor mention the amount of bail, I thought he meant to say one million dollars bail. That bail was nothing for him, with his money and all his resources. It was like being released on five dollars. Sandusky was brought to the district magistrate’s office in cuffs and released? Later, news reports revealed that the magistrate who decided the bail, Judge Leslie Dutchcot, was a volunteer at the Second Mile. I wondered if she should have recused herself.

  Sandusky posted bail and went home under unsecured house arrest. I wondered if this guy could be charged with the rapes of all these little boys and walk. I knew of people in the system over the years who were arrested on far fewer counts and had either no bail or way higher bail than Sandusky’s.

  I was outraged. I thought, So this is the way that the judicial system works in Sandusky’s home turf of Centre County. This is how they’re going to handle this guy—with kid gloves. Sandusky was back in his Penn State backyard.

  Within days, everything shifted. The breaking news story was no longer about the victims. It wasn’t even so much about the alleged perpetrator Sandusky. There was an announcement that Penn State would be holding a press conference the next day, but it was canceled. A hush fell over the Happy Valley.

  26

  The Walls Come Down

  Mike

  THE BREAKING NEWS WASN’T ABOUT THE CRIMES COMMITTED BY Sandusky. It was all about Penn State, and above all, it was about the iconic Joe Paterno. I was reading the papers and watching the news and trying to keep up with everything just like the rest of the world was. I still have boxes filled with piles of news clips in my office.

  In addition to the arrest of Sandusky based upon the grand jury’s recommendation that they found evidence that he molested eight boys whom he met through the Second Mile, there were charges against Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, Penn State’s interim senior vice president for finance and business. Schultz was also the one who oversaw the Penn State police. The grand jury found that Curley and Schultz had lied during their testimony with regard to information they had received about a report of sexual abuse involving Sandusky. The two were charged with perjury, which is a felony, and failing to report abuse. The attorney general’s office went public now with hotlines set up at their offices and with the state police, asking anyone with information about other possible victims, and asking any other victims themselves, to come forward.

  It was Mike McQueary’s testimony at the grand jury that was possibly the most damning when it came to what was now being viewed as a massive cover-up at Penn State. McQueary, although not initially named in the press and merely referred to as a former graduate assistant, testified that he witnessed Sandusky assaulting a naked boy around ten years old in the shower in 2001. The grand jury called McQueary an “extremely credible witness.”

  Reports said that the witness testified that he had first spoken with his own father and then notified Paterno the next day. Paterno then reported the incident to Curley. In a meeting with Curley and Schultz about a week later, the witness was assured that they would investigate the incident. Paterno was not at the meeting. During the grand jury testimony, Curley called the activity in the shower between the child and Sandusky “horsing around” and also denied that McQueary said it was of a sexual nature. Schultz testified at the grand jury that the allegations proved not to be serious and there was no indication that a crime occurred. He also testified that he was aware that Sandusky had been investigated for similar allegations in 1998. University president Graham Spanier said he knew nothing of a 1998 investigation.

  It wasn’t a week after Sandusky’s arrest that both Spanier and Paterno were fired. Although neither Paterno nor Spanier was charged in the case (unlike Curley and Schultz), there were far too many questions about the fact that Spanier and Paterno had knowledge of Sandusky’s alleged sexual abuse and failed to act in a way that could have stopped him. Spanier was saying that Curley and Schultz would be proven innocent and I was wondering how he could possibly support these two guys who were covering it all up.

  The campus seemed to go into a state of shock. Thousands of students lined the streets, blowing vuvuzelas and air horns, and pumping their fists in the air chanting, “We want Joe!” Cops in riot gear were sending out clouds of pepper spray and trying to hold them back as the students toppled a news van, knocked down street signs and trash cans, and set off firecrackers. It looked like a war zone. The students weren’t rioting because there had been a seeming cover-up when it came to Sandusky and the sexual crimes he allegedly committed, but because “JoePa” was fired. Students rallied outside JoePa’s home, calling out “We are Penn State!” A frail Paterno came to his doorstep and responded, “That’s right. We are Penn State and don’t ever forget it.”

  Students were supporting Paterno, not believing for a second that he had turned a blind eye to all of this. The attorney general’s office told us that Paterno had fulfilled the chain of command and legally did what he was supposed to do by reporting the incident in the shower to his superiors. I kept thinking that yes, he reported the incident, but then no one took action against Sandusky. He still had his keys to the campus and he was able to run free. He was still bringing kids on campus, allowed to use that indoor pool at the hotel nearby, and he was still at the Second Mile. Maybe Paterno didn’t break any laws, but morally he did nothing when he saw that Curley and Schultz did nothing. Paterno remained silent. It was my opinion that the attorney general’s office was so afraid of backlash that they didn’t say or do anything about Paterno. They weren’t going to hold his feet to the fire. Really, they wanted to disassociate from Paterno and say nothing that was negative. The stakes were too high.

  In some way, I had always looked up to Paterno, even though I wasn’t a diehard football fan. I thought he was a wonderful man and coach who held high standards for his players. He didn’t accept any bad behavior and made sure the players all maintained good grades. I met him once by accident, long before all this happened. We both happened to be at the Nittany Lion Inn on campus. I still have this classic box of Wheaties with Paterno on the cover of the box. Now all I could think was, How could he have done nothing? How could he not have sought justice regardless of who the perpetrator was? I was disillusioned. For me, Paterno was guilty by omission.

  On Monday, November 7, 2011, Attorney General Linda Kelly held a press conference stating that Sandusky was arrested on forty counts of child sexual abuse. That was when the term “Victim 1” was first used. Kelly was flanked by Frank Fina, Jonelle Eshbach, and the commander of the Pennsylvania State Police. They had a chart behind them showing a timeline, and there was Victim 1 in a silhouette. Kelly stated that there were nine known victims as well as “the boy in the shower,” who had yet to be identified because he had not come forward. Even that press conference went quickly from Sandusky’s alleged sexual crimes against children to the press asking a million questions about Paterno. Kelly kept trying to dodge them, emphatically saying that Joe Paterno was not the subject of the investigation.

  As I watched it all unfold within those two days after S
andusky’s arrest, I was worried about Aaron’s mental health being compromised, as much if not more so than I was worried that his name would be revealed. You couldn’t avoid the news about this breaking case. There were even news tickers about it crawling across the bottom of the screen on the cable channels. Usually those crawlers are reserved for terrorist threats or maybe a tornado warning, but this case was dominating the news—nationally, not just locally. I was sitting there and thinking that Penn State is crumbling; that Aaron, Dawn, and I are responsible for bringing down an institution. I kept going over everything in my mind, and assuring myself that we did the right thing. But I was the one who pushed Dawn and Aaron and kept pressing forward. I exposed so many people who I didn’t even know were part of a cover-up. It was what my instincts had been telling me all along. This case ran deep.

  I thought back to Corbett and I was sure he didn’t want to alienate Penn State and all of the fans as he ran for office. I thought about what I felt now for sure was his stalling. I wondered if it was all happening because Dawn contacted the FBI, I threatened to go to the media, and Aaron said he was out. We were all so tenacious. If we hadn’t kept pushing, the attorney general’s office might have dodged this whole thing and said that our witness wasn’t strong enough.

  It wasn’t the Sandusky case that enraged people and the press. It wasn’t the fact that little boys were lured and sexually assaulted by a man whose crimes were “more than probably” known to the higher-ups at Penn State. The press was far more concerned with Paterno. JoePa was fired; his more than illustrious career ended not only precipitously but ignominiously and unfairly. They wanted justice for JoePa. How could no one be concerned about justice when it came to the victims of Sandusky?