Thatcher has a long history in publishing. He spent 22 years at Princeton University Press (MS Editor, Social Science Editor, Assistant Director, Editor-in-Chief), 1967-1989; then 20 years as the Director of Penn State University Press (Director), 1989-2009.
Email from Sanford G. Thatcher to Dottie Sandusky, wife of Jerry Sandusky
April 12, 2024
Subject: Jeffrey MacDonald and Jerry Sandusky
Email from Thatcher to News Nation
Dan and Ashleigh have both brilliantly commented on the (in)famous OJ Simpson case in the wake of Simpson’s demise, noting how that case got national attention in a way no other case has ever done. But their insights made me yearn for their take on two other cases that also got massive media attention nationwide in which I have had close personal involvement: the trials of Jeffrey MacDonald, the Army doctor accused of murdering his wife and two daughters in 1970, and Jerry Sandusky, the Penn State associate head football coach under Joe Paterno, accused of abusing multiple teenage boys. Unfortunately for these two men, whom I believe to be innocent, the outcomes of their trials did not have the happy ending that OJ’s criminal trial did for him.
Jeffrey MacDonald was my freshman roommate at Princeton in the academic year 1961-1962. I got to know him very well that year, sharing a bedroom with about two feet distance between our beds. I later got to know his wife as well when they married while Jeff was still in college. One of Jeff’s chief legal counsels, first during the initial Army investigation and later during his trial in North Carolina, was our classmate Michael Malley, who was Jeff’s roommate during his sophomore year and became my best friend during our junior and senior years when we lived in adjoining dorm rooms. Michael has given me special insights into the case from his firsthand viewpoint and, like me, believes Jeff to be innocent. The case was appealed to the US Supreme Court more times than any other criminal case in history, but his appeals have now been exhausted, and Jeff faces the certainty of spending the rest of his life in federal prison. I still communicate with him by mail.
This was the first of two monumental miscarriages of justice I have witnessed at close hand during my life. The other involved Sandusky, who suffered the fate of being railroaded through his trial on the basis of a discredited theory of recovered memory. I was not a close friend of Sandusky during the twenty years I worked at Penn State as an administrator, but knew him as a fellow church member and casual acquaintance. I did know two of the administrators whose own lives and careers also became enmeshed in the legal proceedings, president Graham Spanier and athletic director Tim Curley, very well and considered them friends and also had some dealings with Penn State’s CFO, Gary Schultz, likewise accused of criminal negligence. Sandusky is trying to get a new trial, and I get regular email updates from his wife Dottie.
In both cases the defendants suffered the misfortune of a narrative created by others for their own purposes that captured the public’s mind and made it difficult for them to overcome. MacDonald’s case was exhaustively covered in national media, nut was biased from the start by Joe McGinnis, who portrayed Jeff as a psychopath in his best-selling book Fatal Vision (1983), on which a TV miniseries was based to cement that point of view. Sandusky’s story was first told by a cub reporter for a Harrisburg newspaper named Sara Ganim, who went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the case, again cementing in the public mind a view of Sandusky as a serial sexual abuser. These were both very much false narratives but were bought by the public and carry great influence to this day.
There were, by contrast, two other cases, each involving rape, which demonstrated to me that the judicial system can work to bring criminals to justice. I also was involved with both of these cases, which did not receive as much national attention but were unique in their own ways. I helped each of the victims to tell her story in a book, and they both became good friends. I mention these in a letter I sent to Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer shortly after he was found guilty in his trial in New York….
Dan and Ashleigh are both such smart analysts of the criminal justice system that I would be thrilled for them to dig into these two other high-profile cases that did not work out well for their defendants, whom I know to be honorable and decent men whose lives have forever been changed by the creation and spread of false narratives.
Editor’s note: I have heard it said that what a man is is written on his brow. For a look at the face of Jerry Sandusky as he is paraded in cuffs and shackles in and out of court: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBb3SV6hpCE
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The entire Sandusky scandal was a political take down of Penn State leadership. Sandusky was a casualty – opportunists exploited trailer trash gold diggers for self serving purposes.
For those who can’t get past Sandusky being guilty, consider all the men (I don’t know of any women but there may be) who lost their careers and served time in prison when they committed no crime!
Innocent educators and leaders of Penn State were also targeted and taken down by the same media circus- with NO evidence.
“Everyday marks the end of a long road towards justice for the children endangered by Mr. Raykovitz inaction – choosing to cover up the abuse at the hands of Jerry Sandusky rather than reporting it to law enforcement,” Shapiro said Wednesday in a prepared statement after the judge’s order.
“No one is above the law, and my office will continue to pursue anyone who looks the other way in the face of child sexual abuse. There are consequences for failing to protect children in Pennsylvania.” penn-state-scandal-fast-facts
The American public are getting dummer and more mindless everyday. This is the mission of the government and the mainstream media. And it’s working
Frank has handed the public Sanduskys innocence- supported by several before him Concrete evidence – and still there is little compassion for the victims of the media and our government
Complacency will destroy our country
In my experience, the public is generally hesitant to concede that accusers may be fraudulent, and that false accusations are as damaging to society as perpetrators going free.
Reporter Ralph Cipriano observed that “alleged victims seem to be regarded as sacred cows”, whose being questioned is simply sacrilegious.
More counterexamples such as that raised in the L.T.-vs.-Joe Gatt article may be needed to soften up this misperception, and free the public to entertain the notion of Sandusky’s innocence.
Also, in the most recent article, the suggestion that Penn State’s law students be let loose to examine the credibility of old and new evidence seems to me to be most timely if not overdue. I would suggest further that the same invitation be extended to non-local law schools such as Duke and/or Virginia, whose discoveries might be less vulnerable to critique as too parochial or subject to conflict of interest, than a Penn State study alone. These two schools especially come to mind as they are schools of national prominence who have had internal experiences of their own (Duke’s Lacrosse scandal, and Virginia’s fraternity rape accusation of recent years).
I’ll have to say that I’m a bit uneasy seeing the Jeffrey MacDonald case brought up in discussions of Jerry Sandusky’s case. My knowledge of MacDonald is limited. I found the movie convincing at the time, but I now know to take such things with a grain of salt. I’ve been aware that MacDonald had defenders, but I haven’t looked into the case that well. He may very well be innocent, but I can’t imagine that there is anything like the mountainous body of exculpatory evidence for Sandusky. Thatcher certainly has a lot of special knowledge of Macdonald as a former roommate and friend, but that could also a significant source of bias.
Another case that could also be very, very loosely associated with Sandusky’s is Kevin Spacey’s. John Ziegler did a podcast contrasting Spacey’s case with Sandusky’s starting at about 10 minutes in:
https://soundcloud.com/freespeechbroadcasting/2017-11-05-3-i-know-he-is-lying?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Ffreespeechbroadcasting%252F2017-11-05-3-i-know-he-is-lying
Spacey later went to trial in a civil case and won. Podcasters, Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer did a podcast series on the trial that makes a very detailed and convincing case that Spacey was innocent:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-kevin-spacey-trial-unfiltered/id1694188036
John Ziegler knows them both from earlier in his career and has unsuccessfully tried to interest them in the Sandusky case.
I have absolutely no problem with seeing OJ Simpson’s case and Ziegler’s connection with it being brought up in discussions of the Penn State fiasco because it’s just so blatantly obvious that OJ was guilty.
Believer’s in the MSM narrative regarding OJ can take solace in the part of the story where he was sentenced to “33” years in prison for the memorabilia nonsense, eligible for parole in 9 [3×3] years, after a “13” day trial, “13” years to the day after the initial verdict. Or, when he was found liable for “33” million dollars in the civil case. OJ scored “33” touchdowns at USC and starred in Naked Gun “33” and “1/3″rd. These numbers kept popping up in OJ’s life. Must just be one of those “Coinkydinks.”
The memoriabilia theft took place on 9/13. OJ died (or did he) on 4/10/2024 [4+1+2+2+4=”13″] at 76 years old [7+6=”13″]. OJ seemed shocked by the news story that he was put on hospice – he either missed that memo or realized he was about to be taken out (didnt look like he was dying). OJ starred in Capricorn One about faking a mars landing, associating him with the 2 biggest fake events of the era (fake moon landing & fake OJ trial). People are being messed with in more ways than they could ever imagine
Great news. This injustice needs to hit the MAIN media for any results to happen. Thank you Mr. Thatcher.
Valient endeavour, but doubtful you’ll get anywhere with MSM actors. The OJ trial was the original reality TV. Take a look at the official crime scene photos – so fake in too many ways to descibe here. A hollywood production – just like the fake moon landing and fake nuclear explosion videos. If you disagree with this assessment, how else do you explain why we’re still stuck with the Kardashian’s to this day?
Who cares what some old guys think. Gerry Sandusky raped little boys thousands of times. Morning and Weekdays dat weekends in pools saunas showers hotels. Parks He was taping little
Boys for 40 years. Not one child escaped
These hundreds of little boys suffer to this day. Suffer and never be free. Why should he go free l? He is the worst serial rapist in history. Just because he raped little bits doesn’t mean he is not guilty. Such a double standard
I was anally raped by my grandmother when I was three.
I did not remember until I was watching a Lifetime movie about a child being raped. I was 42 years old when I saw the movie. and my grandmother had died 15 years before I remembered. Too bad because she died at home instead of prison
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Ray Gricar pipe down I know this is you, blessed day to you
How could someone with atrphied testicles rape anyone “thousands of times”?
Props to my Dad! He was an electrical genius, but, wanted his daughters to know what was
going on secretly… He hooked are cable from corn to porn lol
1 comment
you are a sick person if you would really look at the facts you could see how evident this was an injustice and all those boys were looking for a large sum of money and didn;t care how they got it
How much you in for Rocky? Attempted kid kidnapped by 2 Male hippies, shot at by hyper Male & female killers 70’s,
molested at age 4 under a trailer 60’s
You need to get some help. You sound insane and likely are.
Run. Do not walk. Run to the nearest psychiatric hospital and don’t check out until you’ve made amends with your grandmother.
I wish I would have beat my spoiled fuckin brats harder! I did it alone, not father helphere!
There mammals took care of them! Tell me ur fuckin problem @!! Ass
Watching all these years a family who have unyielding support to their dad and husband makes me hopeful the years of praying for all of them is finally being heard. Thank you for your efforts on this.
Thank you Mr Thatcher
Powerful video.
Please continue to include that in your articles for the world to see.
It would be fantastic if newsnation took this on. FR’s consistent, methodical approach to urge the reconsideration of the Sandusky case is working.
Jerry Sandusky is innocent – Frank has once again made the fraud abundantly clear.
It’s only a matter of time.
Hopefully Abrams and Banfield will delve into this remarkable travesty of justice regarding Jerry. Dan Abrams often has John Ziegler on as a guest. I hope News Nation gives the Sandusky case the attention and clarification it certainly deserves. My fingers are crossed. Thank you, Mr. Thatcher.