Guest View
This is the third of a series.
By John Atwell Moody
Built on Nothing, Fueled by Everyone: The Sandusky Case as a Cautionary Tale
In the USA, the Moulton report [29] found that the Sandusky case had been initiated years earlier by Dawn Daniels, who retained civil lawyer Slade McLaughlin to go after Sandusky on behalf of her son Aaron Fisher.
Aaron and Sandusky had both described the noise-on-the-stomach game but that absolutely nothing else had happened. Michael Gillum, an untrained therapist, describes his sessions with Aaron as “peeling an onion” to get to the truth.
Gillum used the phrase “oral sex” to describe the same innocent (and randomly infrequent during play) activity which both Aaron and Sandusky had already admitted to, and Gillum was willing to testify at the Grand Jury on Aaron’s behalf, with Aaron refusing to accept Gillum’s terminology, unless the prosecutor Jonelle Eshbach could provide a second independent fragment of evidence suggesting Sandusky had at least abused someone [30].
The grand jury declined to indict [31] and everything was repeated for the second grand jury the next year with Aaron reading Gillum’s words.
Even throughout the days before the trial, Dawn and Aaron’s civil lawyer Slade McLaughlin still hadn’t learned of any abuse, saying even at that late stage nothing stronger than, where there is smoke there is usually also fire [32].
After the trial, even to this day, and even after collecting her settlement, Daniels has been careful not to commit perjury and still says she is not aware of any particular incident of abuse that Sandusky may have committed [33].
It had been over a span of years, during which time no evidence against Sandusky was ever found, that Daniels had drip-fed her possible concerns — about who was now nothing but one of Aaron’s ex coaches from the past — through her son’s school, through social services, and through emails and telephone calls to Eshbach at the AG office.
Eventually there a rumor started to fly about Mike McQueary based on something in an internet forum, and it was found that separately a previous investigation had already cleared Sandusky. As I’ll explain a bit later, email communication between the AG office, police and judges wasn’t careful and professional.
Within the police department, Aaron’s story was given to Brett Swisher-Houtz during an interview. Swisher-Houtz had always denied being abused but admitted wrestling, didn’t like losing. Police were tape recorded telling Swisher-Houtz about Aaron (really Gillum) but exaggerating to try to elicit a response, and telling Swisher-Houtz that in the very same circumstance dozens of kids had been seriously sexually abused. Swisher-Houtz’ civil lawyer Benjamin Andreozzi was present while someone had pressed ‘record’ on the tape machine during a break when Swisher-Houtz had been sent outside [34].
He had been saying no abuse had occurred, and during the break the police described their strategy, essentially the Reid technique, to use lying as a way of gathering evidence. Andreozzi had been well-known in those days for his ethics and pro-bono work, and just as during witness testimony McGettigan had been careful not to score any points that landed in his lap in an unethical way, here wants to be careful that the history of the changes in his client’s testimony which will enrich the conditional fee agreement are fairly documented.
Andreozzi was careful to explain to journalists that part of the reason his client is testifying is because of the experiences of other victims, and even as late as Sandusky’s sentencing hearing Swisher-Houtz kept his financial motive clothed in the demonstrably unsubstantiated police claims of others needing rescue “I hope that the others, who were abused …will forgive me for not coming forward sooner” [35]. This is a phenomenon that a stats podcaster in the Letby case calls a feedback-loop of evidence [36].
From Recollection to Recitation: Aaron Learned to Say What Prosecutors Needed
Aaron Fisher came to understand everything a few hours after he testified. Ganim had always described Sandusky having chores, expectations and a college fund for Aaron just as he’d had for Matt and others.
When Aaron hadn’t been home Sandusky had been angry, demanding Dawn explain where he’s gone. We recall, from the Moulton report, that Aaron was unwilling to switch to Gillum’s terminology until someone else said something. At court this someone — who was none other than Swisher-Houtz — asks Aaron, would testifying earlier have saved Aaron’s pain.
Realizing from the question nothing happened to Swisher-Houtz, Aaron decides he’s still not feeling ashamed of his testimony because Jerry had yelled at his Mom. We know this because the ‘Silent No More’ ghostwriter quotes Aaron [47] recollecting his verbatim reply to Swisher-Houtz, “If Jerry would have just left me alone when I said I didn’t want to hang out with him anymore instead of … going crazy the way he did, I might not have said anything either.”
Dawn may never have had certain experiences like with an employer or a stable partner, where limits can be reached and everything’s still OK. Although the grand jury presentment mentions Sandusky having “shouting matches”, even a request [54] like saying: it’s two hours round trip, if Aaron wants to work next week have him phone to let me know, would have felt like it is the first crack in a little world which had shattered before, where Dawn and Aaron are always welcome and can do no wrong.
And this is very consistent with what Dawn said [48] to her neighbour after the argument, after Sandusky had left. She said what makes sense for a loyal wife, unfairly rejected by a husband asking for a divorce, and wanting to hold onto all the material remnants, “I’ll own his house.” And what makes sense for a woman with no choice but to try to support her kids with whatever remnants she hopes to cling onto from one after another failing relationship.
I’d be unfair to Aaron if I didn’t say more. Aaron actually had tried really hard not to throw Sandusky under the bus. In police interviews where the Reid method is used, saying that no crime occurred always just means you aren’t cooperating.
Here it is even worse, as Curley and Schultz had been charged with perjury when they tried to deny that there’s a crime. Something like the Reid method actually is needed, otherwise anyone could shut down a police interview at the beginning by saying there was no crime, nothing to witness.
The Reid method is when police tell people, whether it’s true or not, look, we already have proof that the crime happened while you were there. It’s considered an honest lie because it wouldn’t directly influence what the witness says they did or did not see.
A witness is allowed to say, just as McQueary said, according to their testimony, to both his father and his father’s colleague the nephrologist Dr. Dranov before his first police interview, that he had not been able to see into the shower room. In fact there is no line of sight. The police can counter, as they must have done for McQueary, well, there actually is a line of sight because the wall opposite to your locker is installed with a mirror.
This explains why in the preliminary perjury hearing [49] for Curley and Schultz, subsequent to the police interview McQueary instead says, “…as I turned and faced my locker I looked over my right shoulder into the mirrors.”
At a 45 degree angle from that mirror you can see into the showers,” while his actual quote about what he saw remains no more than an abstract judgement like a referee would say about a play in a football match, “what I had seen was extremely sexual and over the lines and it was wrong,” with no actual observation underlying this at all, of what it is or why it is wrong.
When asked for details, he seemed to say he’s 100% sure, but also “I can’t tell you a thousand percent sure that was what’s going on.”
In such a police interview, the only way to say you actually think it didn’t happen, if you don’t want to be confrontational, if you don’t want the interview to just stall when you might be hungry, or need to go to the bathroom, or have things to do, is to say “I don’t know” or “What?” or “Sorry, I just blacked out for a second.”
It is an obvious fact, but maybe one that needs repeating, that it is not actually possible to directly remember an interval of lost consciousness. We have no difficulty with the familiar notion “I fell asleep last night” but it doesn’t actually mean we witnessed ourself falling asleep.
What it always means, of course, is that the fact we fall asleep each night is something we deduce in an obvious way each next morning once something like a person, or the dawn chorus of birds or an alarm clock or just the passage of time wakes us up.
In a police interview when Aaron says “I blacked out” it does not mean that he’s remembering that Sandusky actually drugged him, or knocked him unconscious at the relevant next moment when Aaron was supposed to be witnessing a crime. It refers to what happens during the interview.
It means, Aaron was going along, telling police the things he remembers, and then no particular next thing arose in his mind. The sequence of recollections ended, at least temporarily. I don’t want to boast, but I think it’s a useful addition to the theory of recovered memories to try to attach a particular meaning to what a witness says when they say they have blacked out.
Eshbach’s careful wording of the grand jury presentment says Sandusky performed oral sex more than 20 times, and that one time Aaron did it and Sandusky’s hands contacted Aaron’s private area, throughout a two year interval. It is not totally clear whether the hands contacted the private area through the clothes, and whether this happened one time or more than one time.
We know that for some years Aaron described the T shirt game only, later allowed Gillum to use the phrase ‘oral sex’ to describe it, and finally after learning of Swisher-Houtz testimony, would recite Gillum’s words.
To Be Continued…
- REPORT TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL ON THE INVESTIGATION OF GERALD A. SANDUSKY, G. Moulton, May 30, 2014.
- The same report mentions that in November 2008 Aaron made only non-sexual claims while Gillum introduces sexual terminology. Aaron’s mother Dawn contacts Eshbach repeatedly including in October 2010 to say that internet postings suggest Sandusky is a molester but still no second accuser is found. Eshbach emails Fina in November 2010 to mention that reporters knocked on Dawn’s door and that Dawn “denied any knowledge.” In August 2010 Eshbach mentions in an email that Dawn has contacted her four times. No second accuser was found by August 2011 and the Silent No More ghostwriter quotes Gillum quoting Aaron in a meeting that month including Eshbach and Dawn saying with Aaron saying“I’m out” and that he is going to withdraw his testimony.
- same
- NBC 10 news report of WCAU-TV Philadelphia interview by Luan Cahn, McLaughlin says “In my view, in my experience as 30 years as a lawyer, where there’s smoke there’s fire, and there’s a whole hell of a lot of smoke surrounding Jerry Sandusky right now.”
- One source for this is Ganim’s report after Sandusky’s guilty verdict, Dawn is in a car and pulls over and mentions she still doesn’t know what Sandusky may or may not have done to Aaron.
- Sandusky trial transcript.
- CNN, Ann O’Neil, October 13, 2012
- Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering Baby C based on evidence from a day when she wasn’t on shift, Medium.com, “By falling into a feedback loop of their own reports…” author TriedByStats
- NBC news report, N. Morales, November 22, 2011
- Pennsylvania Attorney General Exposed 1000s of Pornographic, Racist Government Emails But Now Faces Her Own Scandal, ABC News, June 22, 2016
- Four arguments for the elimination of television, G. Mander, 1978
- Where do I sit, Peter Cook and Spike Milligan comedy show, 1971, received complaint by Whitehouse and later was cancelled.
- Chambers and Seasock reports.
- One reference is “Nazi Germany 1933-1939” on MyJewishLearning.com, it mentions that in 1933 Jehovas Witnesses were killed and their children sent to orphanages. I think I’ve seen similar stories regarding all persecuted groups and that a self-justification for changing such policies and sending children with the parents was believed to be humanitarian from the Nazi perspective.
- Framing Paterno website
- JS Bach, Passion of St John
- “I was part of the panel that reviewed the Lucy Letby case. I believe that the trial was fundamentally flawed”, N. Modi, Guardian, 23 February 2025
- Press conference, 1 Great George Street, 4 February 2025, including Shoo Lee, Neena Modi, Sir David Davis
- A. Fisher, Silent No More, page 194
- Josh Fravel, interview with J Ziegler uploaded on 2 May, 2015
- Transcript, McQueary testimony in preliminary Curley and Schultz perjury hearing, 16 December, 2011
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Alright, Frank. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to retrieve some valuable cargo.
Operation Rowboat Recon
Intel suggests a significant quantity of “Florida Snow” is making landfall. Your objective is to approach the designated beach by rowboat, secure a few bales, and extract them without drawing attention.
This message will self-destruct. Good luck, Frank.
Think of the dominoes, Frank. One piece falls, and the whole bloody lot goes with it. The agents we have embedded, the safe houses, the counter-intelligence we’ve painstakingly gathered – all of it becomes compromised.
Your Imperative
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to extract Jerry. It’s not a suggestion; it’s an absolute necessity. Every second he’s incarcerated, the risk escalates. The fate of something far bigger than you or I, or even Jerry, rests squarely on your shoulders. Now, get on with it, there’s a good chap. We haven’t got all day.