On April 11, Frank Parlato appeared on Fox Sports 98,7 on the show of the radio legend of Penn State, Jeff Byers. The topic was Jerry Sandusky. Like a growing number of journalists and sportscasters in Pennsylvania know, Byers knows that Sandusky is an innocent man languishing in prison. There were some surprising comments made by both Parlato and Byers, and the show ended with Parlato offering to debate any of the Sandusky accusers, the prosecutors, civil lawyers or the judge on how they collaborated to put an innocent man in prison. Byers not only endorsed the idea, but he offered his radio show as the live platform for the debate and gave his personal cell phone on air for the accusers and company to call him to accept the debate.
A week has passed, and none of the accusers, most of whom still live in the Penn State area, and like everyone in the area knows Byers and his reputation for integrity, have called to accept the offer. Below is the transcript of the show and it is filled with insights into the Sandusky case. We will report as soon as one of the accusers, who the media has called “brave survivors”, has called to set up the debate.
Here is the link to hear the recording of the interview
http://987thefox.com/an-update-from-journalist-frank-parlato-on-the-sandusky-saga/
The transcript is below.
Radio host Jeff Byers
Jeff Byers: We are delighted to, again, be joined by an investigative journalist, Frank Parlato, and he is doing yeoman’s work on the Jerry Sandusky case. And Frank, first of all, again, can’t thank you enough for taking the time to join us this morning, we appreciate it.
Frank Parlato: Well, I appreciate being introduced and allowed to give my opinions to your intelligent and growing audience.
Jeff Byers: Well, Frank, let’s start with just a little background. I know you gave it to us last time, but I do think it’s important for context here. This isn’t somebody trying to make a name for themselves, trying to be contrarian.
Your track record here is pretty remarkable as an investigative journalist, both in getting people in jail who belong in jail, and getting people out of jail who don’t belong in jail, and a host of things in between. But give us a little bit of your background here and your lengthy career here as an investigative journalist.
Frank Parlato: Well, I’ve always felt that the mainstream media, from time to time, becomes an echo chamber of its own prejudice. And so, I found that they’ve often gotten it wrong; so often that sometimes I believe we need a contrarian voice, especially when they make such a spectacular mistake as they did in the Jerry Sandusky case.
For make no mistake about it, it was the media that convicted an innocent man, Jerry Sandusky, in your town, and they were relentless in their righteous arrogance to convict this man. So, that’s how I get into the field. I saw this kind of injustice happening again and again, and I addressed it.
I had a few opportunities along the way to put a couple of people in prison and get a few people out of prison and break up a few monopolies like the Maid of The Mist, which got $400 million more for the people of New York and Ontario, and I helped, I think, in a way to stop an unusual cult from continuing to enslave, brand, and blackmail women, among others stories that I’ve worked on.
And I think in the case of Jerry Sandusky, we have a national tragedy that’s occurring with his conviction because everyone was so sure he was guilty, when the facts will show, as you know, Jeff, because you’ve studied it, even a fairly cursory study of the case will show that Jerry Sandusky is innocent and he was railroaded into prison.
Jerry Sandusky
Jeff Byers: The one element, Frank, that I, and I’m talking to more and more people that are in agreement that, at the very least, Jerry Sandusky deserves and needs to get a new trial. Folks that still believe that he is guilty agree after all of the evidence that has been produced that, “Well, yeah, this was a rush to judgment. It was not a fair trial.”
And I have a few folks that have listened to us over the years, and they’re like, “Man, you bring up some compelling points, but it’s just, there are so many victims. Are you telling me all of these folks are lying?” to which you say what, Frank?
Frank Parlato: I think there is no doubt that most of the accusers, I don’t like to call them victims, for surely they are not victims, are lying. There is the slim possibility that some are just insane and delusional, or so feeble-minded that they believe their civil lawyers when they said, “Your memories will come back to you and you’ll get millions.”
Aaron Fisher “remembering” he was abused
But there’s no question, and this is the greatest obstacle I think we have, to show that there weren’t all that many accusers. There were two liars on each end, two teenage liars, and then there was six people who knew each other that more or less collaborated in their stories to create fictions based upon tales that each other told.
And these eight accusers were paraded at the trial as victims of Jerry, and their stories are collaborated, contrived, and conspiratorial. Now, then the second argument, of course, as well, there were 25 other people who came and claimed the same thing. This was once everybody knew there were going to be millions paid, and then some intrepid liars came forward, recruited by attorneys.
And so, my answer is, every one of their claims is false, and I think almost every one, if of not every one of them knows that it’s a lie, but I will give a small percentage of a possibility that a couple of these false accusers may be deluded in thinking that Jerry abused them when he did not. I do not give any credence that Jerry had any kind of improper or sexual intent towards any one of them.
Jeff Byers: So, I’m going to use the word victim one more time in this just because I want to stress a point here. So, if these victims are being called liars, and they are victims of horrible abuse, and their abuser is in prison as a result of their testimony, and somebody else comes along, like you, and says, “Hey, you guys are lying.”
I, as the accuser/victim, I’m getting my lawyer and I am going after you, Parlato, like you wouldn’t believe, because I know what happened to me is true. And how dare you say this, you must be funding off just a multitude of lawsuits here from these victims who are trying to retain their good name. How many lawsuits have been filed against you, Frank, as a result of your accusations that these folks are lying?
Frank Parlato: Well, it’s very peculiar because no one has made a peep. And they know, because I’ve been in contact with some of their relatives and friends, they know what I’ve written, and yet, remarkably, no one has commenced a lawsuit or even a cease-and-desist letter or a call from their lawyer for a retraction.
Jeff Byers: Huh, that is fascinating to me. Frank, if these folks were to get a hold of you, would you be willing to discuss the matters with them and go through the cases, because the evidence that you have compiled is actually pretty overwhelming at this point?
Frank Parlato: The answer is, yes. In fact, I have spoken to one person, actually not literally spoken, but we have texted significantly back and forth, and that is Victim Number One’s mother, that is Aaron Fisher, her mother Dawn, his mother, rather, Dawn Fisher Daniels Hennessy. And we have communicated back and forth by text, and it’s been promising. Our discussions have been promising.
Aaron Fisher’s mother, Dawn Daniels Hennessey
She has revealed already that Aaron was not alone with Jerry anywhere near the number of times that he testified in court that he was with Jerry. As you may probably recall, Jeff, Aaron said that he spent every single weekend with Jerry Sandusky. Do you recall that part of his testimony?
Jeff Byers: I do, and I actually recall the eyebrows being raised just because of Sandusky’s schedule and the impossibility of that being the case in and of itself.
Frank Parlato: Well, yes, and then, of course, at the same time that Aaron Fisher was supposedly at Jerry’s basement, staying every weekend for three years, so was another accuser, the notorious liar, Sabastian Paden. And so both of them claimed that they were at Jerry’s house every weekend for three years, the same three years, the same weekends, and yet they never ran into each other.
Jeff Byers: That’s fairly amazing. Frank, where are we at right now with this, because the great frustration for many of us that know Jerry, know the case, is that it feels like we’re banging our head against the wall. It’s, okay, we have this mountain of evidence, they go into the court, clearly a new trial should be granted, and the judges keep saying, “Yeah, it’s compelling, but nope,” and Jerry remains in prison.
And it feels like there has been no progress through the legal system. I think there’s been a ton of progress in public opinion and in getting the actual facts of this case out, but it seems like we’re just spinning our wheels and not actually getting justice for Jerry, and from a legal standpoint, the truth out. Are we making any movement, any progress in that regard?
Frank Parlato: Well, only because of the former point that you made, which is, we are making progress in the court of public opinion. And in this particular case, like in so many, the court of public opinion will ultimately make the decisions. Now, try to put yourself in the judges’ positions.
Judge Cleland was a timid man, he was not really fit to be a judge in any man’s land where justice would ever be pretended to be part of the culture of the land. He was a cowardly man who didn’t care at all about justice.
Judge John Cleland
He had only one thing to do, which was to convict Jerry Sandusky, which he did at breakneck speed, violating Jerry’s due process rights right along the way, which is one of the reasons why, at least the people who don’t to study the case too much, recognize that at least Jerry deserves a new trial.
But judges are not typically brave individuals, and they have a black line just like police have a blue line. And they do not want to admit their error. And so, this will continue perpetually unless one thing changes, it’s the only thing that’ll ever move the needle, and that is the court of public opinion.
It was the media that put Jerry Sandusky in prison, and it is the media that needs to exonerate him. And since most of the media, if you pardon my generalization, are not terribly able to investigate things with the kind of energy necessary. We need to show them, and we’re beginning to do so, that Jerry is innocent and this was a colossal misjudgment.
Jeff Byers: Are you running into the same thing… You talked about the police blue line and the judge’s black line. I think there’s much the same thing with the media where I think even some that are taking a look at this or have taken a look at this are like, “Oh, my God, maybe we did get this wrong.”
I think there is tremendous reluctance on the media’s part to own up to, “Yeah, you know what, this was a mistake. We need to truly reexamine this.” I think a lot of the folks that had the rush to judgment are standing by at almost no matter what is presented as contradictory evidence.
Frank Parlato: Well, I think that’s absolutely true, that those who have reported in the past with their rush to judgment and their, “He must be guilty because of all these accusers,” they’ll stand back. However, there is a new crop of media, there’s a lot of newly risen media who have come to the scene in the new world of media, which is largely internet-based, who are open to the mistakes of the legacy media.
And they have invariably been open to reporting on the potential of the gravest kind of miscarriage of justice which occurred in the case of Jerry Sandusky. And I think that’s where we are going now, that’s where we are at now, publications that are not heavily invested, mistakenly, in Sandusky’s guilt.
John Ziegler advocates for Jerry Sandusky’s innocence on the Piers Morgan Show
Jeff Byers: Frank Parlato joining us. Frankreport.com is where you can find his work. We’ll take a short time out here and be back with another segment with Frank Parlato on the Jerry Sandusky case.
Joined this morning by investigative journalist and reporter, Frank Parlato, who has done an incredible amount of work on the Sandusky case. And Frank, again, we thank you for your time this morning.
Jeff Byers: I wanted to touch on just the, I mentioned earlier the voluminous amount of evidence that you now have, and I’m just wondering if you could go through the different stories and the testimony and all of the information you’ve been able to accumulate from the initial contact with police, with these accusers, right up to the settlements that they made with Penn State.
Frank Parlato: Well, I think that is the crux of the entire false prosecution of Jerry Sandusky. And to make a point here at the onset, there were eight perjurers who appeared in his case and lied and said that Jerry Sandusky abused them, and then after the case and he was convicted, about 20 or so others trotted forward to perjure and lie.
In some cases it wasn’t perjury because they weren’t sworn, and the Penn State foolishly just handed out money to anybody that made a claim. So it was a total of maybe 30-some-odd people who collected money by lying about Jerry Sandusky.
Out of I don’t know how many thousands or tens of thousands of people, young people that Jerry helped and mentored and uplifted in their lives, he mentored hundreds of people, and some vicious people took advantage of that and used that for their gain.
And so to directly answer the question that you posed, the biggest thing that I have determined through evidence is that every one of these rascals changed their story, and then changed it again and modified it again. So, in most cases, they began by saying, “Jerry did nothing,” and in some cases, “Jerry’s the best guy in the world.”
And as the lure of money and the manipulative police techniques and the despicable techniques of the subordinates of perjury, the prosecutors in this case, and the disbarable offenses of the civil lawyers all collaborated with some nitwit, simple-minded accusers to create a storm of inconsistent testimony.
And we add to this codicil that had Jerry Sandusky been given enough time to prepare for trial, even with his incompetent attorney, he could have prevailed, but Judge Cleland saw better. He had a hotel meeting rather than in court to truncate Jerry’s due process rights.
Sandusky attorney Joe Amendola
And so, combined, this is a sickening stew of injustice. It will go down in history as a classic example of what not to do, or how to achieve injustice in seven easy months, and that’s what happened to Jerry Sandusky.
It was a perfect storm of injustice, greed, opportunism, dishonesty, and perjury, and the suborning of perjury that collaborated to put an innocent man, actually a hero, a great man, one of the strongest men that anybody will ever have the good fortune to meet in life, and put a true martyr in prison when he was 100% innocent, all in the shadows of a so-called institution of Higher Learning, which in its own disgraceful way contributed mightily to the presumption of guilt that put an innocent man in prison.
Jeff Byers: Yeah, I truly think, Frank, and maybe I’m giving too much of the benefit of the doubt, I think there were a lot of people… I think there were certainly some nefarious characters involved here, for sure. I think there were actually a lot of people trying and thinking they were doing the right thing that really helped escalate the miscarriage of justice. I think there were people on the Board of Trustees that, again, I think they thought they were trying to do the right thing, and it led to a disaster in terms of justice. I think some of the people… I think Mike McQueary was trying to do the right thing and got caught in a situation where he could not win.
And again, I think there are a number of people here who got railroaded by the system thinking that, “My gosh, we have somebody who did these awful things to kids. Even though it didn’t happen to me or I didn’t see it, I believe it, and I want to help,” what they thought were the good guys, the prosecutors put away what they said they knew was a bad person, and it just is.
It’s obviously heartbreaking for Jerry Sandusky, but it is heartbreaking to me, Frank, for all of those people who, again, I think were earnestly trying to do the right thing and just got it completely wrong because they were being misled.
Frank Parlato: Well, I think you’ve raised an excellent point, and I do believe that some of the liars who accused Sandusky falsely believed that the other liars were telling the truth. They didn’t all know that they were all lying, so they stepped up to the stand and perjured themselves lying, saying, “Well, why shouldn’t I get millions of dollars too? I knew Jerry. He never did anything to me, but he might have. So I’ll collect my $5 million, because Aaron’s must be telling the truth, or Brett Swisher-Houtz must be telling the truth, so I’ll lie.” And Brett Swisher-Houtz is thinking, “Well, Aaron’s probably telling the truth, and Dustin Struble is, so I’ll lie.” And you had the remarkable phenomenon of liars reinforcing liars.
Now, as to your point about there being some good people, please, I would beg you to reconsider if you would wish to consider the prosecutors among that group. They were subordinates of perjury. Let them sue me if they like for that statement. I believe I can prove it.
Jeff Byers: Yeah. No, I would not count them among the good people who just got caught up. I think because of the way they were presenting things, that they did lead to some good people ultimately doing the wrong thing. Let’s talk about the accusers, Frank.
Again, you’re making some, I think, very accurate and pointed accusations against them, but you’re willing to back that up. And you are inviting those folks, if I’m correct, to go ahead and challenge you in a public forum. And certainly we would allow our airwaves to be used for such a discussion or debate if any of the accusers would like to take you on publicly and directly.
Frank Parlato: I would go even farther… And I thank you for the offer of allowing me to appear on your show live to debate any and all accusers. I’d like to also extend that invitation to any of the prosecutors to the completely confused and probably dishonest Mike McQueary, a hometown boy, and I’d extend that to the trustees of Penn State.
Mike McQueary
I’d like to specifically ask Neeli Bendapudi why she would allow this lasting injustice to disgrace Penn State. I would include in my invitation Ira Lubert, the trustee who played Santa Claus to all his lawyer friends and gave away about a $100 million or better, to false accusers. And did I forget anybody?
Jeff Byers: I would say probably anybody involved in the case you’d be happy to discuss any element of the case at this point?
Frank Parlato: Oh, yes, that’s right. That would include their civil lawyers, include Joe Amendola, although I probably think that Joe knows deep down that Jerry is innocent and he just did a very poor job of representing him. I would include Andrew Shubin, that suborner of perjurer, that encourager of perjury who shape-shifted the testimony of his clients from nothing to gradually increasing stories of abuse that defy common sense and logic.
And is there anybody else who… Former Governor Corbett, I’d be happy to have him on and roast him for his terrible vengeful nature that put an innocent man in prison and wreak some vengeance on the innocent Graham Spanier and disgrace the legacy of the remarkable and marvelous man for decades, Joe Paterno.
Joe Paterno was honored in his lifetime with a statue at Penn State
Jeff Byers: Frank, have you had anybody reach out? I know you’ve published some letters from supporters of Jerry, and folks who are like, “This just makes no sense.” And I would encourage people that are on the fence to maybe look at Jerry’s behavior and the people closest to him and compare that with other true pedophiles, and once they are caught, the reactions by those closest to them.
Inevitably, Frank, the folks who get caught, pedophiles who get caught immediately, within days divorce proceedings are filed, friends closest, they’re like, “Oh, my God! Now that I look back on this.” It is exactly the opposite with Jerry Sandusky. He has encouraged everybody to be open and honest.
His wife, who I know darn well, is a genuinely good human being, and there is zero chance, I mean, when I say zero, there is absolutely no chance that if Dottie Sandusky thought there was even an inkling of a chance this would happen, that she would stand by Jerry Sandusky. But she knows him and she knows darn well, his family knows darn well this is absurd.
Close neighbors know darn well that this is absurd. They all stand by him. And I think that in and of itself is very telling, especially when you then look at the relationships of the accusers and the prosecutors and right on down the list, and how things have fallen apart pretty consistently in all of their lives, I think that in and of itself is very telling in this case, excuse me, and I don’t think it gets enough attention.
Jerry and Dottie Sandusky
Frank Parlato: Well, I think you’ve got an excellent point here. There’s a number of things that are entirely unique to Jerry Sandusky that speak volumes about his not being guilty of the crimes he was accused of. One of the things that have struck Law Enforcement officials and prosecutors of pedophile crimes, that it was almost to the point where they were astonished. Their jaw dropped.
And I got the same reaction from every last one of them, which is that there was no pornography found on Jerry Sandusky’s computer when they raided his house and took his computers, phones, etc, and that is almost unprecedented. I didn’t know that, but that’s what I’m told by people who have prosecuted, collectively, more than a thousand cases of pedophilia; every last one of them had pornography. Secondly, anyone that knows Dottie Sandusky, if they know her even in a cursory way, would know that she would not condone this behavior if she thought it were true.
And let me speak to this one point, how many of you who are listening, whose husband was put away for the despicable crimes that he was accused of committing, who not only stood by her husband, but also remained in the same home, in the same community, having to look at the same neighbors, the same jurors, the same people who accused, and held her head up high. You don’t do that without being convinced of his innocence. She is, as I am, that he’s innocent.
Jeff Byers: Frank, we just have about 30 seconds left. What are the next steps that you are taking, and again, where do we go from here in terms of trying to get justice?
Frank Parlato: Well, we’re going to get media onslaught. That’s coming next. That will become a national scandal, what they did to Jerry Sandusky. How do these accusers reach you if they would like to take up my offer? Would you please give them a number or something?
Jeff Byers: Yeah, absolutely. They can reach my cell phone. I’ll give you my cell phone. It’s (814) 441-0434. You can text or call me, (814) 441-0434, and we’ll put that out here for the next few days. Frank, as always, we appreciate…
