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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Crime / Sports / Media Philly Sportswriter Who Covered Sandusky Scandal Resigns After Being Accused of Child Molestation

Posted by Goldy on Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 3:21 PM

Attempting to explain the inexplicably inadequate response of Penn State officials to former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's alleged shower-room child molestation, long-time Philadelphia Daily News sportswriter Bill Conlin led off a rambling November 11 column with the following:

People who say they would have pounded the snot out of Jerry Sandusky had they been alerted by the alleged shower-room assault will remember Kitty Genovese . . . Everybody says he will do the right thing, get involved, put his own ass on the line before or after the fact. But the moment itself has a cruel way of suspending our fearless intentions.

Huh. It's an interesting take on the Sandusky scandal... made even more interesting by the news that Conlin, 77, resigned today after an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer (published by the same parent company) detailed accusations that Conlin sexually molested four children during the 1970's.

Three women and a man say they were molested as children by Bill Conlin, a Hall of Fame baseball writer and Philadelphia Daily News columnist.

In vivid accounts, the four say Conlin groped and fondled them, and touched their genitals, in assaults in the 1970s, when they were from ages 7 to 12.

"This is a tragedy," said Kelley Blanchet, a niece of Conlin's who said he molested her when she was a child. "People have kept his secret. It's not just the victims, it's the victims' families. There were so many people who knew about this and did nothing."

Blanchet, now a prosecutor in Atlantic City, says she and the others decided to speak out after the Penn State scandal brought up painful memories of their own alleged sexual assault.

Comments (13) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

just how morally bankrupt are our institutions in this country/world? is there any limit to how bad things are when you peel back the covers?

Posted by philosophy school dropout on December 20, 2011 at 3:31 PM

The moral threat comes not from homosexualist recruiters, bearded Islamic terrorists, or other threats from outside; it comes from within, from our football coaches, from our charities, from our keynote speakers, from our neighbors, wearing sweaters, wearing loafers, adjusting their spectacles as they reach for the bowl of nuts at our Christmas parties.

Posted by Fnarf

on December 20, 2011 at 3:36 PM

Well put Fnarf.

Posted by nicholaus on December 20, 2011 at 3:47 PM

Fnarf, does that mean I have to get rid of the bowl of nuts? What also needs to happen is "Whistle blower" laws need to protect the person calling out the powerful. Standing up to Sandusky would have taken courage, courage that few seemed to possess.

Posted by Sargon Bighorn on December 20, 2011 at 3:58 PM

Unfortunately, the nuts they're reaching for are not in the bowl...

Posted by gnossos on December 20, 2011 at 4:03 PM

#3, Claritin is a hell of a drug.

Posted by Fnarf

on December 20, 2011 at 4:06 PM

@6, Does that mean I should chop lines of it, and snort them off of my very own Fnarf bedpan?

Posted by nicholaus on December 20, 2011 at 4:15 PM

Everyone who was molested by Goldy form a line. We gotta keep this chain going.

Posted by Wicked Virgin

on December 20, 2011 at 4:38 PM

As the article demonstrates, Kitty Genovese is still cited as textbook example of someone getting beaten and murdered in public while scores of witnesses didn't call the police. It turned out that Genovese was a random victim of a crazed killer, but coincidentally she was also a lesbian in 1960s New York City.

2004 radio interview with her girlfriend:
http://www.soundportraits.org/on-air/rem…

Posted by Demetria on December 20, 2011 at 6:53 PM

Isn't the story of everyone hearing Kitty Genovese and doing nothing an exaggeration anyway?

Posted by sirkowski

on December 20, 2011 at 8:42 PM

#10, no, the story is not an exaggeration. Many people heard, no one did anything. She was attacked, her attacker ran, she cried out for help, no one helped. Her attacker returned, killed her. People called the police. Shocking. I think that Conlin actually had a very good point, and that his quote is on point. Sadly, he knows this to to be true from personal experience with the people that did nothing although they knew he was a molester. But, I think that the Sandusky/Genovese is a good example (save the fact it is comparing murder to molestation--both are devastating but only one is murder).

Posted by Papayas on December 20, 2011 at 10:24 PM

@11 That's not what happened. That how the story was recalled in the media much later.

Posted by sirkowski

on December 21, 2011 at 4:18 PM

after the initial attack punctured her lungs, leading to her eventual death from asphyxiation, it is unlikely that she was able to scream at any volume.

http://www.onthemedia.org/2009/mar/27/th…

Posted by sirkowski

on December 21, 2011 at 4:24 PM