MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

[witness]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

If falsely accused, this coach may have a big legal claim, no?http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaaf...ach/57782808/1

If he is proven not guilty it sure looks like a case(maybe not though) of some people at the university and the police trying to play hero and falsely arrested him. My question is why wouldn't the police interrogate him or at least question him before they arrested him? Trying to set an example, trying to flex their muscles? Who knows but the whole situation could be bad for Minnesota

[Theee Catrabbit]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

I'm all for vigilance.....but even I think this guy might have gotten hit by post-sandusky paranoia. However, the university will probably happily pay the $2 million or whatever to this coach vs. the reverse if it turns out true(i.e. The Penn State Death Knell)

[jack power]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

If it turns out this guy was just guilty of being incredibly stupid and a bit creepy,then yeah he'll get a settlement. While i'm sure the school will get named in a lawsuit,i'm still struggling to see what MSU did wrong here. The police on the other hand,i assumed had other evidence before arresting him. Like witness said, one would think they could have given him the chance to explain it before arresting him and trashing his life.

[Nidaros]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

.....but even I think this guy might have gotten hit by post-sandusky paranoia. However, the university will probably happily pay the $2 million or whatever to this coach vs. the reverse if it turns out true(i.e. The Penn State Death Knell)

It certainly is plausible. As a 71 year old retired, person, I am almost thankful that my career opportunities did not lead me into coaching or teaching. I did work as a field accountant for the Fed for nearly 20 years, more often than not often working a few days at a time with women. Believe I was careful where I put my hands and what I said and soforth. Some of my fellow employees, one in particular had numerous complaints about how he conducted himself. There are some many ways a guy can get in trouble in dealing with the public and the coach is a public person.

Its a little bizzare and certainly thoughtless that the coach did capture those innocent moments on the cell phone which did belong to his employer. For that I sense some caubabilty. By and large a great career has been damaged by this whole affair no matter the out come

[SF_Rabbit_Fan]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

If it turns out this guy was just guilty of being incredibly stupid and a bit creepy,then yeah he'll get a settlement. While i'm sure the school will get named in a lawsuit,i'm still struggling to see what MSU did wrong here. The police on the other hand,i assumed had other evidence before arresting him. Like witness said, one would think they could have given him the chance to explain it before arresting him and trashing his life.

From what I understand, lots of times in civil suits, the offending party doesn't do anything "wrong."

Kid slips and hits his head while walking next to a swimming pool. Lifeguards and pool staff do everything right, the pool is properly maintained and as safe as a pool can be, but the kid dies doing something pretty much everyone in America has done at some point in their life.

Did the pool do anything wrong? Nope.

Would lots of parents seek some sort of recompense? Yep.

Would lots of judges/juries be happy to give that to the family? Yep.

Would lots of cities or private pools attempt to settle out of court to avoid hefty lawyer fees and a potential judgement? Absolutely.

If charges are dropped or he is acquitted, somebody is going to be writing this guy a big check (most likely in a settlement so it doesn't even get to civil court).

[jackmd]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

I'm trying to play the scenario out in my head and figure out how it is possible that it has gone this far if these are just innocent family videos. The IT employee reported them and they were reviewed by someone in law enforcement that must have some training in recognizing child pornography. That person obviously felt something criminal had been done. Enough suspicion and evidence must have existed to arrest him, charge him and get a search warrant to enter his home. Judges don't usually just hand those things out when someone is otherwise law abiding.

Something more has to be happening here. There must be something connecting him to child pornography or other improper behavior. The alternative seems to be that a successful, middle aged married father of 3 decided to become a pedophile and child pornographer as part of a midlife crisis.

[Hammersmith]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

I'm trying to play the scenario out in my head and figure out how it is possible that it has gone this far if these are just innocent family videos. The IT employee reported them and they were reviewed by someone in law enforcement that must have some training in recognizing child pornography. That person obviously felt something criminal had been done. Enough suspicion and evidence must have existed to arrest him, charge him and get a search warrant to enter his home. Judges don't usually just hand those things out when someone is otherwise law abiding.

Something more has to be happening here. There must be something connecting him to child pornography or other improper behavior. The alternative seems to be that a successful, middle aged married father of 3 decided to become a pedophile and child pornographer as part of a midlife crisis.

After Jerry Sandusky/Penn State, I have no problem believing a prosecutor/judge would go this far with flimsy evidence. We believe what we want to believe.

For the sake of argument, say we had a person in a similar situation. This person was part of a family with a reduced nudity taboo. Say they were part-time nudists/naturists. What would their family movies look like? How would they look to an outsider? I don't trust this country in general, and this region in particular, to be able to separate nudity and sex.

Until the prosecution comes up with some real evidence(and I haven't seen any so far), I'm thinking they're on a road to hell, initially paved with the best of intentions.


After posting this, I noticed your sig line. The second quote seems very appropriate.

[JackJD]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

I'm trying to play the scenario out in my head and figure out how it is possible that it has gone this far if these are just innocent family videos. The IT employee reported them and they were reviewed by someone in law enforcement that must have some training in recognizing child pornography. That person obviously felt something criminal had been done. Enough suspicion and evidence must have existed to arrest him, charge him and get a search warrant to enter his home.

Get on the 'net and looked up what happened in Jordan, MN in the mid 1980s. Crazy suspicions became a runaway train and families were destroyed all by what appears to be an out-of-control prosecutor and law enforcement personnel. Here's a little from the Wikipedia entry on Jordan, MN:

Abuse allegations Beginning in 1983, Jordan was swept up in an instance of what was alleged to be satanic ritual abuse, part of a national trend of day-care sex-abuse hysteria. Twenty-four adults were arrested and charged with acts of sexual abuse, child pornography and other crimes. Ultimately, the accused were exonerated of any wrongdoing, though many were profoundly affected, financially and emotionally, by the scandal

In the infamous Jordan, MN case, the young prosecutor, Kathleen Morris, charged 25 adults with 40 counts of child-sex abuse. The first two cases to go to trial resulted in acquittals. Morris then dismissed all the remaining cases. On the heels of all the dismissals, the State's Attorney General, HH "Skip" Humphrey III investgated as did the FBI. Humphrey's office issued a report in 1985 which basically concluded it was impossible to figure out what, if anything, occurred. That report was followed by a commission, appointed by Gov. Rudy Perpich, investigating and concluding the prosecutor had committed malfeasance in office but she wasn't removed from office (removal was possible but did not take place because of the two acquittals and the dismissals). After that, Morris and other officials were sued in many lawsuits and the voters turned Morris out in the next election. Eventually Morris and others were determined to be immune from lawsuits because they were acting in their official capacities (that is, the prosecution team must be free to proceed without fear of lawsuit from those they were investigating).

Judges don't usually just hand those things out when someone is otherwise law abiding.

Actually, Judges will apply certain criteris in evaluating a request for a search warrant and, very unfortunately in some cases, the criteria does not include whether the subject of the investigation is otherwise a law abiding citizen. Once the minimum criteria is met, the Judge will approve the warrant.

Something more has to be happening here. There must be something connecting him to child pornography or other improper behavior. The alternative seems to be that a successful, middle aged married father of 3 decided to become a pedophile and child pornographer as part of a midlife crisis.

That seems to be a reasonable conclusion to reach but, there are simply too many cases in which there was no connection. Again, see, for example, what happened in Jordan, MN in 1983. (Side note: the Jordan, MN cases were just some of many child-sex abuse cases that came out of what seemed to be a hysteria about abuse occurring in child day-cares. There was the famous Buckey-McMartin case in California and other cases in 1980s. I worked with some of the defense experts in those cases (some of whom were later discredited too!). In some cases, the prosecutors likely were dealing with actual abuse but there were other cases in which the prosecutors and law enforcement seemed to have lost their minds. From Wikipedia on the McMartin Trials:

The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case of the 1980s. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in California, were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983. Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran from 1984 to 1987, and the trial ran from 1987 to 1990. After six years of criminal trials, no convictions were obtained, and all charges were dropped in 1990. When the trial ended in 1990 it had been the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history. The case was part of day care sex abuse hysteria, a moral panic over satanic ritual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s.

My point: too soon to tell in this case. [If you were bending my thumbs to force me to state a preliminary opinion, I would express something like the concern expressed by Hammersmith.]

[Nidaros]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

Does the state of Minnesota want to go down this trail again with the MSU-M coach? I am inclined to think not.

[joeboo22]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

I do understand why MSU-M was concerned but I think everyone rushed the gun a bit. Take it to the authorities, have the coach take a leave of absence and investigate this. But at the same time if they investigated it, it turned up little to nothing, he was allowed to continue and in 5 years you find out its much worse, well then we are all on the other side of this issue. Its a tough situation but I do think they made some wrong choices in the process.

My guess is though some type of a large buy out will occur and he will be a free agent at the end of the year. Or maybe MSU-M drops football, lets the coach go and then goes D-I. Who knows. (assuming he is innocent and nothing more pops up on the radar)

[bigticket1]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

I do understand why MSU-M was concerned but I think everyone rushed the gun a bit. Take it to the authorities, have the coach take a leave of absence and investigate this. But at the same time if they investigated it, it turned up little to nothing, he was allowed to continue and in 5 years you find out its much worse, well then we are all on the other side of this issue. Its a tough situation but I do think they made some wrong choices in the process.

My guess is though some type of a large buy out will occur and he will be a free agent at the end of the year. Or maybe MSU-M drops football, lets the coach go and then goes D-I. Who knows. (assuming he is innocent and nothing more pops up on the radar)

Isn't that what the school did ? If I remember correctly,he was suspended with pay pending results of the criminal investigation.

[joeboo22]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

Isn't that what the school did ? If I remember correctly,he was suspended with pay pending results of the criminal investigation.

yeah, but they did it a little more big profile escorting him off the field in the middle of practice. Some of the issue has to be on the county/city/state who brought charges pretty quick. I just thought everyone could have handled the situation a little more low key and ultimately better.

[2002jack]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

http://www.argusleader.com/viewart/2...news|text|Home

It sounds like the charges will need to be dropped. I think all of us hope that this was just simply a misunderstanding and a misintrepreation by an overzealous DA.

[MontanaRabbit]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

http://www.argusleader.com/viewart/2...news|text|Home

It sounds like the charges will need to be dropped. I think all of us hope that this was just simply a misunderstanding and a misintrepreation by an overzealous DA.

Sad. The DA should have made damn sure they had their ducks in a row before they arrested him. The damage to his reputation is done. The state of MN is gonna end up writing him a check before this is all over.

[joeboo22]

Re: MSU-Mankato FB Coach Arrested

Sad. The DA should have made damn sure they had their ducks in a row before they arrested him. The damage to his reputation is done. The state of MN is gonna end of writing him a check before this is all over.

And you can even look at it the other way, if he was guilty, because they didn't have their stuff in a row when they charged him he got away. Not saying that is the case, but either way they screwed up, at least in my opinion.