At this point, most people are shaking their heads at more Paterno news; the story has been beaten to death in the media. I don't want to jump on the Paterno bandwagon, but I point out this article because of the new angle the NY Times takes here.
Someone has uncovered a little secret about the infamous coach's finances, and it adds an interesting element to the whole scandal.
Just this past July, Paterno reportedly transferred his home to his wife's name for the price of $1 and "love and affection." The market value for the home is $594,484.
This revelation brings out a number of questions; why did he do it? Was he anticipating the fall out of the scandal?
It looks like he was protecting his ass(ets).
Lawrence A. Frolik, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, questions, "Are they hoping to shield assets in case if there’s personal liability?”
The important thing here, however, is the fact that the NY Times is finally trying to take this story in a new direction. We're all tired of hearing about the obnoxious student protests, the cover-up and the firing of a life-long employee.
Whether or not the NYT reporter was the one to uncover this information (but props to him if he was the investigator), I think it is notable that we finally get to see something new in the story here.
Great line! "It looks like he was protecting his ass(ets)."
ReplyDeleteI loved this story because it (a) showed the reporter thought out of the box to even think to pursue something like this, and, (b) knew his/her way around public records to find the inner-workings of this deal.
From a reporting standpoint, this has been perhaps my favorite story so far to come out of the Penn State scandal.