It had been 19 years since the then-President of Penn State, Graham Spanier, had emails hit his inbox that Gerald Sandusky was being investigated about an incident involving Sandusky and a child in the showers in Penn State's Lasch building.
Recently, Spanier had opted for a public trial in an effort to prove his innocence, but a former Penn State athletic director, Tim Curley, and former Penn State legal counsel, Gary Schultz, had pleaded guilty for the lesser charge against them - endangering the welfare of children - to avoid that spectacle.
Spanier chose instead to fight his way in court that he was innocent - that the reams of information unearthed by Louis Freeh's report were wrong about his involvement with Sandusky's crimes.
Late on Friday afternoon, on a day of many other news events and distractions, the verdict was in: Spanier was found guilty of the same crimes for which Curley and Schultz pleaded guilt last week - endangering the welfare of children, the cold, sanitized description of the act of allowing Sandusky to go free without much consequence and continue to go throughout Centre County, and even all of Pennsylvania, to molest more children.
It's a verdict that seems to make nobody happy, and also appears to be a compromise that doesn't seem to fit the facts, whether you find Spanier guilty of a cover-up or innocently trying to do the right thing for Sandusky and the Penn State football program.
Curley, Schultz and Spanier may serve some time in jail. But even if they do, it doesn't feel like enough.
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