Rape, Sports, Television

Sports Law, Spaw, Lorts: Más Sandusky

In today's sports law column: Jerry Sandusky, Joe Amendola, and Kevin Pezzoni.

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Ed. note: This new column is about sports and the law. You can read the introductory installment here.

Hardly was I surprised that the Democratic National Convention took up most of my attention last night. I saw it approach from Monday last and should have surely set aside time to write the flowery and horrible introductions that I am known for around these parts. Alas, I did nothing of the sort. I neither plumbed the depths of my own sick psyche nor hit up Mama Juggs for a blast from my past. I couldn’t even be bothered to make up something really dumb to open this column. Consider yourself lucky.

Instead, because of my devotion to and obsession with watching Joe Biden’s hair plugs gently sway, this week’s installment is a lean one. Consider the previous editions the bloated, corpulent Vegas Elvis, and consider the one you’re currently reading as the young, join-the-Army, good-looking dynamo Elvis. Or something.

Let us converse about sports, shall we?

SANDUSKY

“What do they say about Monday morning? 20-20?”

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That’s Jerry Sandusky’s attorney, Joe Amendola. This week brought news that Jerry Sandusky regretted not testifying at his trial. That he must have thought his defense would have been stronger had he shared his story with jurors. The defensive coordinator partaking in what his attorney calls Monday morning quarterbacking.

Amendola believes that Sandusky’s sentencing will happen next month. And at that sentencing, he has encouraged his infamous client against making a statement. What that statement could consist of is beyond me, but Amendola’s advocacy in this particular instance makes no sense. Not that it would have likely done much, but the time to stop Sandusky from talking was back when he gave an interview to Bob Costas. An interview that solidified in most of America’s mind just what a child molester sounds like when he is interviewed by Bob Costas. And now, when Sandusky is facing what even Amendola admits is a likely life sentence, he is told to shut up? This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. But then again, I’m merely an internet presence.

And Amendola seeks to become… a TV presence. That’s right, with sentencing a month away and with Joe Amendola telling his client to shut his piehole, this week also brought the news that Joe Amendola may be making a move to television. Maybe, if television will let him. As part of a largely batsh*t interview with Sara Ganim, Amendola had this to say about his potential next career:

It might be the right time to try something new.

“Legal consultant,” he says, containing a smirk. “For a network.”

He’s talking about the “talking heads” who called him a moron, who criticized him for his decisions and tactics throughout the Sandusky case.

“That probably is the most appealing thing so far, because it removes all the nonsense,” he said. “I think I make sense when I try to explain things. Journalists would say, ‘Enough already, Joe. Enough with the talking.’ But I answered the questions.”

A contract with a network could give him time to teach on the side. Maybe even have time to write a book.

If not television, Amendola continued, he might want to be an astronaut or a firetruck when he grows up. But what of that potential book?

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A book deal? Amendola says he had a book idea long before Sandusky walked into his office. “I can’t go into confidential stuff, but I wouldn’t write about him. I would just write about what it was like in the legal realm of representing him,” he said. (There is at least one funny Sandusky story he would tell. I promised I wouldn’t share, but I swear it’s good.)

From attorney-client privilege to that one time the man convicted of raping children did that funny thing, there isn’t a whole lot Amendola can’t be flip about. He’s really a treasure. If you want to know more about crazy Joe Amendola, please read Ganim’s article. In the alternative, if you don’t give a sh*t about Amendola and would instead like to read an outstanding take on what remains in Happy Valley after the neutron Sandusky bomb went off, read Drew Magary’s essay here.

SPRECHEN?

In this section, we dissect a story about soccer. Articles about soccer fascinate me because they seem to have been run through a very cheap foreign-to-English translator. Take the following article from ESPN, which is about a soccer player named Kevin Pezzoni and the legal action he intends to take. Anything else about the story would be pure conjecture as the article makes little to no sense.

The article starts simply enough, with this brutally declarative sentence: “The lawyer of former Cologne player Kevin Pezzoni has confirmed the free agent will take legal steps against his offenders.” That’s it. That’s how it starts. No easing into the subject at hand. Just a recognition of what the unnamed lawyer of Kevin Pezzoni is going to do. Because of offenders. It goes on:

Pezzoni, 23, was released from his contract after being threatened by fans last Friday. The club felt they were left with no other option but to allow him to leave.

Reports in Germany accused the Bundesliga 2 club of giving up in the face of violence, leaving Cologne’s chief executive Claus Horstmann having to defend the club.

“In this individual we had to decide this way,” he told kicker. “It is not a standard solution. But we decided in the sense of Kevin. Maybe we don’t know everything.”

In that individual they had to decide that way. I get that. What I don’t get is… everything else. Why is Kevin Pezzoni being threatened? And by whom? And shouldn’t Germans avoid the word “solution?” The article goes on to print insults levied by fans of the soccer team against Germany’s lamestream media:

Meanwhile Cologne supporters group Coloniacs released a press statement in which they distanced themselves from the attackers. They stated that they did not know what happened but if people were of the mind that attacking a player was a good idea then they had “less brains than the folks over at Amsterdamer Straße”, the street where Cologne papers Kölner Stadtanzeiger and Express reside.

And then it just kinda ends. Without any real sense of what’s going on and how Kevin Pezzoni got himself into this mess. It just ends without any resolu….

RAP SHEET ROLL CALL

* Two former NFL players are headed to prison after being convicted of running an identity theft and tax fraud scheme. If anyone would like to steal my identity, please email me at juggalolaw@gmail.com. A decent life OBO. Thanks.

* An Alabama man was arrested after punching his son’s high school football coach after an opening-season loss. Asked why he allegedly assaulted the coach, the man said, “Roll tide. Roll damned tide. Roll tide.”

* A mixed martial arts fighter nicknamed the “Plexin Texan” was arrested after allegedly killing a bicyclist who disrespected him. The victim probably didn’t make fun of his nickname because “Plexin Texan” is a really great nickname. Really great.

HAIKU TIME

I’ve come to believe that Quiz Time is just as dumb as you probably have always thought it was. Which is why Quiz Time is now Haiku Time. If you were scared to participate in Quiz Time because you’re stupid — or maybe you’ve never been good at tests, which doesn’t mean you’re stupid you like to tell yourself, but deep down inside you know that tests are a pretty decent proxy for intelligence because Christ, how else can you prove you’re smart other than tests, you big dummy — well, maybe Haiku Time will be more your speed. This inaugural haiku is dedicated to associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Alan Page. It’s titled “First Down and a Lifetime Gone.”

Purple People Eat
First Down and a lifetime gone
I miss Quiz Time too

Jerry Sandusky regrets not testifying [ESPN]
Joe Amendola ponders his life after Jerry Sandusky [The Patriot-News]
Pezzoni to take legal action [ESPN]

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