Columnist Bill Conlin Accused of Molesting Children

Ugh. Here's the story.

UPDATE: From USA Today:

On Nov. 11, Conlin wrote a column about the Sandusky case. Conlin essentially scoffed at people who said they would have intervened in the incident where Sandusky has been alleged to have raped a boy in a Penn State locker room.

Wrote Conlin: "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."

If the allegations against Conlin are true he sure benefitted from a number of people who chose not to do the right thing at the time. I've said it before and I'll say it again, anyone who witnesses a child being raped or otherwise molested and doesn't do anything to stop it, is beneath contempt. Period. Full stop.

As for those at PMN who went on record saying Penn State should have cancelled its next game in the wake of the allegations against Sandusky, I don't suppose they will demanding their newspapers cease publication until after Christmas. Neither do I expect Conlin's immediate bosses to fired because they "had to know" what he allegedly did 40 years ago.

UPDATE: Here's the text of Conlin's brief piece:

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. Suspended fearless intentions was the fate that befell a pretty, 105-pound, young New York woman named Kitty Genovese, whose walk home from work through her Kew Gardens neighborhood was ended on March 13, 1964, by a serial killer named Winston Moseley. He picked her out at random and stabbed her to death in front of her apartment building during a horrific assault that lasted nearly a half-hour and took place at three locations outside the sprawling building. As many as 38 residents heard all or part of her shrieking, pleading attempt to ward off a man who stabbed her multiple times. Only one of them called police and that was after calling a friend for advice on what to do. None made any attempt to intervene. Some thought it was a domestic dispute and didn't want to interfere.

Conlin's defense of McQueary's behavior and his snide assertion about those who judge him has a number of problems. McQueary wasn't "alerted" to anything. He claimed to have personally watched the attack as it was happening.

And how does anyone get involved "before" the fact? If McQueary saw what he says he saw he should have gotten "involved" DURING the attack and ended it. There was, after all, no mistaking it for a "domestic dispute."

As for Conlin's alleged behavior, it won't be prosecuted. For the sake of his victims he would do well to admit his crimes - if he committed them - and continue to beg for their forgiveness. But that's between him and them.