A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that right-wing talk show host John Ziegler dropped by Glenn Beck’s show to peddle his claim that Jerry Sandusky is innocent. In effect, he was accusing Sandusky’s victims of perjury. It turned out that Ziegler not only trashes victims, but has been stalking them.
Well, I recently found out just how far this has gone. I got in touch with Jennifer Storm, Pennsylvania’s victim advocate. She told me that Ziegler has been stalking victims since at least 2012. He’s posted their names, phone numbers, and addresses on his Website, Framing Paterno. He originally started it as an effort to clear Paterno’s name, but now believes Sandusky was framed.
Now here’s where this really gets hideous. Even though there is no doubt Ziegler is engaging in criminal harassment and stalking, the victims would have to drop their anonymity in order to press charges. Thanks to this loophole in Pennsylvania’s shield law, the victims whose names haven’t been made public don’t feel that they are nearly emotionally healed enough to go through a trial without assurances that their anonymity will be protected.
Storm told me that the state legislature has tried to close this loophole before, with a law that had bipartisan support. However, it was struck down as unconstitutional—but Storm and many state legislators are trying to find a way to close the loophole in a way that would pass constitutional muster.
There is something that can be done, however. Ziegler currently has a column for Mediaite. It’s not likely that Dan Abrams would have touched this guy with a ten-foot pole if he knew about Ziegler’s outrageous behavior. Drop Abrams a line on his contact page, on Facebook, or on Twitter and tell him that Ziegler must be fired.