Penn St ex-coach, others charged in child sex case

[Stewie]

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — A former defensive coordinator who was integral for decades to Penn State's success in football was accused Saturday of sexually abusing eight boys, and the school's athletic director and an administrator were charged with perjury and failing to report what they knew about the allegations in a case that prosecutor said uncovered a years-long trail of a predator and those who protected him.


Former coach Jerry Sandusky, 67, of State College, was arrested Saturday and released on $100,000 bail after being arraigned on 40 criminal counts, the state attorney general's office said. Athletic director Tim Curley, 57, and Penn State vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz, 62, both of Boalsburg, were expected to turn themselves in Monday in Harrisburg. Schultz's position includes oversight of the university's police department.


Longtime head coach Joe Paterno, who has more victories than any coach in the history of Division I football, was not charged, authorities said, and the grand jury report did not appear to implicate him in wrongdoing.


When Paterno first learned of one report of abuse he immediately reported it to Curley, prosecutors said. Sandusky was no longer coaching at the time and it's not clear whether Paterno followed up with Curley.


Closely identified with the school's reputation as a defensive powerhouse and a program that produced top-quality linebackers, Sandusky retired in 1999 but continued to work with at-risk children through the nonprofit Second Mile organization he founded in 1977. He was charged with multiple counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of a child, indecent assault and unlawful contact with a minor, as well as single counts of aggravated indecent assault and attempted indecent assault. A preliminary hearing for Sandusky is scheduled for Wednesday, but his lawyer told reporters it would likely be delayed.


"He's shaky, as you can expect," defense attorney Joe Amendola told WJAC-TV outside the arraignment hearing. "Being 67 years old, never having faced criminal charges in his life, and having the distinguished career that he's had, these are very serious allegations."


Amendola said Sandusky has been aware of the allegations for about three years and has maintained his innocence.


The allegations range from sexual touching to oral and anal sex, and victims testified they were in their early teens when some of the abuse occurred.


Attorney General Linda Kelly called Sandusky "a sexual predator who used his position within the university and community to repeatedly prey on young boys."


The grand jury said eight boys who were targets of sexual advances or assaults by Sandusky from 1994 to 2009. None were named, and in at least one case, the jury said the child's identity remains unknown to authorities.


One accuser, now 27, testified that Sandusky initiated contact with a "soap battle" in the shower that led to multiple instances of involuntary sexual intercourse and indecent assault at Sandusky's hands, the grand jury report said.


Victim 4, as he was identified in the jury report, said he traveled to charity functions and Penn State games with Sandusky, even being listed as a member of Sandusky's family's party for the 1998 Outback Bowl and 1999 Alamo Bowl.


"Sandusky did threaten to send him home from the Alamo Bowl in Texas when Victim 4 resisted his advances," the report said, and Sandusky gave him clothes, shoes, a snowboard, golf clubs, hockey gear and football jerseys.


"Sandusky even guaranteed Victim 4 that he could be a walk-on player at Penn State," and the boy appeared with Sandusky in a photo in Sports Illustrated, the jury said. He testified that Sandusky once gave him $50 to buy marijuana, drove him to purchase it, and then drove him home as the boy smoked the drug, according to the report.


"This was when Victim 4 was trying to distance himself from Sandusky because he wanted no more sexual contact with him," the jurors said.
Another child, Victim 8, as jurors named him, is known only as a boy, about 11 to 13, who was seen pinned against a wall, by a janitor who observed Sandusky performing oral sex on him in fall 2000, the jury said.
No one answered a knock at the door Saturday at Sandusky's modest, two-story brick home at the end of a dead-end road in State College.


As stunning as the charges were the names implicated at a school where the football program is known for its consistency as much as its success — a big change this year was the removal of white trim from players' uniforms.


The report accuses Curley and Schultz of knowing some details of accusations of sex abuse against Sandusky but failing to tell authorities what they knew.


"It is also a case about high-ranking university officials who allegedly failed to report the sexual assault of a young boy after the information was brought to their attention, and later made false statements to a grand jury," Kelly said.


Lawyers for both men issued statements saying they were innocent of all charges.


Prosecutors said all of the young men first encountered Sandusky through Second Mile.


The first to come to light was a boy who met Sandusky when he was 11 or 12, the grand jury said. The boy received expensive gifts and trips to sports events from Sandusky, and physical contact began during his overnight stays at Sandusky's home, jurors said. Eventually, the boy's mother reported the allegations of sexual assault to his high school, and Sandusky was banned from the child's school district in Clinton County in 2009. That triggered the state investigation that culminated in charges Saturday.


The report alleges much earlier instances of abuse, and efforts by some who knew of it to stop it, to no avail.


Kelly said that in 2002, a graduate assistant saw Sandusky sexually assault a naked boy, estimated to be about 10 years old, in the locker room of the Lasch Football Building on campus. The grad student and his father reported what he saw to Paterno, who immediately told Curley, prosecutors said.


Curley and Schultz met with the graduate assistant about a week and a half later, Kelly said. Nothing happened.


"Despite a powerful eyewitness statement about the sexual assault of a child, this incident was not reported to any law enforcement or child protective agency, as required by Pennsylvania law," Kelly said.


There's no indication that anyone at school attempted to find the boy, or follow up with the witness, she said.


Curley denied that the assistant had reported anything of a sexual nature, calling it "merely 'horsing around,'" the 23-page grand jury report said.
But the jury said Curley was lying, Kelly said, adding that it also deemed portions of Schultz's testimony not to be credible.


Curley testified that he barred Sandusky from bringing children onto campus and that he advised Penn State president Graham Spanier of the matter.


Schultz told the jurors he also knew of a 1998 investigation involving sexually inappropriate behavior by Sandusky with a boy in the showers the football team used. But despite his job overseeing campus police, he never reported the 2002 allegations to any authorities, "never sought or received a police report on the 1998 incident and never attempted to learn the identity of the child in the show in 2002," the jurors wrote.


"No one from the university did so."


Spanier released a statement calling the allegations against Sandusky "troubling" and adding Curley and Schultz had his unconditional support.
He predicted they will be exonerated.


"I have known and worked daily with Tim and Gary for more than 16 years," he said. "I have complete confidence in how they handled the allegations about a former university employee."


Sandusky, once considered a potential successor to Paterno, drew up the defenses for the Nittany Lions' national-title teams in 1982 and 1986. The team is enjoying another successful run this season; at 8-1, Penn State is ranked No. 16 in the AP Top 25 and is the last undefeated squad in Big Ten play. The Nittany Lions were off Saturday.

[FAX]

Originally Posted by kstater

If this guy is legit, JoPa's legacy might not be his coaching record.

http://twitter.com/#!/SPORTSbyBROOKS

Oooooh. Not good for JoePa.

If he goes down for this, it will be a real shame. Imagine ... after his entire career, this is how he'll be remembered.

Ouch.

FAX

[kysirsoze]

How does someone walk in on a sixty year old man sexually assaulting a ten year old and simply report it to the head coach?

I don't want to get all "internet tought guy" but I gotta think that's something you don't just let play out and handle it later.

[FAX]

Originally Posted by kysirsoze

How does someone walk in on a sixty year old man sexually assaulting a ten year old and simply report it to the head coach?

I don't want to get all "internet tought guy" but I gotta think that's something you don't just let play out and handle it later.

They gave him a pass. That's the only plausible answer, Mr. kysirsoze.

It's sad, but it is what it is. I feel for JoePa, though. Damn, man. If it's true that he knew about this 4 years ago, he should have seen to it that the guy was drawn and quartered, but he didn't. And, if that proves true, he deserves to have his reputation flushed down the toilet of public opinion along with the other turd dude.

FAX

[kysirsoze]

Originally Posted by FAX

They gave him a pass. That's the only plausible answer, Mr. kysirsoze.

It's sad, but it is what it is. I feel for JoePa, though. Damn, man. If it's true that he knew about this 4 years ago, he should have seen to it that the guy was drawn and quartered, but he didn't. And, if that proves true, he deserves to have his reputation flushed down the toilet of public opinion along with the other turd dude.

FAX

A graduate assistant gave him a pass? Damn. Talk about towing the company line. That kid's going places.

[VAChief]

Originally Posted by FAX

They gave him a pass. That's the only plausible answer, Mr. kysirsoze.

It's sad, but it is what it is. I feel for JoePa, though. Damn, man. If it's true that he knew about this 4 years ago, he should have seen to it that the guy was drawn and quartered, but he didn't. And, if that proves true, he deserves to have his reputation flushed down the toilet of public opinion along with the other turd dude.

FAX

If the reports are true that the assistant witnessed a 57 year old man having anal sex with a 10 year old boy, reported it to Paterno who just notified the administration he deserves no sympathy for whatever grief comes his way.

[suzzer99]

This report is horrifying. It reads like some historical account of a twisted Roman emperor: (Warning, don't read if you're squeamish about child molestation, it really is horrible)http://i.usatoday.net/sports/college...grand-jury.pdf

[BryanBusby]

I really would suggest not reading the detailed report. It was sick from the start, than it just got worse with the number of victims piling up.

This dude is a sick ****

[suzzer99]

The only reason I think it's worth reading is you know how pervasive this was, and therefore how obvious it is that JoePa and the whole athletic dept had to know it was going on for at least a decade.

But yeah, don't read if you're squeamish - I'll add a warning.

[tecumseh]

Sick, disgusting . No one who knew of this in any way should get a pass. Burn in hot,hot hell ,you corruptors of innocence. You pathetic distructors of all things good and righteous.
Never die, but set in an unending burning for your heinous acts, you foul pervertor of our youth and trust. You should be impaled on the spike and allow gravity to remind you our ghastly deeds.

[Setsuna]

Gross.

[WV]

If Penn State doesn't use this as an excuse to get rid of JoePa they shouldn't be able to play football anymore.

They've clung to this old geezer that the game passed by years and years ago for whatever reason and if they don't remove his old ass for this the University has no integrity and JoePa has too much power.

[suzzer99]

Imagine the recruiting damages from this.

[BryanBusby]

Originally Posted by suzzer99

Imagine the recruiting damages from this.

Going on probation due to impermissible is a situation where you start to worry about the recruiting.

When your institution of learning was used as a hideout for a dude to have sex with underage boys and top officials were covering it up, recruiting issues is pretty far low on the list of worries.

According to prosecutors, the first serious chance Penn State had to halt the abuse came in 1998, when Sandusky was still an assistant for Paterno. A mother of an 11-year-old boy Sandusky had befriended at his charity reported to the Penn State campus police that her son had been touched and held by Sandusky in a shower inside the campus’s football facility.

Prosecutors said a “lengthy” investigation — one that grew to include allegations about a second young child being similarly touched by Sandusky in a shower — was carried out by the campus police. But they offer few details about the nature of that investigation: who was interviewed, whether Paterno or other university officials were apprised of it.

They do, though, say that at least two campus detectives took the case seriously and heard Sandusky admit to the misconduct in a conversation with the mother of one of the boys. Additionally, prosecutors said Sandusky was interviewed by one of the detectives and an investigator with the state’s child welfare agency. In that interview, they said, Sandusky admitted to showering with the boys and conceded that it “was wrong.”

According to prosecutors, a decision not to prosecute Sandusky was made by the county district attorney, who has since died. The lead campus police detective was subsequently told to close the case by Thomas Harmon, then the director of the campus police force. It appears Sandusky was merely encouraged to never again shower with a child.

The prosecutors, though, do assert that at least one prominent Penn State official, a lawyer for the university, was told of the 1998 allegations and investigation. That official, Wendell Courtney, said in an interview Sunday that he had learned of allegations about Sandusky in 1998, but had left it to the police and prosecutors to investigate.

“Whatever they did, they did,” he said of the campus police and local district attorney.

Courtney said he never sought to find out why no action had been taken. He said he believed that Penn State’s athletic director, Curley, knew of the allegation and the investigation, but was unsure whether other people in senior positions at the university knew of the episode.

This makes an already disturbing situation even worse.

As for Joe Paterno, I think he did what he could and will be an asset to get this guy locked away from life. This is going to be another example of a successful figure in sports getting the benefit of doubt for way too long and a legend will probably fall on the sword because people clouded their reasoning because FOOBAWWW

E: The more I read about this, everybody should go immediately.

[BigRock]

What Tressel did was worse.

/Penn State fan

[LiveSteam]

Bet Sandusky kills himself before the weak is over

I expect that to be the next big headline out of Penn;ST
I will take Tuesday at 1100 hours