Former assistant football coach and founder of The Second Mile charity for children, Jerry Sandusky has been convicted of molesting multiple young boys over a 15-year period. Prosecutors say he used his fame in the community to attract victims.
STORY: Penn State Releases Report On Jerry Sandusky
Breaking news from today shows that top-level administrators, including Joe Paterno, were well aware of Sandusky’s actions way back in 1998; although the court case involving Mike McQueary’s testimony only went back as far as 2001, nearly four years after the alleged 1998 complaint.
STORY: Timeline Of The Jerry Sandusky Case
Apparently, Joe Paterno convinced top-level administrators, including President Graham Spanier, Vice-President Gary Schultz, and Athletic Director Tim Curley to keep Sandusky’s actions under wraps, and to keep Jerry around as a “Volunteer Position Director-Positive Action for Youth.” Strong evidence indicates that is true, if so, it would be a shocking twist to a story that almost made Paterno look like a victim in the situation.
STORY: Say What?! Joe Paterno Persuaded Penn State Officials To Cover Up For Sandusky
Jerry was charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault of a young child, unlawful contact with minors, corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children.
He was found guilty of 45 of 48 counts. The judge ordered him to be taken to the county jail, where he will be awaiting sentencing for about three months. He will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.
Find out more about the key players in the Penn State sex abuse scandal on the following pages…
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Dottie Sandusky:
Dottie Sandusky defended her husband of 45 years as much as she could have. She posted his bail, accompanied him to court proceedings and issued a statement in December that proclaimed his innocence and said accusers were making up stories. She wasn’t charged. She testified June 19th on her husband’s behalf.
Some say she should be charged for allegedly lying during her trial in order to keep her husband out of prison. Others say this may be a case of Dottie simply not recognizing the truth about her spouse of so many years.
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Graham Spanier:
Spanier was Penn State’s president before being forced out by university trustees after Sandusky’s arrest in November.
Spanier told investigators he wasn’t notified of any criminal behavior by Sandusky during his 16 years as president. This fact is disputed, as new potential evidence may show that he decided to not report an incident involving Sandusky in a shower with a little boy, as far back as 2001. He still has not been charged with any crime.
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Louis Freeh:
Freeh was the leader of an investigative team tasked with determining how the abuse occurred, recommending changes, and reviewing Penn State’s handling of sex crimes and misconduct.
Freeh, a former federal judge who spent eight years as director of the FBI, was hired by Penn State’s board of trustees in June. He has conducted an investigation in which hundreds of people were interviewed.
He says that the failure of Penn State went from the school’s top-level administrators to the janitors that cleaned the locker room. He says that Penn State had irresponsibly handled Sandusky since a complaint was filed back in 1998.
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Tim Curley:
Curley is Penn State’s Athletic Director, currently on leave. He is fighting criminal charges for actions pertaining to the scandal.
Curley fielded a complaint about Sandusky in a team shower with a boy in early 2001, and told a grand jury he instructed Sandusky not to be inside Penn State athletic facilities with any young people.
However, he has been charged with failure to properly report suspected child abuse and perjury for lying to the grand jury. He denies the allegations and is seeking to have the charges dismissed.
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Gary Schultz:
Schultz was Penn State’s Vice President for business and finance, now retired. He told the grand jury that head coach Joe Paterno and assistant Mike McQueary reported the 2001 shower incident “in a very general way,” but did not provide details.
He has been charged with a failure to properly report suspected child abuse and perjury for lying to the grand jury. He denies the allegations and is seeking to have the charges dismissed.
Investigative findings now suggest that Schultz had been told of a complaint about Sandusky in 1998, showing in his confidential notes, and further proving his failure to act.
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Mike McQueary:
McQueary is an assistant Penn State football coach. He was a graduate assistant in 2001, when he says he witnessed Jerry Sandusky and a boy naked together in a team shower. McQueary took his complaint to Paterno, who alerted university administrators.
McQueary testified in court June 12 that he had “no doubt” Sandusky was having some type of intercourse with the boy.
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Joe Paterno:
Longtime head coach Paterno was told by McQueary in 2001 that he saw Sandusky and Victim No. 2 in a shower on the Penn State campus; and Paterno in turn told Curley and Schultz.
He offered to resign at the end of the 2011 season after Sandusky’s November arrest sparked national outrage. The Penn State Board of Trustees, however, fired him for what they called his “failure of leadership” surrounding allegations about Sandusky. He died of lung cancer Jan. 22.
Potential newfound evidence shows that Paterno, Spanier, Curley, and Schultz received complaints about Sandusky as far back as 1998. That case, unlike 2001, shows that none of the four spoke to Sandusky, which indicates that they had turned the other cheek, showing complete disregard for the young, innocent victims.
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Sue Paterno:
Sue was married to Joe Paterno for almost 50 years, about the length of the Sandusky marriage. She raised five children with him and has passionately defended her husband throughout the scandal, and continued after his January death. She was among the Sandusky defense team’s potential trial witnesses.
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Tom Corbett:
Corbett is the current governor of Pennsylvania; he was attorney general when the investigation into Sandusky was launched by state prosecutors.
He did not actively participate until after Sandusky was charged in December. Evidence shows that back in 2009, he launched a statewide investigation against Sandusky. However; he only hired one state trooper to follow up on the case, although his office denies this low number.
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Linda Kelly:
Kelly is the Pennsylvania attorney general, whose office prosecuted Sandusky. She’s a career prosecutor in the Pittsburgh area. Kelly inherited the Sandusky probe from Governor Corbett when she was confirmed as his temporary successor as attorney general. She leaves office in January.
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Jack Raykovitz:
Raykovitz is the former CEO of The Second Mile, the charity Jerry Sandusky founded.
He led the charity for almost 30 years and was a longtime friend of Sandusky’s. Raykovitz testified before the grand jury that recommended indicting Sandusky on child abuse charges.
He resigned from The Second Mile soon after the scandal broke, and board members later complained that Raykovitz hadn’t told them enough about earlier allegations against Sandusky.
