HARRISBURG — Penn State officials had three opportunities to stop Jerry Sandusky from preying on young boys but failed to take action, state police Commissioner Frank Noonan said Monday at a news conference with Attorney General Linda Kelly.
“This is not a case about football, it’s not a case about universities — it’s about children who have their innocence taken from them and a culture that did not nothing to stop it or prevent it from happening to others,” Noonan said.
Two Penn State administrators are charged with lying to the grand jury and failing to report an abuse allegation. Kelly said Monday that head coach Joe Paterno was a witness for the grand jury and faces no charges.
However, when asked if Spanier could face charges, Kelly said only that the investigation is ongoing. And spokesman Nils Frederiksen said Spanier was not a witness for the grand jury when he testified about what he knew regarding a 2002 incident in which a graduate assistant reported seeing Sandusky sexually assault a boy in Penn State’s Lasch Football Building.
Paterno had testified that the then-graduate assistant, who’s been identified as wide receivers coach Mike McQueary, reported the incident to him as fondling or something sexual. Paterno released a statement Sunday saying he wasn’t told of the specific acts, just that it was inappropriate conduct.
McQueary gave more graphic details to the grand jury, saying he saw Sandusky performing a sexual act on a boy who appeared to be 10.
Paterno reported what he knew to Athletic Director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, former senior vice president for business and finance.
“We believed that under the statute he had an obligation to report it to school administrators,” Kelly said, “and he did that.”
Kelly said the grand jury found McQueary to be “extremely credible,” but did not believe Curley and Schultz when they denied knowing that the shower incident involved any sexual or criminal act.
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