Nine months after being indicted, three former Penn State administrators charged with obstruction of justice and perjury in the fallout of the Jerry Sandusky child abuse case finally have a court date for a preliminary hearing.
Graham Spanier, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz will appear on July 29 and July 30, and even Aug. 1 if needed, for the long-awaited preliminary hearing during which prosecutors from the Attorney General’s Office will present their evidence in attempt to have a district judge hold it over for possible trial.
Dauphin County District Judge David Wenner on Tuesday scheduled the hearings, which will start at 9 a.m. each day in courtroom No. 1 of the Dauphin County Courthouse in Harrisburg.
The three were charged in November based on evidence that came out during former FBI director Louis Freeh’s investigation for Penn State, such as emails suggesting Spanier, Curley and Schultz discussed how to handle abuse allegations against Sandusky more than a decade ago.
But, the former administrators’ defense attorneys tried to have the charges dismissed through various levels of the state court system.
The lawyers currently have a motion before Wenner to throw out the charges on the grounds that the allegations are based on the illegal grand jury testimony of Cynthia Baldwin, the university’s former general counsel.
Curley and Schultz already have been through one preliminary hearing. That was for perjury and failure to report abuse charges based on the original presentment that outlined the allegations against Sandusky, and Judge Wenner held it over for possible trial.
The preliminary hearing later this month will address the obstruction of justice cases against all three men plus perjury and failure to report abuse charges against Sandusky.