Two ex-Penn State officials plead guilty in sex scandal

HARRISBURG, PA. >> Two former Penn State administrators admitted Monday to mishandling child-sex allegations against Jerry Sandusky, pleading guilty more than five years after the scandal rocked the university and led to the downfall of football coach Joe Paterno.

Tim Curley, a 62-yearold former athletic director, and Gary Schultz, 67, a one-time vice president, could get up to five years in prison for misdemeanor child endangerment. No sentencing date was set.

They struck a deal in which prosecutors dropped three felony charges of child endangerment and conspiracy that carried up to seven years each.

Former Penn State President Graham Spanier, 68, was also charged in the scandal, and the case against him appears to be moving forward, with jury selection set for next week. His lawyers and the lead prosecutor had no comment.

The three administrators handled a 2001 complaint by a graduate assistant who said he saw Sandusky, a retired member of the coaching staff, sexually abusing a boy in a team shower. They failed in their legal duty by not reporting the matter to police or child welfare authorities, prosecutors said.

As a result, prosecutors said, Sandusky went on to abuse more boys, one of them in the Penn State showers.

Sandusky was not arrested until a decade later. He was convicted in 2012 of molesting 10 boys and is serving 30 to 60 years behind bars.

Shortly after Sandusky’s arrest, Paterno was fired over his handling of the matter. Paterno, one of the winningest coaches in college football history, died of lung cancer a few months later at 85. He was never charged with a crime.

A report commissioned by the university and conducted by former FBI Director Louis Freeh concluded that the beloved coach and the three others hushed up the allegations against Sandusky for fear of bad publicity.

Robert J. Donatoni, a past president of the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said state sentencing guidelines for misdemeanor child endangerment indicate defendants with no criminal record could get probation or a jail term of several months.

Penn State’s costs related to the Sandusky scandal are approaching a quarter-billion dollars.

That includes a recent $12 million verdict in the whistleblower and defamation case brought by Mike McQueary, the former graduate coaching assistant whose testimony helped convict Sandusky.