Sandusky guilty, but case not over
Victims may file civil suits; criminal trial looms for Penn State officials
BELLEFONTE, Pa. — It’s over, but it’s not.
The Friday verdicts in the child sex-abuse trial of Jerry Sandusky represent the conclusion of only one chapter in a scandal that has shadowed Pennsylvania’s largest university and much of central Pennsylvania for the past seven months. He was convicted of 45 child sexabuse counts.
At least six of the eight known victims of the former Penn State University assistant football coach have private attorneys who will soon decide whether to file civil lawsuits against Sandusky and the university.
A separate criminal trial looms for Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and retired senior vice president Gary Schultz, who are accused of related perjury charges, alleging they lied to a state grand jury investigating the abuse charges.
Penn State administration officials also are bracing for the results of an internal investigation headed by former FBI director Louis Freeh, who was hired by the university to review whether the school ignored or failed to act appropriately on early allegations leveled against the former coach.
At the same time, a state grand jury continues its wide-ranging inquiry.
“The moment the verdict was announced against Sandusky, the landscape of this scandal shifted toward a new focus on Penn State,” said attorney Tom Kline, who represents one of Sandusky’s victims.
“There is no doubt that we are going to file a claim against Penn State,” Kline said. “Jerry Sandusky may have been the perpetrator, but Penn State was his enabler.”
Penn State, meanwhile, moved quickly to avert a wave of civil lawsuits, announcing right after the verdicts were announced its intention to “compensate” victims of Sandusky’s abuse.
“Now that the jury has spoken, the university wants to continue that dialogue and do its part to help victims continue their path for- ward,” the university said in a statement.
“To that end, the university plans to invite victims of Mr. Sandusky’s abuse to ... facilitate the resolution of claims against the university arising out of Mr. Sandusky’s conduct.”
Wes Oliver, a Widener University law professor who has been closely monitoring the case, said it is in Penn State’s “best interest to attempt to resolve the lingering matters quickly.”
“The verdicts were so overwhelming against Sandusky,” Oliver said, “that it suggests there shouldn’t have been any doubt early on” that Sandusky represented a threat to children.
Yet one major part of the scandal — the perjury cases against Curley and Schultz — is no longer in the university’s control.
Specifically, the two administrators are charged with telling a state grand jury that assistant coach Michael McQueary never told them in 2001 that he saw Sandusky engaged in sexual activity with a young boy in a university shower room.
Like Sandusky’s attorney, lawyers for Curley and Schultz have assailed McQueary’s credibility, saying that he has given con- flicting accounts of what he saw.
McQueary was questioned closely in the Sandusky trial, where he testified that he saw his former coaching colleague with a young boy engaged in what he believed was sodomy.
McQueary said he could not be “1,000% certain” that the coach was raping the boy, but he described the activity as “extremely sexual.”
In its verdict Friday, the Sandusky jury found the former coach not guilty of sodomy, but convicted him on four other sex abuse charges involving the victim, based on McQueary’s testimony.
Oliver said the jury’s verdict appeared to bolster at least the core of McQueary’s account: that he saw Sandusky engaged in some kind of sexual activity.
Lawyers for Curley and Schultz could not be reached through their spokeswoman for comment. And a trial date has not been set.
Meanwhile, Sandusky’s attorney, Joe Amendola, said that his client’s case is not completely settled even though the 68-year-old is in a Centre County jail cell. Sandusky is under suicide watch awaiting his formal sentencing, which will be within the next 90 days.
“We think we have a few avenues of appeal, and we will be pursuing them,” Amendola said.
Among the possible appeals Sandusky will likely pursue is a claim that the defense was rushed to trial. Repeated requests for delays were denied by Judge John Cleland.
Amendola, who has served as a spokesman for the Sandusky family, said that he spoke to Sandusky’s wife, Dottie, and she is “distraught,” but that Friday’s verdicts have not shaken her belief in her husband.
“She believes that what has happened is a tragedy,” Amendola said. “She’s trying to pick up the pieces.”
He said it is unlikely he’ll represent the former coach on appeal. “It’s probably best that somebody else handle that,” Amendola said.