For anyone who has followed the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case and its various offshoots over the past five and a half years, the first day of testimony on Tuesday in former Penn State President Graham Spanier’s trial on child endangerment and conspiracy charges yielded little new information.
After opening arguments on Tuesday morning, the prosecution called its first witnesses in the afternoon as it tries to make the case that Spanier, along with former athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz, put more children in harm’s way over the course of years when they failed to notify child welfare authorities after receiving a 2001 report of Sandusky in a locker room shower with a boy.
That report came from then graduate assistant Mike McQueary, who testified on Tuesday, as he has previously, that he made clear what he witnessed was a sexual act. Curley and Schultz, who pleaded guilty last week to a misdemeanor count of child endangerment, had contended that he did not report anything sexual. Spanier meanwhile, contends that his two colleagues in turn told him of nothing sexual and described what they were told as horseplay.
Prosecutors said during opening arguments that Curley and Schultz will testify. Deputy attorney general Patrick Schulte said Schultz will express regret and say the administrators ‘messed up’ in their handling of the 2001 incident.
McQueary, on Tuesday, recounted that February 2001 incident much as he did at his own civil trial against Penn State last October, in which he was awarded more than $12 million for defamation, misrepresentation and violation of the state whistleblower law.
He went into the Lasch Building locker room that night, heard slapping sounds coming from the shower, and while at his locker looked to a mirror and saw Sandusky behind a boy engaged in a sexual act.
He slammed his locker door, looked again and Sandusky and the boy were separated. McQueary went to his parents’ State College home and sought advice from his father, John, and family friend Dr. Jonathan Dranov. They advised him to report it to his superior, Coach Joe Paterno.
The next day, as he has recounted in the past, McQueary went to Paterno’s home and told him what he saw, though he said he found it difficult to convey the graphic nature to the then 75-year-old.
According to Pennlive.com, Paterno appeared ‘saddened.’
‘He kind of slumped back in his chair, put his hand up to his face. He certainly knew it was serious, important,’ McQueary said. ‘He said, ‘I need to think about it and tell somebody’.’
McQueary was later called to a meeting with Curley and Schultz where, he said, he made clear that Sandusky was sexually abusing the boy, and that the two administrators told him they were taking the matter seriously. He said once again that he was upset to see Sandusky continue to show up at the football facilities over the ensuing years.
Sandusky was arrested in November 2011, more than 10 years after McQueary’s report. Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse in 2012 and is serving a 30-60 year sentence, which he continues to appeal.
During a brief cross-examination by Spanier attorney Sam Silver, McQueary said he never spoke with Spanier about the incident and that no one ever told McQueary he should not talk about it.
Asked by Silver if he specifically told Curley and Schultz that he saw Sandusky ‘molesting a boy,’ McQueary responded, ‘I can’t tell you if I used those exact words in that sequence,’ as reported by Pennlive. McQueary reiterated that he made it clear it was sexual.
John McQueary gave testimony — again, matching what he testified in the civil trial — about a business meeting he and Dranov had with Schultz, after the younger McQueary had met with the two administrators. Schultz told him they had heard ‘rumblings’ about Sandusky before but ‘each time we came up empty handed,’ according to Philly.com.
Dranov gave similar testimony about the meeting and both said they never spoke with Spanier about it or had anyone try to prevent them from speaking about it.
Dranov has testified in the past that when Mike McQueary told him about the incident, he was clearly shaken but did not directly describe it as sexual.
Emails have shown that Spanier, Curley and Schultz agreed to tell Sandusky he could not bring children into the locker rooms and to seek professional help and that Curley would inform psychologist Jack Raykovitz, the director of Sandusky’s Second Mile charity, where Sandusky found most of his victims.
Raykovitz testified on Tuesday that Curley told him that an investigation into what McQueary reported found nothing inappropriate had occurred.
Raykovitz said he informed several board members and told Sandusky he should wear swim trunks if he showered with children, according to the Associated Press.
The Second Mile was informed in 2008 that Sandusky was being investigated, and that was when the organization first removed him from from program’s with children. Raykovitz resigned from the Second Mile shortly after Sandusky was charged in 2011. The organization formally dissolved last year after selling off most of its assets.
No one from the Second Mile, aside from Sandusky himself, has ever been charged.
Former university counsel Wendell Courtney testified on Tuesday, as he had at the McQueary civil trial, that he was contacted by Schultz shortly after the 2001 incident. He said that Schultz did not describe a sexual incident but that he advised Schultz to report it to child welfare authorities.
The afternoon’s testimony opened with former Penn State Police detective Ronald Schreffler, who investigated a 1998 report about Sandusky showering with a boy, and Tom Harmon, who was police chief at the time.
That case was also investigated by Children and Youth Services and the Department of Public Welfare. The Centre County District Attorney at the time declined to bring charges. Curley and Schultz were aware of the investigation, and Spanier appeared to have been copied on an email noting that matter had been resolved. Spanier, however, has previously said he doesn’t remember ever seeing the email as he was traveling at the time, and if he had he would have noted that Schultz said it was resolved.
Harmon testified on cross-examination that he never spoke with Spanier about the 1998 incident, and that university officials did not interfere with the investigation, per Philly.com.
