Sentencing Scheduled for Curley, Schultz and Spanier

A sentencing date has been scheduled for the three former Penn State administrators convicted in March of child endangerment for their handling of a report about Jerry Sandusky.

Each will be sentenced on the morning of Friday, June 2 at the Dauphin County Courthouse in Harrisburg, according to orders signed on Wednesday by specially presiding Judge John Boccabella.

Former athletic director Tim Curley, who pleaded guilty on March 13 to one misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child, will be sentenced at 10 a.m. Former senior vice president Gary Schultz, who pleaded guilty to the same charge, will be sentenced at 10:30 a.m. 

Former university President Graham Spanier is scheduled to be sentenced at 11 a.m. that day. A jury found Spanier guilty on March 24 of one misdemeanor count of child endangerment. He was acquitted on a felony child endangerment charge and a felony conspiracy charge.

The misdemeanor child endangerment charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. As first-time offenders with no criminal history, each is likely to receive a sentence far less than that, ranging from probation to less than a year in prison.

Curley, who is battling cancer, could provide documentation that would allow him to serve any prison sentence through home confinement. When Curley and Schultz pleaded guilty, however, Boccabella noted that there is no agreement in their pleadings as to what sentence they will receive and that he is free to impose a penalty as he sees fit. 

All three were scheduled to go to trial on March 20, but after Curley and Schultz entered guilty pleas, Spanier was left as the sole defendant. Curley and Schultz testified for the prosecution, but both men said Spanier had not been told of anything sexual occurring between Sandusky and a boy in a campus locker room shower. They both also struggled to recall specific details of conversations after receiving reports in 1998 and 2001 about Sandusky.

Each was charged for their handling of a 2001 report by former Penn State football assistant Mike McQueary of seeing Sandusky with a boy in a locker room shower. Sandusky, a former Penn State football defensive coordinator and founder of the now-defunct Second Mile charity for at-risk youth, was convicted in 2012 on 45 counts related to child sexual abuse.

All three have maintained McQueary did not report having witnessed sexual activity.

Curley, Schultz and Spanier initially faced several felony and misdemeanor charges, including perjury for their testimony to an investigating grand jury about what McQueary had told them. They also had faced felony charges of conspiracy to commit perjury and obstruction.

Pennsylvania Superior Court quashed those charges in January 2016 after attorneys for the former Penn State officials successfully argued that former university counsel Cynthia Baldwin’s own grand jury testimony violated their attorney-client privilege, and that she did not explain to them that she was representing the university and not them individually when each testified before the grand jury investigating Sandusky.

A charge of failure to report suspected child abuse against each man was tossed by Boccabella in January of this year on the basis that it was barred by the statute of limitations.