STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — A former defensive coordinator who was integral for decades to Penn State’s success in football was accused Saturday of sexually abusing eight boys.
The school’s athletic director and an administrator were charged with perjury and failing to report what they knew about the allegations in the case that prosecutors said uncovered a years-long trail of a predator and those who protected him.
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Former coach Jerry Sandusky, 67, of State College, was released on $100,000 bail after being arraigned on 40 criminal counts, the state attorney general’s office said.
Athletic director Tim Curley, 57, and Gary Schultz, 62, Penn State vice president for finance and business, both of Boalsburg, were expected to turn themselves in Monday in Harrisburg. Schultz’s position includes oversight of the university’s police department.
Longtime head coach Joe Paterno, who has more victories than any coach in the history of Division I football, was not charged, authorities said, and the grand jury report did not appear to implicate him in wrongdoing. It said that when Paterno first learned of one report of abuse, he immediately reported it to Curley, but Sandusky was no longer coaching at the time and it’s not clear whether Paterno followed up with Curley.
Sandusky, closely identified with the school’s reputation as a defensive powerhouse and a program that produced top-quality linebackers, retired in 1999 but continued to work with at-risk children through the nonprofit Second Mile organization he founded in 1977.
He was charged with multiple counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of a child, indecent assault and unlawful contact with a minor, as well as single counts of aggravated indecent assault and attempted indecent assault. A preliminary hearing for Sandusky is scheduled for Wednesday, but his attorney told reporters it would likely be delayed.
“He’s shaky, as you can expect,” defense attorney Joe Amendola told WJAC-TV. “Being 67 years old, never having faced criminal charges in his life, and having the distinguished career that he’s had, these are very serious allegations.”
Amendola said Sandusky has been aware of the accusations for about three years and has maintained his innocence.
The allegations range from sexual touching to oral and anal sex, and victims testified they were in their early teens when some of the abuse occurred.
Attorney General Linda Kelly called Sandusky “a sexual predator who used his position within the university and community to repeatedly prey on young boys.”
The grand jury said eight boys were targets of sexual advances or assaults by Sandusky from 1994 to 2009.
One accuser, now 27, testified that Sandusky initiated contact with a “soap battle” in the shower that led to multiple instances of involuntary sexual intercourse and indecent assault at Sandusky’s hands, the grand jury report said.
Victim 4, as he was identified in the jury report, said he traveled to charity functions and Penn State games with Sandusky, even being listed as a member of Sandusky’s family’s party for the 1998 Outback Bowl and 1999 Alamo Bowl.
“Sandusky did threaten to send him home from the Alamo Bowl in Texas when Victim 4 resisted his advances,” the report said, and Sandusky gave him clothes, shoes, a snowboard, golf clubs, hockey gear and football jerseys.
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