Penn State child sex abuse scandal
The Penn State child sex abuse scandal concerned allegations and subsequent convictions of child sexual abuse committed by Jerry Sandusky, an assistant coach for the Penn State Nittany Lions football team, over a period of at least fifteen years. The scandal began to emerge publicly in [|March 2011] and broke in early November 2011 when Sandusky was indicted on 52 counts of child molestation, stemming from incidents that occurred between 1994 and 2009. Sandusky was ultimately convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse on June 22, 2012, and was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of 60 years in prison. Of the 10 victims who were listed, only eight appeared at trial. All were over the age of 18 by the time they testified. Six were over 21.
Additionally, three Penn State officials, school president Graham Spanier, vice president Gary Schultz, and athletic director Tim Curley, were charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, failure to report suspected child abuse, and related charges. The Penn State Board of Trustees commissioned an independent investigation by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, whose report stated that Penn State's longtime head football coach Joe Paterno, along with Spanier, Curley and Schultz, had known about allegations of child abuse by Sandusky as early as 1998, had shown "total and consistent disregard...for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims", and "empowered" Sandusky to continue his acts of abuse by failing to disclose them. Shortly after the scandal broke, Spanier resigned. The board of trustees terminated the contracts of Paterno and Curley.
As a result of the scandal, the National Collegiate Athletic Association imposed sanctions on the Penn State football program: a $60 million fine, a four-year postseason ban, scholarship reductions, and a vacation of all victories from 1998 to 2011. These sanctions were among the most severe ever imposed on an NCAA member school. NCAA President Mark Emmert stated that the sanctions were levied "not to be just punitive, but to make sure the university establishes an athletic culture and daily mindset in which football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people." The Big Ten Conference subsequently imposed an additional $13 million fine.
The Paterno family retained former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh to conduct a review of the Freeh report, which concluded that the report constituted a "rush to injustice" that could not be relied upon and that Freeh's evidence fell "far short" of showing that Joe Paterno attempted to conceal the scandal, but rather that "the contrary is true". In January 2013, state senator Jake Corman and state treasurer Rob McCord sued the NCAA, seeking to overturn the Penn State sanctions on the basis that Freeh had been actively collaborating with the organization and that due process had not been followed. In November 2014, Corman released emails showing "regular and substantive" contact between Freeh's investigators and the NCAA, suggesting that Freeh's conclusions were orchestrated. As part of a settlement, the NCAA restored the 111 wins to Paterno's record on January 16, 2015.
On March 25, 2017, Curley, Schultz, and Spanier pleaded or were found guilty of misdemeanor charges of child endangerment. All conspiracy charges against Curley and Schultz were dropped, and Spanier was acquitted of conspiracy, the charges central to Louis Freeh's allegation of a cover-up. In June 2017, all three were sentenced to jail terms, fines, and probation for the misdemeanors. Spanier was sentenced to four to twelve months in jail, a $7,500 fine, and two years of probation. Spanier's misdemeanor conviction was overturned by the federal district court, but reinstated by the court of appeals in December 2020.
Background
was an assistant coach for the Penn State Nittany Lions football team from 1969 to 1999. For the last 23 of those years, Sandusky was the team's defensive coordinator. In 1977, he founded The Second Mile in State College, Pennsylvania, a charity formed to help disadvantaged youth. Sandusky retired from the organization in 2010. In 1998, he was investigated for child sexual abuse but no charges were filed. Sandusky was considered for spearheading the startup of a football program at Penn State Altoona in 1998–99, but the idea was scrapped and he retired in 1999. After his retirement, Sandusky remained a coach emeritus with an office in and access to Penn State's football facilities per his employment contract.Criminal prosecutions
Investigation
In Pennsylvania, a grand jury only recommends criminal charges. It hears all of the available evidence but does not have authority to indict the accused. In the case of Sandusky, the grand jury investigation began in 2009 under commonwealth attorney general and later-governor Tom Corbett. The grand jury subpoenaed records from both Penn State and The Second Mile, and heard testimony from Victim 1, Mike McQueary, Joe Paterno, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, Victim 7, Graham Spanier, Victim 4, and Ronald Petrosky. This grand jury did not recommend indictment.Commonwealth attorney general Linda L. Kelly prepared a presentment which included credibility determinations about the testimonies received before the first grand jury for the second grand jury. This second grand jury heard testimony from Victim 3, Victim 5, and Victim 6. Kelly said that during the investigation there was an "uncooperative atmosphere" from some Penn State officials.
Victim 1
The investigation was initiated in the spring of 2008 after Aaron Fisher, then a freshman at Central Mountain High School in Mill Hall, Pennsylvania, reported that Sandusky had been molesting him since age 12. Fisher met Sandusky through The Second Mile in the mid-2000s, when Sandusky began making advances toward Fisher which involved "inappropriate touching". At the time of the alleged actions, Sandusky was volunteering as an assistant football coach at Central Mountain High School, where these assaults took place.Victim 2
Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant and later assistant coach at Penn State, testified that on approximately February 9, 2001, he had been inside the Lasch Football Building, located on Penn State's University Park campus, when he witnessed a naked Sandusky standing directly behind a boy whose hands were up on the wall in the men's shower room. McQueary, distraught, left the building and called his father John, who told Mike to come over to his house right away and talk to him. While Mike was on the way to his father's, John called Dr. Jonathan Dranov, Mike's boss and family friend, seeking his advice. As President of Centre Medical and Surgical Associates, Dranov was a mandated reporter in the state of Pennsylvania. Dranov testified that he questioned Mike three times about what he saw, and each time Mike kept going back to what he witnessed. Because there was no clear crime witnessed by Mike, Dranov and John recommended he talk to head football coach Joe Paterno.On Saturday morning, Mike McQueary called Paterno to arrange a meeting, and the two met at Paterno's home later that same morning. McQueary testified he gave a rough report of what he had seen but that, out of respect, he did not share more graphic details. Paterno left for Pittsburgh to attend an awards ceremony shortly after meeting with McQueary and did not return to State College until late Saturday night or Sunday morning. On Sunday morning, Paterno called then-athletic director Tim Curley regarding the incident. Curley, along with then-university vice president Gary Schultz, both went to Paterno's home, where Paterno told them about McQueary's story and advised them to speak directly to McQueary themselves to get the full details. In his grand jury testimony, Paterno said that he was told about Sandusky "fondling or doing something of a sexual nature" to the victim.
On Monday, Curley and Schultz reported the incident to Graham Spanier, who was president of Penn State at the time. Spanier told them to meet with the graduate assistant, which he was not told to be McQueary. Nine or ten days later, McQueary received a phone call from Curley regarding the incident and set up a meeting with Curley and Schultz in the Bryce Jordan Center, either that same afternoon or the next day, to go over the details of what had happened in the shower room. Curley and Schultz both denied having been told about alleged anal intercourse. Curley denied that McQueary reported anything of a sexual nature whatsoever and described the conduct as merely "horsing around". Spanier likewise testified that he was only apprised of an incident involving Sandusky and a younger child "horsing around in the shower".
Curley then met with Sandusky and told him he was not to be using Penn State's athletic facilities with any young people, and Curley reported the incident to Jack Raykovitz, who, as the CEO of The Second Mile, was Sandusky's boss and also a mandated reporter. The Second Mile fell under the direct supervision and authority of Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare, and was a contractor of the local county office of Children and Youth Services. Raykovitz was also a highly trained professional on handling such allegations. He reported the incident to two board members of The Second Mile, Bruce Heim and Bob Poole, and told Sandusky to wear shorts in the shower in the future. Despite Penn State banning Sandusky from bringing boys onto the main campus after the McQueary incident, he was allowed to operate a summer camp through his Sandusky Associates company from 2002 to 2008 at Penn State's Behrend satellite campus near Erie, where he had daily contact with boys from fourth grade to high school.
Other victims
One child's mother reported a 1998 incident to Penn State police when her son came home with his hair wet. After an investigation by Detective Ronald Shreffler, Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar chose not to prosecute. Shreffler testified before the grand jury that the director of the campus police then told him to drop the case, and that detectives had eavesdropped on conversations during which the mother confronted Sandusky about the incident. Sandusky admitted to showering with other boys and refused to discontinue the practice. Gricar was not available to testify, as he had disappeared in 2005.Victims also commonly reported that Sandusky would place his hand on their thighs or inside the waistband of their underpants. Two recounted oral sex with Sandusky, sometimes culminating in his ejaculation. Penn State janitor James Calhoun reportedly observed Sandusky performing oral sex on an unidentified boy in 2000, but by the time of Sandusky's trial Calhoun was in a nursing home suffering from dementia; he was deemed not competent to testify.