Editor's note: This article contains graphic content.
Former Penn State Assistant Coach Mike McQueary testified Tuesday about the time he allegedly saw his former coach and former co-worker Jerry Sandusky in the shower of the Lasch Football Building in an “extremely sexual” position with a young boy.
During McQueary's testimony, prosecutors showed images in the courtroom of the locker room from the angles McQueary said he saw Sandusky with a boy in the shower in February 2001. McQueary testified that he saw Sandusky in the shower from three different angles.
The defense questioned this testimony, since, in previous statements, McQueary said he only saw the alleged assault from two different viewpoints.
McQueary said he was very “alarmed” at what he saw that night and what he saw didn’t quite “register” right away.
“This is the Penn State football building,” he said. “No, you don’t register that.”
McQueary testified that the night he allegedly witnessed the sexual abuse, he was home watching the movie “Rudy” and got fired up, so he decided to go to the football building to watch some tapes.
He said when he walked into the locker room to put on the new shoes he had bought that day, he heard skin-on-skin “slapping” noises and when he walked to his locker and looked into the mirror behind him, he saw Sandusky in the shower with a young boy.
McQueary testified that the two were naked and Sandusky’s front was to the boy’s back and he had his arm wrapped around the young boy. He also said that the boy’s hands were pressed up against the wall.
When he saw this, McQueary said, Sandusky was making “subtle” movements with his midsection.
“They were naked. They were in a severe position," McQueary said. "Absent of seeing a penis enter a rectum, I think he was having sex [with him].”
McQueary also said in his testimony that he did not see Sandusky in the shower actually having sexual intercourse, but he said multiple times that what he saw was “severely sexual” in nature.
He compared the sounds he heard and what he saw to walking into a room at a fraternity house by accident and seeing a man on top of a woman in a dim-lit room, but not actually seeing any insertion. He said in that situation, a person would still leave the room thinking that the people were having sex.
He said in this instance, the lights were on and he saw them three times from different angles.
He said he slammed his locker door loudly, as to let Sandusky and the boy know he was in the locker room and then when he looked over, Sandusky and the boy were standing apart from each other.
The boy who McQueary saw in the shower with Sandusky has not yet been identified, but is referred to in court documents as “Victim 2.”
McQueary said he believed that they made eye contact with each other at this point. He said he then went to his office and called his father and told him a general description of what he had seen.
He said he then went home and told his father and his friend what he had seen, but he said he did not explain it in great detail.
“You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on,” McQueary testified that he told his father that night.
McQueary went on to testify that the next morning he called Joe Paterno, who was the head football coach at the time, and told him he needed to speak with him. Later that day, McQueary said he went to Paterno’s house and told him what had occurred.
McQueary said he did not tell Paterno specifics about what occurred but made it clear that it was something very sexual. About a week later, McQueary met with former Athletic Director Tim Curley and former Interim Vice President for Business and Finance Gary Schultz and retold his story, again not going into graphic specifics.
Rominger asked McQueary if he did not go directly to the police department so he didn’t lose his job. McQueary denied that claim and said, “please don’t put words in my mouth.” McQueary said he kept his job for a more practical reason: He was a good football coach.
“In my mind, Mr. Schultz represented the police without a doubt,” McQueary said Tuesday.
McQueary confirmed that after charges were pressed against Sandusky, he wrote in an email that he didn’t just “run away” when he allegedly saw Sandusky with the boy in the shower, he made sure it stopped. By that, McQueary testified, he meant he shut the locker loudly but said he did not do anything physical.
Rominger continued questioning McQueary after the recess, asking if he filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the university.
McQueary said he filed a writ of summons to notify the university of his intent to file a lawsuit but has not actually filed a suit yet.
Rominger told the judge that he asked McQueary about the suit because he believes the former assistant coach has a “bias or a stake” in the outcome of the Sandusky case.
But McQueary denied that claim, saying he is going to file the lawsuit because he wants his job back.
“Frankly, I want to be a football coach at Penn State University,” he said. “I don’t think I did anything wrong to lose that job.”
