HARRISBURG — In December 2010, the grand jury issued a subpoena to Penn State requiring them to disclose all records pertaining to Jerry Sandusky.
Though a response was due on Jan. 10, 2011, the grand jury did not receive an answer until more than a year later, in April 2012, according to a grand jury presentment released Thursday.
And when top university administrators were directly asked for the information, former university President Graham Spanier, former Interim Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz and former Athletic Director Tim Curley said they knew of “no information or documents involving alleged misconduct or inappropriate contact by Jerry Sandusky,” according to the presentment.
But unbeknownst to them, Schultz had a file tucked away in his Penn State office, with documents directly related to the 1998 and 2001 sexual assaults by Sandusky.
“[This] showed a callous lack of concern for the victims, and a definite interest in shielding the person who committed these acts, Jerry Sandusky,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly said in a press conference Thursday.
Subsequently, Curley and Schultz were charged Thursday with endangering the welfare of children, obstruction of justice and the conspiracy to commit the crimes they are being charged with — in addition to charges of perjury and failure to report filed in November 2011, Kelly said.
Spanier was also charged for the first time Thursday with perjury, child endangerment, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Though Curley and Schultz’s trial is slated to begin Jan. 7, Kelly said she believed the three should be tried together.
Curley and Schultz will be arraigned at 2 p.m. today in Harrisburg, as previously reported.
Attempts to gather evidence
Joan Coble said she was instructed by Schultz never to look in the Sandusky file he kept in his bookcase file drawer, according to the presentment.
Coble, Schultz’s administrative assistant until her retirement in 2005, testified, “it was a very unusual request and was made in a ‘tone of voice’ she had never heard him use before,” according to the presentment.
When Schultz was to be arrested in November 2011, Kimberly Belcher, administrative assistant at the time, removed the documents from the file drawer and delivered them to Schultz’s home. She then lied about their existence when questioned by university representatives, according to the presentment.
In January 2011, only a handful of documents were provided in response to the December 2010 subpoena. None of the documents, however, were pertinent to the crimes Sandusky was being investigated for, according to the presentment.
According to the presentment, Penn State had a “well-defined historical practice and procedure for responding to subpoenas,” with information technology professionals trained to assemble the information required.
These information technology employees said later that they were never asked to find Sandusky related information. No other efforts were made to search the paper files of Curley, Schultz or Spanier, according to the presentment.
“The investigative grand jury’s efforts to acquire pertinent and valuable evidence from Penn State were significantly thwarted and frustrated from 2010 to 2012,” Kelly said.
‘Conspiracy of silence’
On May 3, 1998, Sandusky took the man referred to as “Victim 6” to the Lasch Football Building to work out and proceeded to shower with him afterward, as previously reported.
After returning home, his mother questioned why his hair was wet and was upset when she learned her son had showered with Sandusky. She then reported the incident to Penn State Police, which in turn sparked the initial 1998 investigation, where then Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar decided not to prosecute Sandusky, as previously reported.
Schultz was made aware of the incident by then Penn State Police Chief Tom Harmon, and took detailed notes about Sandusky’s conduct, according to the presentment.
“Finally, at the conclusion of his notes, he pondered two chilling questions when he wrote, ‘is this opening of pandoras [sic] box? Other children?’ ” according to the presentment.
According to the presentment, Schultz engaged in a series of electronic communications with Curley and Spanier relating to the incident from May to June of 1998.
Finally, on June 9, 1998, Schultz emailed Spanier and Curley, saying, “I think the matter has been appropriately investigated and I hope it is now behind us,” according to the presentment.
“The Grand Jury notes that these electronic communications clearly establish that Curley made a materially false statement under oath before the 30th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury when he testified he had no knowledge of this investigation or any recollection of his involvement,” according to the presentment.
But less than three years later, another incident involving Sandusky and a young boy showering in the Lasch Building was brought to light.
In February 2001, former assistant football coach Mike McQueary walked into the Lasch Building showers and heard what he called “skin-on-skin” slapping noises. He said he looked into a mirror and saw Sandusky with a boy, referred to as “Victim 2,” according to court testimony.
McQueary reported what he saw to late head football coach Joe Paterno, who then told Schultz and Curley. Curley and Schultz met with Spanier, but none of them followed up with police with regard to the incident, according to the presentment.
Kelly said she would not speculate as to whether Paterno would have been charged had he been alive.
In emails about the incident to Schultz and Spanier, Curley “masked” the emails he sent, referring to Sandusky as “the individual,” The Second Mile as “the organization” and the men Sandusky was charged with abusing as “Sandusky’s guests.”
Curley and Schultz respond
In pre-trial motions filed Nov. 1 and Oct. 31, respectively, Curley and Schultz requested their charges to be dismissed or to suppress their January 2011 testimony before the grand jury. Both motions were filed before the announcement of the charges Thursday.
Both men claimed their rights to council were violated, according to court documents.
Curley and Schultz said that they were told Penn State’s former General Counsel Cynthia Baldwin would represent them before the grand jury. She advised each of them separately not to talk to the other, Paterno or anyone else to refresh their recollection before testifying, according to the documents.
However, Curley and Schultz said Baldwin did not inform them of her “conflict of interest,” as she was mainly representing the university, according to court documents.
Curley said Baldwin did nothing to protect him from the prosecution’s “abusive and confusing” questioning, and Schultz said Baldwin never told him he could exercise his “constitutional right to remain silent before the grand jury.”
“Mr. Schultz was denied counsel and his due process rights violated through the misconduct of the prosecutors and by the complete deprivation of the assistance of counsel,” according to the documents.
Caroline Roberto, Curley’s attorney, said in a statement that the prosecution did not provide them any advance notice of the new charges.
“To be clear, Tim Curley is innocent of all charges,” she said in the statement. “We are carefully reviewing the presentment and will reserve a more comprehensive comment for a later time.”
Schultz’s attorney, Tom Farrell, did not release a statement as of press time Thursday.
