Joe Paterno, Penn State's legendary football coach, was not considered a target in the sexual abuse investigation that has resulted in the arrest of a former assistant coach and two prominent university officials. Kelly, who made a plea for other potential victims to come forward, summarized the prosecutors' case against Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State defensive coordinator who faces a 40-count indictment for allegedly sexually abusing eight young boys. Through his lawyer, Sandusky has maintained his innocence.
She added that the roles played by Penn State administrators Tim Curley, the athletic director, and Gary Schultz, the vice president of business and finance who oversaw the university police, were "equally significant." Curley and Schultz, who both stepped down late Sunday, were arraigned Monday in Harrisburg, Pa., for charges that include providing false testimony to a grand jury and failing to report suspected child abuse.
Kelly chided them for not coming forth with the information about an alleged incident with Sandusky in the Penn State locker room showers in 2002. "Those officials and administrators to whom it was reported did not report that incident to law enforcement or to any child protective agency," she said. "Their inaction, likely, allowed a child predator to continue to victimize children for many, many years." Curley and Schultz have denied any wrongdoing.
Kelly said Paterno had cooperated with investigators and fulfilled his legal obligation to pass the information to a superior when, in 2002, a graduate assistant told him about an incident involving Sandusky that he had witnessed in the locker room showers.
According to prosecutors, the first serious chance Penn State had to halt the abuse came in 1998, when Sandusky was still an assistant for Paterno. A mother of an 11-year-old boy Sandusky had befriended at his charity reported to the Penn State campus police that her son had been touched and held by Sandusky in a shower inside the campus's football facility.