McQueary: Paterno Called Sandusky “Sick,” Blamed University for Cover-Up

In explosive testimony delivered today in a Dauphin County courthouse, Mike McQueary said Joe Paterno told him more than once that Jerry Sandusky was a “sick guy,” in the years after the graduate assistant told his coach he saw Sandusky molesting a minor in 2001. He added that in 2010, as rumors of a looming Sandusky indictment surfaced, Paterno told him that “Old Main screwed it up,” in reference to the administrators on trial today for covering up the scandal. A year later, on a Wednesday in November, Paterno warned McQueary about what would likely happen next.

He said the university is going to come down hard on you,” McQueary said. “‘Don’t worry about me. They’re going to try to scapegoat you. Trust your lawyers. Don’t trust [university counsel] Cynthia Baldwin. Don’t trust Old Main.’ I’m sorry, but that’s what he said.

He was only half-right; the university fired Paterno the same day. The former Nittany Lion graduate assistant also re-iterated a timeline of the university’s proceedings, after he reported the 2001 shower incident to Paterno.

The old coach slumped in the chair in his kitchen when McQueary told him what he saw, McQueary said. Then, McQueary said, Paterno told him he had done the right thing, he would need to think about it, talk to some people and he would follow up.

Ten days later, during a meeting with then Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz, McQueary said he very clearly reported molestation occurring and that the administrators asked very few questions. Curley later called him to say they had reported the incident to the Second Mile–Sandusky’s charity–and asked him not to bring boys onto campus anymore. As far as repercussions and reporting went, that’s all he recalled.

McQueary’s testimony, which kicked off the first day of preliminary hearings to decide if Spanier and co. should be tried at all, appears to be damning in two ways. One, it reinforces suspicions that Paterno was completely lucid about what Sandusky did and why the administration (if not him) was wrong in not doing more to report Sandusky. Two, as far as the trial is concerned, McQueary’s recounting of the meeting with Curley and Schultz seems to undercut Spanier’s claim that he didn’t realize the act that took place constituted sexual abuse. [Patriot-News]