BELLEFONTE - An ongoing investigation into a child sex abuse cover-up at Penn State could lead to charges against additional former university administrators, sources involved in the case told The Citizens' Voice.
Prosecutors disclosed a sampling of the former administrators' purported emails and other documents during preparation for the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse trial, which began Monday, the sources said.
The emails documented the officials' strategy for handling allegations Sandusky raped a 10-year-old boy in a football shower facility in February 2001, the sources said. A former Penn State assistant coach, Mike McQueary, said he witnessed the abuse.
One of the sources said he was amazed at the carelessness the former Penn State administrators showed in using emails and other writings to document their strategy for dealing with the allegations, which did not include reporting them to the authorities.
The emails contained discussion of "sexual activity," the sources said. They were not clear evidence of a concerted effort to cover up the allegations, but may have reflected poor judgment at the highest levels of the university, where the law required top administrators to alert law enforcement of abuse.
NBC News reported Monday that the emails showed former university president Graham Spanier, one of the targets of the ongoing investigation, and university vice president Gary Schultz agreeing that it would be "humane to Sandusky" not to alert the authorities.
Attorneys for Spanier did not return a telephone message Monday.
The Penn State board of trustees fired Spanier and longtime head football coach Joe Paterno last November in part because of the university's handling of the February 2001 incident.
McQueary alerted Paterno, who said he passed the information to the athletic director at the time, Tim Curley.
Curley said he reported the matter to Schultz, the university vice president whose duties included supervising the campus police force.
Curley and Schultz were both charged with covering up the abuse allegations.
Attorneys for the two men said Monday the email revelation "confirms that Tim Curley and Gary Schultz conscientiously considered Mike McQueary's reports of observing inappropriate conduct, reported it to the university president Graham Spanier and deliberated about how to responsibly deal with the conduct."
Senior Deputy Attorney General Joseph E. McGettigan alluded to the alleged missteps by Penn State officials in his opening statement Monday in the Sandusky case.
"Is it possible that those signs could have been responded to in a different fashion?" he said. "Indeed."
Sandusky's attorney, Joseph Amendola, disputed the seriousness of what McQueary saw.
McQueary, who had a cellphone, left the football facility after allegedly seeing Sandusky and the boy. He never called police or visited the campus precinct, about a 30-second walk from where he was, Amendola said. Instead, he went to his father for advice.
Dr. Jonathan Dranov, a State College physician, was at the elder McQueary's home the night of the incident and pressed McQueary to confirm whether he witnessed sexual activity, Amendola said.
Dranov asked McQueary three times, "Did you see sex occurring?"
"No," McQueary said.
"You're assuming that's what you saw," Dranov said, according to Amendola.
Amendola said Curley and Schultz later discussed the incident with Sandusky.
"The bottom line was, the evidence will show, 'someone saw something inappropriate in the shower and we don't think you should bring kids into the shower,' " Amendola said, paraphrasing Curley and Schultz's reaction.
If Sandusky were raping the boy, Amendola said, "It doesn't make any sense, four grown men, all well respected - not including Coach Paterno - not one said 'call the police.' "