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Archives > Volume 9 Issue 51 - December 21, 2011 Penn State officials to stand trial after McQueary testimony...Two Penn State officials can be tried on charges of lying to a grand jury about an allegation of child sex abuse against former Nittany Lions defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, a judge ruled Friday. ESPN story here 
Prosecutors have probable cause to move forward with the cases against former athletic director Tim Curley and school vice president Gary Schultz, District Judge William C. Wenner concluded after hearing testimony in a Pennsylvania courtroom.
The two men's lawyers maintain they are innocent, and contest assistant football coach Mike McQueary's grand jury testimony that he told Curley and Schultz that he saw Sandusky molest a boy in a locker room shower in 2002. Curley and Schultz are charged with lying to a grand jury and failing to properly report what McQueary told them. McQueary testified Friday in a preliminary hearing that he believes he saw Sandusky molesting a boy on campus and that he fully conveyed what he had seen to the two former Penn State administrators. As soon as he walked into the Penn State locker room, Mike McQueary heard running water and rhythmic, slapping sounds of "skin on skin." He looked in a mirror and saw a naked Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant coach, holding a young boy by the waist from behind, up against the wall in the campus shower. Sports Illistrated AP story here "I just saw Coach Sandusky in the showers with a boy and what I saw was wrong and sexual," McQueary recalled telling his father that night in 2002. He repeated it the next morning to coach Joe Paterno, who slumped deep into his chair at his kitchen table. 
"He said, 'I'm sorry you had to see that,'" McQueary said.
McQueary's testimony Friday at a preliminary hearing for two Penn State officials accused of covering up the story was the most detailed, public account yet of the child sex abuse allegations that have upended the university's football program and the entire central Pennsylvania campus. Paterno and the university president have lost their jobs, and officials Tim Curley and Gary Schultz are accused of lying to a grand jury about what McQueary told them. A Pennsylvania judge on Friday held Curley, the university's athletic director, and Schultz, a retired senior vice president, for trial after the daylong hearing. Curley said that McQueary never relayed the seriousness of what he saw, and said he was only told that Sandusky was "horsing around" with a boy but that his conduct wasn't sexual. He said he told the university president about the episode and the top official at a children's charity that Sandusky founded, but never told university police. "I didn't see any reason because I didn't think at the time it was a crime," he told the grand jury, according to testimony read into the record on Friday. Curley, Schultz and Paterno have been criticized for never telling police about the 2002 charges. Prosecutors say Sandusky continued to abuse boys for six more years. Sandusky has denied having inappropriate sexual contact with boys. In about two hours on the witness stand, McQueary said again and again that what he saw was a sexual act, although he stopped short of saying he was sure that Sandusky, now 67, had raped the boy. "I believe Jerry was sexually molesting him and having some type of sexual intercourse with him," McQueary said on Friday. He said later he "can't say 100 percent" that Sandusky and the boy were having intercourse because he was seeing Sandusky from behind. He said after talking to his father, he went over to Paterno's home the next morning and said that what he had seen "was way over the lines, it was extremely sexual in nature." He said he would not have used words like sodomy or intercourse with Paterno; he did not get into that much detail out of respect for the coach, he said. Paterno told the grand jury that McQueary said he saw Sandusky doing something of a "sexual nature" with the youngster but that he didn't press for details. "I didn't push Mike ... because he was very upset," Paterno said. "I knew Mike was upset, and I knew some kind of inappropriate action was being taken by Jerry Sandusky with a youngster." Paterno told McQueary he would talk to others about what he'd reported. McQueary said he met nine or 10 days later with Curley and Schultz and told them he'd seen Sandusky and a boy, both naked, in the shower after hearing skin-on-skin slapping sounds. "I would have described that it was extremely sexual and I thought that some kind of intercourse was going on," said McQueary. McQueary said he was left with the impression both men took his report seriously. When asked why he didn't go to police, he referenced Schultz's position as a vice president at the university who had overseen the campus police. "I thought I was talking to the head of the police, to be frank with you," he said. "In my mind it was like speaking to a (district attorney). It was someone who police reported to and would know what to do with it." For more on our coverage of the Penn State scandal, see vol9_iss45, vol9_iss46, vol9_iss47, vol9_iss48, vol9_iss49 and vol9_iss50. For all of CBS News' coverage, visit cbsnews.com. For coverage from The Legal Intelligencer see law.com. Police seize vehicle of missing Maine girl's father... Authorities searching for a missing Maine girl have seized a sport-utility vehicle belonging to the child's father. Fox News story here 
The Portland Press Herald reported Tuesday that police removed two vehicles from the Waterville home where 20-month-old Ayla Reynolds lives with her father, Justin DiPietro.
The child, wearing a soft cast on a broken arm, was last seen by her father in her bed at around 8 p.m. Friday. DiPietro, 24, reported her missing at 8:51 a.m. Saturday when he found an empty bed, authorities said. No arrests have been made in the case and investigators said it's possible the girl was abducted. Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey said during a press conference Monday that several adults visited DiPietro's home Friday night, including at least one non-family member, according to the newspaper. Searchers have since scoured the surrounding area, including a stream not far from DiPietro's home. The Herald reported that police removed a 1996 Ford Explorer with a U.S. Marine Corps sticker on the rear windshield from DiPietro's driveway. The SUV is registered to DiPietro, according to records from the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Also taken was a 2002 Hyundai registered to a Portland woman whose name has not been released, according to the newspaper. Ayla's mother, Trista Reynolds, told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday that she filed paperwork seeking sole custody of the child a day before she disappeared. Reynolds, who lives in Portland, told the network that she and DiPietro have been unable to get along in the last few weeks. She said she didn't tell him that she'd filed the court paperwork Thursday. "I've had no contact with him; he's had no contact with me. All I know is he's the last man to see my daughter, and all I want to know is where she is," she said. Meanwhile Justin DiPietro spoke out for the first time Tuesday night saying he has no idea what happened to his daughter. CBS News story here In a statement released by Waterville Police to the Morning Sentinel, DiPietro said, "I have no idea what happened to Ayla, or who is responsible." In other news... 
Tens of thousands of children have been victims of sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands since 1945, an independent commission said on Friday, criticizing what it called the church's cover-up and culture of silence. Reuters story here Church leaders said the findings filled them with shame and sorrow and offered a "heartfelt apology," saying not only the perpetrators were to blame, but church authorities too. The commission estimated that 10,000 to 20,000 minors were sexually abused in Catholic orphanages, boarding schools and seminaries between 1945 and 1981, with offences ranging from very mild to serious, including rape. Education changes meant few Catholic homes for minors remained after 1981, but abuses involving the church continued. "Several tens of thousands of minors were subjected to mild, serious, and very serious forms of inappropriate sexual behavior in the Roman Catholic Church," from the end of World War Two until 2010, the commission said. The investigation was commissioned by two Catholic bodies, the Conference of Bishops and the Dutch Religious Conference, in 2010 after cases surfaced involving pedophile priests in the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Canada and the United States. For more clergy abuse, visit eGuide.org/ClergyAbuse.
A man who allegedly took a photograph of his one-year-old daughter bound in tape then posted it on Facebook with the caption, "This is wut happens wen my baby hits me back," is now facing child abuse charges. CBS News story here Andre Curry, 21, is charged with aggravated domestic battery and scheduled for a bond hearing Wednesday. Police say he used painter's tape to bind the girl's wrists and ankles and cover her mouth. According to a Chicago police spokesperson, the department learned of the photograph - which has since been taken off Facebook - on December 14 and opened an investigation in cooperation with the Department of Children and Family Services. CBS Chicago reports that several Facebook friends posted comments about the photo, including one who calls Curry a "nasty dirty child abuser," and another who claims she called DCFS and alerted them to the photo. Meanwhile, a DCFS spokesman said the agency has had no prior contact with the family.
One of the men who has accused former Syracuse University basketball coach Bernie Fine of sexual abuse pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges that he himself sexually abused a Maine boy. CBS News story here Zachary Tomaselli, 23, appeared in court the day after being arrested for allegedly violating his bail by giving a car ride to a minor. Tomaselli was not allowed to have contact with anyone under 18 outside of work. Tomaselli pleaded to four of the 11 counts against him, including gross sexual assault, and, according to his defense attorney, he faces a maximum penalty of 3 years and 3 months, reports CBS affiliate WGME. He will be free on bail until sentencing in February. According to WGME, Tomaselli had initially planned to plead not guilty to the charges, which involve a young teenage boy who attended a camp where Tomaselli was a counselor. However, after counseling Tomaselli said he came to understand that he was grooming the boy for a relationship.
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