Penn State trustees lawyer up

Associated Press

STATE COLLEGE, Pa.

Penn State’s trustees have hired a large Pittsburgh-based law firm to represent them in relation to the child sex abuse scandal for which three current and former university employees face criminal charges.

Reed Smith spokeswoman Jamie Moss said Thursday that the firm will be working on issues related to the arrest of Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant football coach accused of sexual abuse involving eight boys over 15 years, as well as administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, who are charged with not properly alerting authorities to suspected abuse and perjury.

Moss declined to say whether Reed Smith, which lists more than 1,700 lawyers on its website, would be focusing on criminal or civil matters.

Penn State university police said a continuing search on Thursday turned up no record to support a former graduate assistant’s claim he reported a sexual assault by Sandusky on a 10-year-old boy in a campus shower.

Earlier this week, Mike McQueary, who is now an assistant coach but has been placed on administrative leave, wrote in an email to friends and given to The Associated Press that he had “discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police” about what he saw. In the email, McQueary did not specify whether he spoke to campus or State College police.

State College borough police Chief Tom King said McQueary didn’t make a report to his department. Penn State has said campus police did not have any record of a report filed in 2002 by McQueary.

University police spokeswoman Annemarie Mountz said additional searching has been fruitless. She noted that the 23-page grand jury report was the state attorney general’s summary of testimony, so it’s unclear what McQueary’s full testimony was. McQueary and a law firm representing him have not returned phone calls.

On Thursday, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl wants former Steelers and Penn State player Franco Harris to step down as chairman of the Pittsburgh Promise scholarship program because Harris has questioned football coach Joe Paterno’s firing last week.

Harris has said he felt Penn State trustees erred in firing Paterno, who fulfilled a legal requirement by alerting his superiors but has been criticized for not doing more when he learned of a sex abuse allegation against Sandusky in 2002.

Schultz, Curley and Sandusky have all maintained they are innocent.