Federal authorities subpoena Penn State

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Penn State has received a federal subpoena related to a former assistant football coach accused of molesting boys and is cooperating with the request, a university spokeswoman said Thursday.

Harrisburg-based federal prosecutors this month sought "certain information" about Jerry Sandusky, a charity for children he founded, the university and three university administrators, Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said.

Sandusky is confined to his home as he awaits trial on charges he molested 10 boys over a 15-year span, allegations he denies. His attorney, Joe Amendola, said he learned of the subpoena from Harrisburg's The Patriot-News, which first reported it Thursday night.

Powers declined to comment on the contents of the subpoena, dated Feb. 2, citing an ongoing investigation.

A spokeswoman for two of the university administrators, athletic director Tim Curley and retired vice president Gary Schultz, had no immediate comment Thursday. Curley is on leave while he and Schultz fight charges they lied to a grand jury investigating Sandusky and did not properly report suspected abuse to authorities.

Messages left late Thursday for a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office, officials with The Second Mile charity and the third university administrator, former president Graham Spanier, were not immediately returned. Spanier has not been charged with any crime related to the Sandusky case.

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The Patriot-News reported that Second Mile chief executive David Woodle declined to comment on the subpoena and said the charity was cooperating with all requests for information.

Sandusky was first charged by state prosecutors in early November, based on a lengthy grand jury report. However, the report alleged some crimes took place outside Pennsylvania, potentially inviting federal scrutiny.

Authorities said Sandusky took one of his victims to the Alamo Bowl in Texas and later threatened to send him home because he resisted the coach's advances.

In November, San Antonio police said they were looking into the possibility that a crime may have occurred when Penn State played in what was Sandusky's final game, the 1999 Alamo Bowl.

Sandusky could face trial as early as May, but his defense team and prosecutors first have to iron out a set of pretrial issues, including what material must be disclosed to the defense and how to handle the release of grand jury testimony. Curley and Schultz are asking a county judge to dismiss the charges against them.

The charity and the State College-based university also have been conducting their own investigations, along with actual and potential civil litigants.

Also, a team with the U.S. Department of Education is part of a federal investigation into whether Penn State violated reporting mandates for campus crime as laid out in the Clery Act, named for a Lehigh University freshman who was beaten, raped and murdered in her dorm room by another student in 1986. Under the act, colleges and universities must report the number of crimes on campus and provide warnings in a timely manner if safety is threatened.