Paterno to grand jury: I didn't press for details

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno told a grand jury earlier this year that he was told his ex-assistant Jerry Sandusky had done something of "a sexual nature" with a boy in 2002.

Paterno's testimony was read into the record Friday during a court hearing for two Penn State administrators. The pair are accused of lying to a grand jury.

A judge ruled late Friday following a daylong hearing that prosecutors do have probable cause to move forward with the cases against Tim Curley and Gary Schultz -- a decision that widely expected.

Earlier Friday, Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary said he believed he saw Sandusky sexually molesting a boy on campus. He also says he later told Paterno and administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz about it.

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Paterno says he was told Sandusky had done something inappropriate with a child but that he didn't press McQueary for details because McQueary was very upset.

McQueary, speaking for the first time in public about the 2002 encounter in a Penn State locker room, said he believes that Sandusky was attacking the child with his hands around the boy's waist but said he wasn't 100 percent sure it was intercourse.

McQueary took the stand Friday in a Pennsylvania courtroom during a preliminary hearing for Curley and Schultz, two university officials who are accused of lying to a grand jury about what McQueary told them.

McQueary said he had stopped by a campus football locker room to drop off a pair of sneakers in the spring of 2002 when he happened upon Sandusky and the boy in a shower.

He said Sandusky was behind the boy he estimated to be 10 or 12 years old, with his hands wrapped around the boy's waist. He said the boy was facing a wall, with his hands on it.

McQueary said he has never described what he saw as anal rape and couldn't see Sandusky's genitals, but that "it was very clear that it looked like there was intercourse going on."

He said he peeked into the shower several times and that the last time he looked in, Sandusky and the boy had separated. He said he didn't say anything, but "I know they saw me. They looked directly in my eye, both of them."

McQueary said he reported what he saw to coach Joe Paterno.

He said he did not give Paterno explicit details of what he believed he'd seen, saying he wouldn't have used terms like sodomy or anal intercourse out of respect for the longtime coach.

He said Paterno told him he'd "done the right thing" by reporting what he saw. The head coach appeared shocked and saddened and slumped back in his chair, McQueary said.

Paterno told McQueary he would talk to others about what he'd reported.

Under cross-examination, McQueary said he considered what he saw a crime but didn't call police because "it was delicate in nature."

"I tried to use my best judgment," he said. "I was sure the act was over." He said he never tried to find the boy.

Curley and Schultz's lawyers maintain they are innocent. Sandusky says he is innocent of more than 50 charges stemming from what authorities say were sexual assaults over 12 years on 10 boys in his home, on Penn State property and elsewhere.