Police: McQueary didn't report abuse to us
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Both Penn State's campus police and the State College police department say they never received reports from a then-Penn State graduate assistant related to an allegation of child sexual abuse against former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.
Mike McQueary wrote in an email to a friend that was made available to The Associated Press that he had discussions with police after he said he witnessed a 10- or 11-year-old boy being raped in the Penn State locker room in 2002. McQueary testified in a grand jury investigation that led to authorities charging Sandusky with abusing eight boys over 15 years.
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McQueary email: I did go to the police
In the email, McQueary did not specify which police department he spoke to.
But a spokesperson for Penn State's campus police told CBS News that they never received a sex abuse report from McQueary. Separately, State College Police Chief Thomas R. King told CBS News that his department has no record of ever being contacted by McQueary regarding allged sex abuse.
The university also has its own police force. Penn State administrators said they were looking into whether McQueary contacted campus police. A university official also told CBS News Tuesday that, to her knowledge, no police report was filed.
The Nov. 8 email from McQueary to a friend said: "I did stop it, not physically ... but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room ... I did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police .... no one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds ... trust me."
McQueary is a former player and current assistant coach who was placed on indefinite paid leave last week after school officials said he had received threats. Emails sent to him seeking comment were not immediately returned.
He told the friend that he felt he was "getting hammered for handling this the right way ... or what I thought at the time was right ... I had to make tough impacting quick decisions."
Speaking publicly for the first time Tuesday, McQueary told CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian that his emotions were "all over the place" and he was "just kind of shaken." But he wouldn't comment further on the scandal, saying "the whole process has to play out. I just don't have anything else to say."
The grand jury report issued Nov. 5, the day Sandusky was charged with 40 criminal counts for alleged sexual abuse against eight boys over 15 years, goes into considerable detail about the March 2002 incident. McQueary was putting sneakers into his locker late on a Friday night when, the jury said, he saw Sandusky having sex with a young boy.
He left, "distraught," and contacted his father and then head coach Joe Paterno, jurors said. McQueary later met with athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz to describe what he had seen, the grand jury said. Curley and Schultz are charged with not alerting authorities to the report and lying to the grand jury. Paterno lost his job last week, but has not been charged and is not considered a target of investigators, state prosecutors have said.
As a result of the scandal, Curley and Schultz have left their posts, and university president Graham Spanier was also forced out of his job. U.S. Steel said Tuesday Spanier has resigned from its board, where he had been a director since 2008.
On Monday night, Sandusky said in an NBC television interview that he showered with and "horsed around" with boys but was innocent of criminal charges, a statement that has stunned legal observers. Sandusky's comments, they said, could be used by prosecutors trying to convict him of child sex-abuse charges.
The state grand jury investigation that led to Sandusky's arrest followed a trail that goes back at least 13 years, leading to questions from some quarters about whether law enforcement moved too slowly.
The grand jury report detailed a 1998 investigation by Penn State police, begun after an 11-year-old boy's mother complained that Sandusky had showered with her son in the football facilities. Then-District Attorney Ray Gricar declined to file charges.
Another apparent missed opportunity came in the 2002 incident that McQueary reported to Paterno.
