The Cast Of Characters In The Penn State Trial
(AP) – The main players in the Penn State scandal:
JERRY SANDUSKY
Role: Former assistant football coach and founder of The Second Mile charity for children, accused of molesting boys over a 15-year period.
Background: Arrested in November after a long investigation by a statewide grand jury. He had been a successful defensive coach for the Nittany Lions for 30 years, and prosecutors say he used his fame in the community to attract victims.
Charges: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault of a young child, unlawful contact with minors, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of children.
Status: His trial is under way.
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DOTTIE SANDUSKY
Role: Married to Jerry Sandusky.
Background: Dottie Sandusky has stood by her husband, posting his bail, accompanying him to court proceedings and issuing a statement in December that proclaimed his innocence and said accusers were making up stories. She is not charged. She testified June 19 on her husband's behalf.
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TIM CURLEY
Role: Penn State athletic director, on leave while he fights criminal charges for actions related to the Sandusky scandal.
Background: Curley fielded a complaint about Sandusky in a team shower with a boy in early 2001, and told a grand jury he instructed Sandusky not to be inside Penn State athletic facilities with any young people.
Charges: Failure to properly report suspected child abuse and perjury for lying to the grand jury. He's not on trial with Sandusky, denies the allegations and is seeking to have the charges dismissed.
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GARY SCHULTZ
Role: Penn State vice president for business and finance, now retired.
Background: Schultz told the grand jury that head coach Joe Paterno and assistant Mike McQueary reported the 2001 shower incident "in a very general way" but did not provide details.
Charges: Failure to properly report suspected child abuse and perjury for lying to the grand jury. He's not on trial with Sandusky, denies the allegations and is seeking to have the charges dismissed.
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MIKE MCQUEARY
Role: Assistant Penn State football coach. Was a graduate assistant in 2001, when he says he witnessed Jerry Sandusky and a boy naked together in a team shower. McQueary took his complaint to Paterno, who alerted university administrators.
Background: McQueary testified in court June 12 that he had "no doubt" Sandusky was having some type of intercourse with the boy.
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JOE AMENDOLA
Role: Defense attorney for Jerry Sandusky.
Background: Amendola has been second-guessed for allowing Sandusky to go on network television and speak at length with a reporter for The New York Times after his arrest. Has won several legal battles for Sandusky, including getting him released on bail and fighting the prosecution's effort to have the case heard by a jury from outside the State College area. His office is in State College.
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KARL ROMINGER
Role: Another defense attorney for Jerry Sandusky.
Background: Rominger suggested in media interviews that Sandusky might have been teaching "basic hygiene skills" to some of the youths, such as how to put soap on their bodies. His office is in Carlisle.
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JOSEPH McGETTIGAN III
Role: Lead prosecutor.
Background: McGettigan, currently senior deputy attorney general, is a veteran prosecutor with stints in the Philadelphia and Delaware County district attorneys' offices and the U.S. attorney's office. McGettigan prosecuted John du Pont, the chemical fortune heir who killed an Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler at his palatial estate in 1996. He's known as an aggressive, feisty lawyer.
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JOHN CLELAND
Role: Judge presiding over Sandusky's trial.
Background: Cleland is a semi-retired senior judge from McKean County in western Pennsylvania. Known as courteous and fair-minded, Cleland previously chaired a state panel that investigated a nationally reported scandal in Luzerne County involving the trading of juvenile-detention suspects for cash.
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JOE PATERNO
Role: The longtime football coach was told by McQueary in 2001 that he saw Sandusky and Victim No. 2 in a shower on the Penn State campus and, in turn, told Curley and Schultz.
Background: The head coach at Penn State from 1966 through 2011, and major college football's winningest, he offered to resign at the end of the 2011 season amid the uproar after Sandusky's arrest Nov. 6. The Penn State Board of Trustees, however, ousted him for what was called his "failure of leadership" surrounding allegations about Sandusky. He died of lung cancer Jan. 22.
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SUE PATERNO
Role: Married to Joe Paterno for almost 50 years, she raised five children with him and passionately defended her husband during the scandal and after he died. She is among the Sandusky defense team's potential trial witnesses.
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TOM CORBETT
Role: Now the governor of Pennsylvania, he was attorney general when the investigation into Sandusky was launched by state prosecutors.
Background: Corbett is an ex-officio member of the Penn State Board of Trustees, although he did not actively participate until after Sandusky was charged in December.
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LINDA KELLY
Role: Pennsylvania attorney general, whose office is prosecuting Sandusky.
Background: A career prosecutor in the Pittsburgh area, Kelly inherited the Sandusky probe from Corbett when she was confirmed as his temporary successor as attorney general. She leaves office in January.
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FRANK NOONAN
Role: Pennsylvania State Police commissioner.
Background: Noonan garnered national attention two days after Sandusky's arrest when he criticized Paterno, a Penn State and sports icon, for failing his "moral responsibility" to do more when McQueary told him of the 2001 shower incident.
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JACK RAYKOVITZ
Role: Former CEO of The Second Mile, the charity Jerry Sandusky founded.
Background: Raykovitz led the charity for almost 30 years and was a longtime friend of Sandusky's. Raykovitz testified before the grand jury that recommended indicting Sandusky on child abuse charges. He resigned from The Second Mile soon after the scandal broke, and board members later complained that Raykovitz hadn't told them enough about earlier allegations against Sandusky.
