AD Tim Curley Charged with Perjury, Failure to Report Child Abuse

Photo: Jay Horgas

Penn State athletic director Tim Curley has been charged with perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse.

Before we get any further, I've made an editorial decision to limit the scope of TYT's discussion of this situation to Curley, because of his position as the individual who oversees Penn State's athletic department, which of course includes the men's and women's hockey programs. While it's not an easy decision, I do have to be cognizant of the fact that this is a Penn State hockey blog, not a Penn State football or athletics blog, and generally, everything that appears here has a tie with the hockey programs. If there turn out to be ramifications of the situation that touch hockey in other ways, you can be sure they'll be addressed here as appropriate.

I don't often have occasion to reciprocate the frequent linkage TYT gets from Black Shoe Diaries, so here's their summary of what we know, as it relates to Curley.

This morning, it was revealed that current Penn State Director of Athletics Tim Curley...are now charged with Perjury and Failure to Report under Pennsylvania's child protective services law. Curley has been the PSU athletic director since 1993.

I highly recommend heading over there for more detail on the entire horrific situation, or to the Pennsylvania attorney general's site, linked at the top of this post.

Curley's charges, of course, are related to his testimony in a grand jury investigation concerning a handful of the numerous charges of sexual abuse of children recently filed against former Penn State football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. One of the incidents was allegedly witnessed by a graduate assistant with the football program in 2002, and according to the AG...

The next morning, the assistant telephoned [Penn State football coach Joe] Paterno and then went to Paterno's home to explain what he had seen. Paterno testified that he then called Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and met with Curley the following day, explaining that a graduate assistant had reported seeing Sandusky involved in sexual activity with a young boy in the showers at the Lasch Building.

[AG Linda] Kelly said that approximately one and a half weeks later, the graduate assistant was called to a meeting with Curley and Gary Schultz, who was Senior Vice President for Finance and Business at the University. At that time, the assistant again recounted what he had witnessed Sandusky doing to a young boy in the showers of the football locker room.

"Despite a powerful eyewitness statement about the sexual assault of a child, this incident was not reported to any law enforcement or child protective agency, as required by Pennsylvania law," Kelly said.

"Additionally, there is no indication that anyone from the university ever attempted to learn the identity of the child who was sexually assaulted on their campus or made any follow-up effort to obtain more information from the person who witnessed the attack first-hand."

Kelly said that rather than reporting the matter to law enforcement, Curley and Schultz agreed that Sandusky would be told he could not bring any Second Mile children into the football building. That message was also reportedly related to Dr. John Raykovitz at the Second Mile (Past Executive Director and Executive Vice-President and currently the President and CEO of the Second Mile).

The grand jury investigating the Sandusky situation didn't believe Curley's testimony, leading to today's news.

Specifically, the grand jury found that Curley committed perjury in repeatedly denying that he had ever been told that Sandusky had engaged in sexual misconduct with a child.

Additionally, assertions by Schultz that the allegations concerning Sandusky were "not that serious" and that he and Curley "had no indication that a crime had occurred" were in direct contradiction to other testimony and constituted perjury.

The grand jury found that portions of the testimony provided by both Curley and Schultz were not credible.

Curley and Schultz are each charged with one count of perjury, a third-degree felony punishable by up to seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine, along with one count each of failure to report (under the Child Protective Services Law), a summary offense punishable by up to 90 days in prison and a $200 fine.

Curley and Schultz are scheduled to surrender on Monday, November 7th, before Harrisburg Magisterial District Judge Marsha Stewart.

Sandusky will be prosecuted in Centre County, while Curley and Schultz will be prosecuted in Dauphin County, all by Senior Deputy Attorney General Jonelle Harter Eshbach of the Attorney General's Criminal Prosecutions Section.

As mentioned, any further TYT coverage of this situation will be limited to hockey applications.