Assistant coach went to police, helped stop assault, e-mail says
A Penn State assistant football coach, who has been criticized for not doing more in an alleged rape of a boy by former coach Jerry Sandusky, said in an e-mail that he helped stop the assault and talked with police about it, The Morning Call newspaper reported.
“I did stop it, not physically, but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room,” assistant coach Mike McQueary wrote in the November 8 e-mail to a former classmate obtained by the Allentown, Pennsylvania, newspaper.
“No one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds,” McQueary said. “Trust me.”
McQueary also wrote that he “did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police” following the alleged incident involving Sandusky.
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The information is the first to indicate he had discussions with police.
Agrand jury report released this month said McQueary, then a graduate assistant, allegedly saw Sandusky raping a boy in a Penn State locker room in 2002.
McQueary, informed Joe Paterno, the team’s coach at the time, according to the report.
Paterno then alerted his boss, the school’s athletic director.
The scandal revolves around a 40-count indictment of Sandusky who is charged with sexually abusing eight boys — and allegations that Penn State officials failed to contact police when the complaints reached them.
The grand jury report led to the firing last week of Paterno and Penn State President Graham Spanier. McQueary was put on administrative leave.
The grand jury report says Sandusky molested young boys after developing close relationships with them through The Second Mile, a charity he founded for at-risk youths. He has been freed on $100,000 bail, against the wishes of prosecutors.
While every other commonwealth agency is subject to Pennsylvania’s open records law, Penn State is exempt, making it difficult to get information about who knew what and when regarding the sex abuse claims.
