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Key Witness In Sandusky Case May Have Been Child Sex Abuse Victim

Posted in Sexual Abuse on Friday, March 14, 2014.

The Jerry Sandusky scandal is still fresh in the minds of most Pennsylvanians. With Sandusky now in prison and most victim lawsuits settled or otherwise resolved, the focus now turns to the former Penn State officials who allegedly failed to intervene after receiving disturbing accounts of Sandusky sexually abusing at least one of his victims.

Those accounts were given by former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary, who allegedly witnessed Sandusky engaging in “anal intercourse” with a boy in a locker room shower in 2001. McQueary shared what he saw with former coach Joe Paterno, former athletic director Tim Curley and former senior vice president Gary Schulz.

Curley and Schulz will be criminally tried later this year, as will former president Graham Spanier. All are accused of failing to act on reports given to them by McQueary.

Recently, ESPN did a profile on McQueary. But rather than interviewing him directly, they talked to others who were near him at the time the scandal broke, including former Penn State football players who worked under him.

According to some of these players, McQueary disclosed that he had been sexually abused as a boy, and could therefore empathize with the helplessness of the boy he had seen being raped by Jerry Sandusky. This was second-hand information that Mike McQueary would not comment on for the ESPN story. But at least two former players have said they were there to witness McQueary making that comment in November 2011.

Even if McQueary’s supposed admission could be confirmed personally, it would add credibility to his role as one of only two people who were brave enough to report Sandusky’s sexual assaults directly to Penn State administrators and/or Penn State police. We must hope that if Mr. McQueary was a sexual abuse victim as a child, his heroic actions and testimony in the Sandusky case will help him begin the healing process.

Source: CBS Sports, “Report: Former Penn State assistant Mike McQueary says he was abused,” Chip Patterson, Mar. 4, 2014

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