HARRISBURG, Pa. _ After five years of maintaining their innocence, two former Pennsylvania State University administrators on Monday pleaded guilty to child endangerment for not reporting Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse of children.
The guilty pleas in Dauphin County Court by ex-athletic director Tim Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz reflected an unexpected turn in the case, one of the largest scandals in the history of college athletics. They also narrowed the spotlight to the lone remaining defendant, former university President Graham Spanier, the once highly regarded president who led Penn State for 16 years.
Jury selection in the three men's trial was slated to begin March 20. In return for their pleas, prosecutors dismissed the conspiracy charges against Curley and Schultz. It wasn't immediately clear if they will be required to cooperate with prosecutors or testify against Spanier.
It also wasn't clear if the pleas would prompt Spanier or his lawyers to ask Judge John Boccabella to postpone the trial. Spanier was not present at the proceeding.
As Curley and Schultz had, he faces conspiracy and child endangerment charges stemming from his failure to inform police or child welfare investigators of a 2001 report by Mike McQueary, then a football program graduate assistant, that he saw Sandusky, the former assistant coach, sexually assault a boy in a locker room shower.
Spanier resigned under pressure days after Sandusky's 2011 arrest, but he was not criminally charged until a year later. The former university president has since steadfastly maintained his innocence.
"As I have stated in the clearest possible terms, at no time during my presidency did anyone ever report to me that Jerry Sandusky was observed abusing a child or youth or engaged in a sexual act with a child or a youth," he wrote in a 2012 letter to the trustees.
