Jerry Sandusky Hearing: Prosecution Would Be Crazy to Showcase Mike McQueary

The Jerry Sandusky scandal is going to take a major step towards going to trial on Tuesday, as the former Penn State assistant coach is slated to appear at a preliminary hearing in Pennsylvania.

Per an Associated Press report, it's possible the prosecution will call as many as 10 young men to testify against Sandusky, which should be more than enough to convince a judge to send the case to trial. 

The exact number of witnesses is significant in this case because Sandusky has been charged with more than 50 child sex abuse counts stemming from accusations of sexual assault against 10 boys. If the prosecution does indeed choose to call all 10 victims, it will be sending a pretty loud message that there's just no way that Sandusky is innocent of all the charges that have been brought against him.

The one wild card, however, is Mike McQueary, who is a key figure in the grand jury report that led to Sandusky's current predicament.

The story goes that McQueary witnessed Sandusky sodomizing a 10-year-old boy in the Penn State football locker rooms back in 2002. The incident kicked off a chain of events involving several high-ranking Penn State officials, one of which was longtime head football coach Joe Paterno. All of the key figures involved have been forced out of Penn State in one way or another.

Assuming the Sandusky case does go to trial, McQueary is going to be the prosecution's star witness, and it is possible his words will make or break Sandusky's fate.

But right now, the prosecution would be wise to keep him under wraps.

The problem with McQueary's story is that it keeps changing. He told the grand jury he witnessed Sandusky raping a young boy, but there are other versions of his story (which are recounted in the AP report). 

One involves McQueary telling a watered-down version of his story to his Penn State superiors back in 2002. After the situation exploded and he was placed on administrative leave in November, he said in an email that he actually intervened in the 2002 incident.

Worse yet, The Patriot News reported on Sunday that a family friend had heard McQueary's tale the first time he told it to his father. This family friend claims McQueary never actually saw Sandusky doing anything. 

As time has gone on, McQueary had become less and less reliable as a witness, as there really is no concrete version of his story. For all intents and purposes, his credibility has taken a major hit.

If the prosecution wants to send this case to trial on its own terms, the last thing it wants to do is call attention to McQueary and his inconsistencies. It is highly unlikely that doing so would lead to a flat-out dismissal of the charges against Sandusky, but the defense could easily put the prosecution in a hole by discrediting McQueary even further via cross examination.

It helps that the prosecution doesn't need to call McQueary to the stand during the preliminary hearing. In all likelihood, it has more than enough evidence to steer the case toward trial, and shifting the focus to the victims will allow the prosecution to keep Sandusky in his villain role.

Mike McQueary will be involved in the proceedings sooner or later. But for now, it's in the prosecution's interest to keep him in the shadows.