Jerry Sandusky Scandal: Recapping the Most Shocking News from Perjury Hearings

The wheels of justice are finally turning, however slowly, in the various proceedings stemming from the Jerry Sandusky scandal. Friday's preliminary hearing in the trial of former Penn State vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley on charges of perjury marked the first major court appearance for any of the principle figures since the conclusion of grand jury testimony.

As one might expect from a circus as disturbing as this one has already proven to be, day one gave rise to a slew of developments that will leave heads scratched and stomachs churned. Many thanks to Cory Giger of the Altoona Mirror for his Twitter coverage of the hearing.

First came the graphic testimony of Mike McQueary, the assistant coach who caught Sandusky molesting a boy in the shower at the Lasch Building on the Penn State campus in 2002. McQueary has been inconsistent in his accounts of what happened that day and whether or not he did anything to stop Sandusky in the act. This time, however, McQueary made it clear that he did not, in fact, interfere:

McQueary's shock is certainly understandable, given the grave nature of the crime to which he'd just been witness, but not a single word? He did nothing to ensure that Sandusky wouldn't get right back to raping the young boy he was with?

Of course, McQueary did nothing illegal here, though his lack of any action whatsoever in the situation suggests at least some moral culpability on his part. 

McQueary went on to describe his meeting with head coach Joe Paterno the next day, during which he refrained from going into the grizzly details:

"Out of respect"? What was this, a meeting with Don Corleone?

"Out of respect" for whom, Mike? Clearly not the children who were victimized by Sandusky. If it were about the kids, McQueary would've told Paterno everything he possibly could have, anything to convey the gravity and depravity of what he'd seen the night before.

But no, McQueary apparently didn't want to offend Old King Joe's fragile sensibilities because, you know, long-time football coaches aren't mentally tough enough or strong enough to handle gruesome details...

And if McQueary hadn't already come off as a take-orders, fall-in-line guy, his reaction to Curley's course of action against Sandusky only further confirms his standing as the product of a system way out of whack:

Because a slap on the wrist is justice enough? For a man whose actions were so shocking that McQueary was:

Yet, McQueary continued to remain tight-lipped about seeing Sandusky around the facilities to his superiors.

Now, it may not be entirely fair to levy all the blame on McQueary's shoulders. The role of whistleblower is an unenviable one and often a dangerous one for the person's well-being, particularly as an employee of whatever institution to which that person belongs. That being said, McQueary certainly could have (and probably should have) said something about seeing Sandusky around campus, even if it was posed merely as a question rather than a demand pressed for against his own status on Paterno's staff.

Once McQueary was off the stand, it was time for testimony from Tom Harmon, the former director of university police who worked under Schultz when Sandusky's sexual abuses came to light in 1998 and 2002. Harmon says he told Schultz about one of the incidents in 1998 but that Schultz never followed up on it fully:

It should come as little surprise to see that Schultz was negligent, seeing as how he was one of the chief figures in charge of keeping the university's reputation clean. Still, it's disturbing to think that Schultz had heard of Sandusky's transgressions in 1998, did nothing about them and then failed to act decisively when they returned to the surface in 2002.

The testimony of John McQueary, Mike McQueary's father, provides some interesting context as to where Mike's manner of handling the matter may have come from:

One of the bigger shockers of the day came from the grand jury testimony of Joe Paterno, which was read aloud to the court on Friday. Rather than act immediately to inform the administration of what McQueary had told him, Paterno decided to wait until after the weekend:

Right, JoePa, because that's the biggest concern—making sure not to "interfere" with other people's weekends.

You know, like how Sandusky "interfered" with the innocence of the children he molested. Maybe I'm just not old-fashioned enough, but something as serious as rape supersedes "common courtesy" any day of the week.

As for Tim Curley, his grand jury testimony was eerily reminiscent of the way in which Sandusky described the incident in question to Bob Costas last month:

Like Schultz, Curley was "kind" enough to mete out his own justice against Sandusky, with law enforcement left out of the picture:

Oh, and Curley didn't even bother to find out who it was that Sandusky had been with in the showers:

The real bombshells of the day, though, came from Gary Schultz's grand jury testimony, in which he admitted to never having spoken with Sandusky about either incident in question, choosing instead to defer to Curley, even though Schultz was the head of university police:

And then, there was this from Schultz:

Not sure if it's criminal, Gary? Again, YOU OVERSAW THE UNIVERSITY POLICE! Surely, even as a human being rather than a university administrator, he should've had some idea that such activity was morally reprehensible, if not downright illegal.

Remember, this was just the first day of a preliminary hearing in a case that has nothing to do with the fate of Jerry Sandusky, the alleged perpetrator of the child sex crimes in question. 

In other words, this is just the beginning. The situation in Happy Valley only figures to get worse as the criminal cases from the travesties in Happy Valley drag on through the coming weeks and months.

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