Did Corbett react too slowly?

IN 2009 and 2010, then-state Attorney General Tom Corbett clearly had a lot of things on his plate - including a massive corruption probe of state lawmakers and his own time-consuming and successful campaign for governor.

Now, questions are emerging over how quickly Corbett's office jumped during those years on another investigation with massive political implications - the child-sexual-abuse probe of Penn State football assistant Jerry Sandusky.

The Harrisburg Patriot-News questioned whether the probe of Sandusky - indicted on charges that he had molested eight boys in a case that has rocked Happy Valley and ended the reign of football legend Joe Paterno - needed to take three years.

The newspaper said that only one state trooper was assigned to the Sandusky case after it was referred by local prosecutors to Corbett's office in March 2009, and that the A.G.'s office didn't directly supervise the probe until last fall.

When Corbett became governor in January, he named as State Police commissioner Frank Noonan, who'd been the top A.G. investigator. And Noonan moved to put eight investigators on the Sandusky case, leading to some major breakthroughs.

"It was completely mishandled," an unnamed source close to the investigation told the Patriot-News, which broke the news of the probe. "I know these investigations take time, some of them, but someone should have been on this day and night from the beginning because of the severity." The paper said the Second Mile charity for at-risk kids, founded by Sandusky, wasn't told of the probe until after Linda Kelly succeeded Corbett as A.G. earlier this year.

Corbett's chief spokesman, Kevin Harley, referred calls to Noonan's spokeswoman, Maria Finn, who said the probe accelerated this year because of her boss' knowledge of the case and new leads that developed.

"In January he insisted, because of his knowledge of the case from before, that the resources be increased," Finn said.

The debate over the speed of the probe came on a day that included other major developments:

* Embattled Nittany Lions receivers coach Mike McQueary - on administrative leave and under fire for not going to police or personally intervening in a 2002 incident in which he allegedly witnessed Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy - defended himself in an email.

NBC News obtained the email, in which McQueary told friends that "the truth is not out there fully," that he "didn't just turn and run" but that "I made sure it stopped . . . I did the right thing . . . you guys know me," adding that he "had to make quick, tough decisions."

* A state lawmaker called on state Chief Justice Ronald Castille to investigate whether the district judge who set bail terms for Sandusky had a conflict of interest because she had donated money to and had volunteered with the Second Mile.

Centre County District Judge Leslie Dutchcot allowed Sandusky to be released on $100,000 unsecured bond. Prosecutors had sought $500,000 bail and a requirement that Sandusky wear a leg monitor. Rep. Mike Vereb, R-Montgomery, wrote Castille, asking him to investigate why Dutchcot hadn't recused herself.

"This is a mockery of the criminal-justice system," Vereb told the Daily News in a phone interview from Harrisburg. "This man should either be incarcerated or on a monitoring system. Sandusky said he would keep away from children? Well, that hasn't worked out too well for him in the past."

* Michael Madeira, the former Centre County district attorney who turned the Sandusky case over to the A.G.'s office in March 2009, told the Daily News he had done so because of "personal knowledge and personal contact" with the ex-coach. He declined to spell out the nature of the conflict.

Last night, Vereb didn't fault Corbett's handling of the Sandusky probe but wondered whether several years of budget cuts for the A.G.'s office and State Police - in a time of overlapping political-corruption probes - had made it harder to allocate needed resources.