McQueary: 'I did stop it'

MIKE MCQUEARY is expected to be a key witness for prosecutors in the child-sex-abuse case against former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky.

Now, McQueary's friends are trying to save his image in the court of public opinion.

The Penn State wide-receivers coach was put on leave last week after he was harshly criticized for appearing to have walked out of a locker room after allegedly witnessing Sandusky raping a young boy in 2002.

But in two emails to friends that leaked out this week, McQueary said he had done more than just walk out.

"I did stop it, not physically . . . but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room," McQueary said in an email dated Nov. 8, and first obtained yesterday by the Allentown Morning Call.

"No one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds . . . trust me."

He wrote that he had "discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police."

"I am getting hammered for handling this the right way . . . or what I thought at the time was right," he wrote. "I had to make tough impacting quick decisions."

According to the grand-jury report, McQueary was shocked when he came upon Sandusky and the boy. After he made eye contact with the boy and Sandusky, the grand jury wrote, McQueary "left immediately, distraught."

The report said that McQueary then went to his office and called his father. McQueary reported the incident to head coach Joe Paterno the next day.

About 10 days later, McQueary met with athletic director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, Penn State's senior vice president for finance and business, who was in charge of the university police department, according to the grand jury.

Curley and Schultz are both charged with perjury.

In other news:

* Joe Paterno sold his State College home to his wife in July for $1 plus "love and affection," the New York Times has reported, leading to questions of whether Paterno is trying to protect his personal wealth in the face of possible lawsuits.

* Joe Amendola, Sandusky's lawyer, told ABC News that he expects many of the victims in the grand-jury report to deny that they were assaulted.

He also said that he believes he's tracked down the victim in the incident reportedly witnessed by McQueary.

"The kid is . . . now grown up; he's in his 20s. He's adamant that nothing sexual occurred," Amendola told ABC.

* U.S. Sen. Bob Casey asked for a hearing into how federal laws apply to the investigation.

In a letter to Sens. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Richard Burr, R-N.C., Casey called for a hearing in a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

He said he wanted to see how well federal laws protect children and to ensure that provisions for reporting suspected cases are in place. Pennsylvania is not one of the 18 states that require adults to report suspected child abuse.