Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

Sandusky prosecutors defend investigation, deny leaks

BELLEFONTE, Pa. - Knowing the criminal case it was building against Jerry Sandusky was likely to shake Pennsylvania State University to its core, the Attorney General's Office in 2011 went to extraordinary lengths to keep the investigation secret, case prosecutors said Tuesday.

BELLEFONTE, Pa. - Knowing the criminal case it was building against Jerry Sandusky was likely to shake Pennsylvania State University to its core, the Attorney General's Office in 2011 went to extraordinary lengths to keep the investigation secret, case prosecutors said Tuesday.

They drafted a fake subpoena - one listing a prominent person's name - to see if anyone in the office might try to leak it to the press.

No one took the bait.

And later, when details of the sex-abuse case were posted on a state-run court website days before prosecutors had planned to announce the charges, they dispatched investigators to determine if a Centre County district judge purposefully filed them early in public view.

Then-Attorney General Linda Kelly "was extremely upset, and she wanted to take profound action," former Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina told a judge here.

Testimony from Fina and his fellow Sandusky-trial prosecutors Jonelle Eshbach and Joseph McGettigan capped off what had been scheduled to be three days of hearings reserved for Sandusky's bid to overturn his child sexual-abuse conviction.

Senior Judge John M. Cleland, who presided over the 2012 trial, adjourned the proceeding Tuesday without ruling on the appeal and said more hearings might occur.

Al Lindsay, Sandusky's appellate lawyer, said he intended to call more witnesses to the stand, including a man who claims he is Victim 2, the boy whose 2001 sexual assault in a Penn State locker room shower was witnessed by graduate assistant Mike McQueary.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Lindsay acknowledged that he had intended to compel the now-29-year-old to testify this week, but that his staff was unable to find the accuser. The lawyer said he still hopes to subpoena the man, who received a settlement from Penn State based on his claims, for a later hearing.

Without Victim 2, the proceeding Tuesday focused primarily on the issue of leaks from the grand jury that investigated Sandusky from 2009 to 2011.

Lindsay has argued that the former Penn State assistant football coach deserves a new trial in part because a series of 2011 articles that appeared in the Harrisburg Patriot-News detailed key aspects of the investigation before Sandusky was charged and are evidence of prosecutorial misconduct.

Fina, in his testimony Tuesday, offered an alternative explanation: The witnesses called before the secret grand jury were not barred from discussing their testimony publicly and may have become sources for the newspaper.

"A lot of these times, when things get in the newspapers, it always alarms us as the commonwealth," he said. "But our ability to control or stop it is somewhat limited."

Fina's post-Sandusky career has been dominated by accusations and denials of grand-jury leaks.

His years-long feud with former Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane stemmed from her belief that he leaked information to the Inquirer about an undercover sting operation she shut down that had caught six Philadelphia public officials accepting cash or gifts.

Kane was convicted this month of lying about grand-jury material she leaked from an unrelated case to strike back at Fina.

He never referenced Kane in his testimony Tuesday, but Fina acknowledged the awkwardness of again addressing the topic of media leaks.

"One of the great misrepresentations about grand juries is this idea that grand-jury leaks happen all the time and they're all illegal leaks," he said with a smile. "That is a myth that has resulted in a lot of unwarranted concern and hysteria - perhaps not in this case, but in other cases."

McGettigan, Fina's cocounsel in the Sandusky case, was in a far less jovial mood when he followed Fina on the witness stand. McGettigan traded several barbs in pointed exchanges with Sandusky's lawyer.

Sandusky has claimed as part of his appeal that McGettigan lied to jurors when he said Victim 2's identity was "known only to God."

Lindsay contends the prosecutor purposefully ignored the claims of the now-29-year-old because McGettigan feared that inconsistent statements the man gave to investigators in the run-up to trial could damage the prosecution's case before the jury.

But when asked Tuesday whether he believed the accuser's shower-assault claim, McGettigan responded flatly: "I did not then. I do not now."

He ticked off a list of reasons:

The accuser, whose name the Inquirer is withholding because of his allegations of abuse, first told state police that Sandusky had never abused him. He then changed his testimony after hearing McQueary's testimony at a preliminary hearing for two former Penn State administrators charged with covering-up Sandusky's crimes, according to McGettigan.

The accuser was born in 1987 and would have been 14 at the time of the alleged assault, McGettigan noted. The boy McQueary described was 8 to 10 years old.

And when asked by investigators to draw the layout of the locker room where he alleged he had been attacked by Sandusky, the man's sketch bore no resemblance to the room where McQueary said he witnessed the sexual assault.

"The only information we had that he was a victim of Mr. Sandusky came from [his civil attorney], who tried to prevent us from speaking with him until after McQueary had testified," McGettigan said.

Among his other appellate claims, Sandusky contends his lawyers were ineffective and the trial unfair because the defense team was hamstrung from the start by a lack of experience and time to prepare for such a major case.

Cleland offered no indication Tuesday on when he may rule. Lindsay said he liked his client's chances.

"It's going better than I hoped," he told reporters after the proceedings.

McGettigan, clearly annoyed at being forced to testify, offered his own post-hearing assessment.

"Well, I live in the real world," he said. "A jury of 12 persons convicted him in a full and fair hearing. And I stand by the trial we tried."

jroebuck@phillynews.com

215-854-2608

@jeremyrroebuck