Corbett says Sandusky case moved as quickly as possible

Gov. Corbett said Wednesday the three-year investigation that led to child-rape charges against former football coach Jerry Sandusky moved "as quickly as it possibly could" and dismissed as misinformed any suggestion that law enforcement officials may have left a potential predator unchecked.

Corbett, who as state attorney general supervised the investigation, said police and prosecutors had to carefully corroborate sex-abuse accusations against the longtime Pennsylvania State University defensive coordinator, then build a case for a grand jury to approve.

"The investigation moved as quickly as it possibly could," the governor told reporters during a visit to a Northeast Philadelphia charter school. "If, during the time that I was in office, we could have been in a position to make an arrest, we would have made an arrest."

Corbett spoke as the spotlight in the still-unfolding case shifted from Sandusky's alleged abuse to the people and institutions that may have had a chance to expose or stop it.

The case has already cost fabled football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham B. Spanier their jobs, led to perjury charges against two school administrators, sparked at least three investigations, and brought calls for new state or federal laws mandating the reporting of child-abuse allegations.

Ten days after it broke, the case continued to ripple. Lawmakers in Harrisburg proposed forming a bipartisan commission to examine the Penn State scandal and propose reforms.

Responding to concerns about impartiality, the state judiciary named a judge from outside State College to oversee the next hearing in Sandusky's case.

According to a grand jury presentment, Sandusky, 67, came under scrutiny after the mother of a Clinton County teenager said he had abused her son in 2008.

The state Attorney General's Office took over the investigation in March 2009 and, over time, identified seven other boys Sandusky allegedly had molested in his home, on campus, or on football team trips since the mid-1990s, when he was still coaching at Penn State.

Sandusky and his lawyer have denied the charges and suggested at least half the alleged victims might dispute the grand jury account.

Its report said that a former graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, saw Sandusky raping a boy in a locker room shower in 2002 and that McQueary reported it to Paterno. McQueary has declined to comment, but in e-mails published this week, he told friends he tried to stop the attack and reported the alleged abuse to police.

On Wednesday, State College and university police said they had no record of any such report, according to the Associated Press.

Corbett was among those who had criticized McQueary for not doing more.

The governor stood by that assessment Wednesday. He went to the First Philadelphia Preparatory Charter School in Tacony to highlight his education-reform proposal but instead faced a torrent of questions from reporters about what he knew about the Sandusky case, when he knew it, and what he did about it.

Corbett, who also serves on the Penn State board of trustees, steadfastly said he could not discuss details of the investigation - even how many officers worked on the case. But he stood by the way it unfolded.

"You all are jumping all over the board, as to when who knew what - [but] you don't know," the governor said. Citing his background as a federal and state prosecutor, he said no recent governor "has done more to protect children than me - so if you think I delayed for any reasons, you're wrong."

He also said he was confident during the investigation that Sandusky no longer had access to children through the Second Mile, the charitable organization where he allegedly found his targets.

"Could anybody guarantee that he wasn't out there touching children? There are no guarantees, unless he was sitting in jail," Corbett said. "But we did what we thought was in the best interest of this investigation."

Former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham, who investigated similar allegations during a three-year probe of clergy sex-abuse allegations in Philadelphia, cautioned critics against rushing to judgment.

"To convince people to come forward to testify in sex-abuse cases is really, really hard," said Abraham, who has been hired by the Second Mile to oversee its internal investigation.

Corbett praised the foundation's mission in helping underprivileged children but acknowledged the organization might not survive the scandal.

"I don't know that it's going to be able to continue to go forward," he said. "And I would hope that there would be a successor organization in that area to help children."

Since the scandal broke, the organization has lost $6 million in state and county funding for a 45,000-square-foot facility in Centre County to house counseling services, dormitories, sports fields, and administrative offices.

Corbett said he initially approved a $3 million redevelopment grant for the project over the summer because it had been proposed by legislators and his predecessor, Gov. Ed Rendell. He said that he feared halting it might compromise the criminal investigation but that his office froze the grant after Sandusky's arrest.

Centre County commissioners decided Wednesday to do the same, backing out of their $3 million commitment to the project, county administrator Denise L. Elbell said.

County and state officials also said a judge from outside Centre County would preside over Sandusky's next court appearance, a Dec. 7 preliminary hearing.

"The request is being made to avoid the possibility of any perception of impropriety," Centre County President Judge David E. Grine wrote in his request to the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.

The office said Senior District Judge Robert E. Scott of Westmoreland County, a judge since 1964, had agreed to take over the case.

Grine didn't elaborate, but the Centre County district judge who was assigned to the case, Leslie Dutchcot, sparked criticism after she denied prosecutors' request for Sandusky's bail to be set at $500,000 before trial. Instead, Dutchcot freed Sandusky on $100,000 unsecured bail.

Records show that Dutchcot has been a donor and volunteer for the Second Mile and that the charity's chairman, Robert Poole, hosted a political fund-raiser for her in 2007. She has declined to comment.

The potential for conflict has tinged the case before. Former Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira told the Associated Press on Wednesday that he passed the case to the state Attorney General's Office in 2009 because his wife's brother is one of Sandusky's adopted children.

And in Harrisburg, legislators said they would form a bipartisan commission to examine the case and propose reforms. "I am committed to a thoughtful process that produces stronger protections for children across the state," said Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware).

Inquirer staff writer Angela Couloumbis contributed to this article.