Ex-PSU lawyers argue against liability for Sandusky

Pennsylvania State University's former outside counsel law firm rejected this week the notion that it bore any responsibility for the alleged sexual abuse a 22-year-old Harrisburg man says he endured at Jerry Sandusky's hands.

The State College-based firm McQuaide Blasko asked to be removed as a defendant in the man's lawsuit, calling his story "a virtually incomprehensible rant."

"The allegations against the firm are vague, illogical, and both legally and factually unsupportable," the firm said in a motion filed Monday in federal court in Harrisburg.

The suit is one of at least four filed against the university by accusers of Sandusky, the former assistant football coach sentenced in October to a minimum of 30 years in prison for the serial sexual abuse of 10 boys.

But so far, it is the only legal claim to name among its defendants McQuaide Blasko, which handled most legal claims against the university until Penn State established its own office of general counsel in 2010.

The accuser behind the suit, identified in court documents only as John Doe, was not one of the eight who testified against Sandusky in his criminal trial.

In a complaint filed in October, the now-22-year-old alleged Sandusky groped him in a university swimming pool in 2005.

His claim against the law firm stems from allegations that it handled prior reports of abuse against the former coach for the university and therefore could have stopped the purported 2005 pool incident.

The suit also names the university, Sandusky's children's charity the Second Mile, McQuaide Blasko lawyer Wendell Courtney, and several Penn State administrators as defendants.