Jury awards $7.3 million to Penn State
whistleblower in Sandusky scandal
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[October 28, 2016]
By David DeKok
BELLEFONTE, Pa. (Reuters) - A jury in
Pennsylvania on Thursday awarded more than $7 million in damages to a
former Penn State University assistant football coach who said the
school retaliated by firing him after he implicated Jerry Sandusky as a
molester of young boys.
The $7.3 million in compensatory and punitive damages Penn State was
ordered to pay Michael McQueary was confirmed to Reuters by Kendra
Miknis, chief administrator of the Centre County Court of Common Pleas
in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania.
McQueary, claiming a loss of reputation and a $140,000-a-year coaching
job in 2012 for his role as a whistleblower against Sandusky, had sought
more than $8 million in damages.
McQueary, who coached wide receivers for legendary Penn State head coach
Joe Paterno for eight seasons, told state investigators in 2011 that he
had seen Sandusky, a retired but still-revered coach, in the shower
having sex with a young boy 10 years earlier while McQueary was still a
graduate student.
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He also implicated Timothy Curley, the university athletic director, and
Gary Schultz, a Penn State vice president who oversaw the campus police
department, in a cover-up. Sandusky, now 72, was not arrested for 10
more years.
He was tried and convicted in 2012 of molesting 10 boys and was
sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.
Paterno was fired for his role in the Sandusky scandal and died months
later. McQueary never worked anywhere of note after his dismissal, he
said, because other schools viewed him as damaged goods. He had
ostensibly lost his job because the new head coach, Bill O'Brien, did
not want him.
McQueary also claimed in his lawsuit that former Penn State president
Graham Spanier defamed him in a public statement in 2011 that publicly
defended Curley and Schultz.
Elliot Strokoff, a lawyer for McQueary, told Reuters earlier Thursday
that he would not be able to comment on the verdict because Judge Thomas
Gavin has a gag order in place. Penn State attorney Nancy Conrad told
media much the same. A university spokesman also declined to comment.
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![](../images/102816pics/news_f13.jpg)
Convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky (C), a former assistant
football coach at Penn State University, leaves after his appeal
hearing at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania,
U.S. on October 29, 2015. REUTERS/Pat Little/File Photo
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In an unusual arrangement, the jury ruled on defamation and
misrepresentation claims made by McQueary against Penn State, but
Gavin himself will rule within 30 days on the whistleblower part of
the lawsuit.
McQueary "should not have been a scapegoat,” Strokoff said during
closing arguments Thursday morning. “They said that he is the
villain and that he is only in court because of his own failures.”
Conrad told jurors in closing that McQueary was not defamed by
Spanier in 2011 and argued that his failure to find a job since 2012
was his own fault, not Penn State’s.
“He was not damaged by any actions of the university,” Conrad said.
“If he was harmed, it was by national media and public opinion. He
failed to find a position because of his own shortcomings.”
McQueary’s lawsuit took four years to come to trial.
(Editing by Frank McGurty and Mary Milliken)
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