Former Penn State VP said administrators changed their response to Sandusky incident

Former Penn State vice president Gary Schultz testified for more than an hour in the trial of Graham Spanier who is charged with felony child endangerment and conspiracy stemming from 1998 and 2001 incidents involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

Schultz and former athletic director Tim Curley testified Wednesday in the Dauphin County Courthouse more than a week after they pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment charges on March 13. They would have been Spanier’s co-defendents.

Schultz said during his testimony that he may have introduced the word “horseplay” into the narrative and that it may have come to him from Joe Paterno.

The university’s former vice president testified that he was concerned about Sandusky’s behavior even after charges were not pressed in 1998.

Defense attorney Sam Silver also questioned Schultz regarding a 2001 Lasch Building shower incident witnessed by former assistant coach Mike McQueary. Schultz said that McQueary reported that he saw Sandusky naked in a shower with his arms around a boy from behind, which the former vice president did not recall until the eve of his guilty plea. Schultz’s account does not match Curley’s.

Schultz said that administrators initially planned to report the 2001 incident to the Department of Public Welfare, but that the plan was changed and he “went along with it.”

This story was originally published March 22, 2017 at 4:59 PM with the headline "Former Penn State VP said administrators changed their response to Sandusky incident."