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Penn State administrator files motion to have separate trial

One of two Pennsylvania State University administrators charged with perjury and failing to report suspected child abuse in the Jerry Sandusky scandal filed a motion Monday to have separate trials for the pair.

One of two Pennsylvania State University administrators charged with perjury and failing to report suspected child abuse in the Jerry Sandusky scandal filed a motion Monday to have separate trials for the pair.

The motion, filed in Dauphin County Court, argues that former vice president Gary Schultz cannot get a fair trial if he faces a jury alongside suspended athletic director Tim Curley.

Schultz's attorney, Thomas Farrell, also filed a motion indicating that Curley would file a similar motion to sever.

Schultz and Curley are charged with failing to report to outside authorities a 2001 incident in which graduate assistant Mike McQueary said he witnessed Sandusky molesting a boy in a football locker-room shower and then lying about it to a grand jury.

Curley and Schultz "several times implicated" each other in their grand jury testimony, according to the motion.

If Schultz decides not to testify, Curley's grand jury testimony should not be used against him while they are codefendants, the motion says.

Conversely, "should Mr. Curley choose not to testify, as is his constitutional right, Mr. Schultz would be deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to confront Mr. Curley, a witness squarely against him in this instance," the motion says.

Schultz's "right to confront a witness against him under the Sixth Amendment is violated by introducing a nontestifying codefendant's confession which implicates the defendant as a participant in the crime," according to the filing.

Curley told the grand jury that McQueary reported inappropriate body contact between Sandusky and the child. Curley said McQueary did not describe it as sexual.

Schultz said that it could be regarded as sexual.

E-mails from 2001 that were released subsequent to their grand jury testimony suggest that Curley and Schultz, along with former university president Graham B. Spanier, considered McQueary's allegations serious enough to alert outside authorities.

Instead, they decided to handle the matter internally.

Curley and Schultz are scheduled for trial in January.

Sandusky was convicted June 22 on 45 counts of child sex abuse in June. He will be sentenced Oct. 9 and faces a maximum term of 442 years in prison. Prosecutors have indicated that they will seek what will essentially be a life sentence for the 69-year-old.

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