Penn State Stuck with Whistleblower Case

Story first appeared in USA Today.

The Penn State football assistant whose report of another assistant allegedly attacking a child in the showers led to the head coach's firing said in a court filing Tuesday that he is suing the school.

The "writ of summons" filed by the assistant coach's lawyer described it as a whistleblower case, but the brief document was not accompanied by a full complaint that would lay out the allegations.

The filing was first reported by the Centre Daily Times on its website.

The assistant coach, then a graduate assistant, has said he complained to the head coach of seeing the boy in a locker room shower naked with the defendant.

He testified in December that he believed the defendant was molesting the boy and having some type of sexual intercourse with him, but added he was not "100 percent" certain they were having intercourse because of his vantage point.

Penn State's trustees have said they fired the head coach partly because of his response to the incident. He had reported the matter to administrators, which trustees have called his minimum legal duty and a failure of leadership. He was fired as coach in November and died in January of lung cancer.

The assistant coach, who was a receivers coach, was placed on paid administrative leave by the school after the three men were arrested in November. All three have pleaded not guilty.

Penn State spokesman said that school officials were unable to comment because they had not seen the complaint.

Pennsylvania prosecutors said Monday they now believe the alleged shower assault took place a year earlier than they first claimed.

The attorney general's office said in a court filing that investigators concluded the alleged attack took place around Feb. 9, 2001. Previously filed court documents, including a grand jury report issued before the defendant's arrest dated it March 1, 2002.


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