'Highly Incriminating' Evidence in Jerry Sandusky Case Could Lead to New Charges

Aug. 16, 2012— -- Prosecutors in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case said they had a "great deal" of "highly incriminating" evidence they never brought up during Sandusky's trial, evidence that could be related to pending criminal charges.

The statements are part of a transcript released Thursday from a closed-door meeting held in June, after Sandusky had been found guilty of 45 counts of child sex abuse.

In the meeting, Frank Fina, Pennsylvania's deputy attorney general, said that the state had investigative reports as well as testimony from unnamed victims in the case that were not brought up in trial and should remain secret because of the ongoing investigation.

"We turned over transcripts of other potential victims and transcripts relating to the Penn State University and some of the potential events involving Penn State's connection with this case that I think would be highly sought by the media and that would not be in the best interests, again, of anybody, especially potentially ongoing matters to be disclosed," Fina said, according to the transcript.

The attorney general has not commented on who the ongoing investigation might be targeting.

The meeting was called in June after a recording of Sandusky's son, Matt Sandusky, talking to the Pennsylvania attorney general was leaked to NBC. On the tape, Matt Sandusky told prosecutors that Jerry Sandusky had acted inappropriately with him, a charge that stunned Jerry Sandusky's defense team in the middle of the trial.

Prosecutors, investigators, and Jerry Sandusky's defense attorneys all denied supplying NBC with the recording, and asked the judge to institute an all-encompassing order sealing all of the evidence in the case.

Only three copies of the tape existed, Fina said in the meeting. Two copies were kept by the state, one at the attorney general's office and the other at the Pennsylvania State Police offices. A third recording was given to Sandusky's attorneys, Joseph Amendola and Karl Rominger.

"I know that I received the tape disc from the Commonwealth concerning Matt Sandusky's testimony. I gave that copy to Mr. Rominger to review because there was no transcript," Amendola said in the meeting.

Amendola said he never listened to the recording, made a copy of it, or disseminated it.

"It would have been Wednesday I received it. It's been in my hotel room. It's been in my car. It's still in my car. That's where it's been," Rominger said. "I made no copies of it, and I have no copies of it."

There is now an investigation into who gave the recording to NBC.

Two Penn State officials have already been charged in connection with covering up Sandusky's crimes. Athletic director Tim Curley and former vice president of finance Gary Schultz are charged with lying to a grand jury about their knowledge of Sandusky's crimes and with failure to report suspected child abuse.

Attorneys for both men appeared in court today for pretrial hearings, which include requests by both Curley and Schultz to have the charges against them dismissed. There is no trial date set in the case.

According to the internal investigation report released by former FBI director Louis Freeh in July, Curley and Schultz, as well as Joe Paterno and former university president Graham Spanier, all knew about two incidences in which Sandusky was showering with boys on Penn State's campus.

The men decided after a 1998 investigation into Sandusky showering with a young boy to simply bar the former football coach from bringing children onto campus, a edict which they did not enforce.

In 2001, all four men were told that Sandusky was seen in the shower again with a young boy by assistant coach Mike McQueary. McQueary has said he believed he saw Sandusky raping the young boy and relayed the information to Paterno in vague terms, making sure Paterno understood that the incident was sexual.

Curley and Schultz have maintained they were not told the incident qualified as sexual abuse. None of the men reported the incident to police.

Joe Paterno died of lung cancer in January.

Graham Spanier has never been charged in the case. The Pennsylvania attorney general's office has said that Spanier was not informed that the incident McQueary witnessed was sexual in nature.

The transcript released Thursday in the Sandusky case ends with all of the attorneys and judges overseeing the case and the grand jury investigation agreeing to seal all of the evidence in the case, whether it was mentioned in the trial or not.

Sandusky is in jail awaiting sentencing on his conviction.