HARRISBURG, Pa (Reuters) ? A key witness in the sex abuse case of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky testified on Friday he had no doubt he saw Sandusky in a sexual act with a 10-year-old boy in 2002.
"I believe he was sexually molesting the boy," Mike McQueary, a graduate assistant in the university's football program in 2002, said in testimony at a court hearing, adding at a later point that he "has no doubt" he saw Sandusky in a sexual act.
But McQueary also said: "I did not see insertion nor was there any protest, screaming or yelling."
"I heard rhythmic slapping sounds, two or three slaps that sounded like skin on skin."
He said he was "shocked, horrified, not thinking straight. I was distraught."
McQueary was testifying at a court hearing on charges against former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and finance official Gary Schultz.
McQueary said he called his father and told him: "I just saw coach Sandusky. What I saw was wrong and sexual."
McQueary also talked to legendary Penn State coach Joe Paterno about the incident.
Asked if he used the phrase "anal intercourse" in describing what he saw to Paterno, McQueary said, "No, out of respect, I would not have done it."
Paterno told him, "I'm sorry you had to see that" and that he had "done the absolute right thing," McQueary said.
Paterno appeared "shocked and saddened" after hearing what McQueary saw, and "slumped back in his chair," McQueary said.
DID NOT CONFRONT SANDUSKY
He said he had never confronted Sandusky himself about the incident.
Curley and Schultz, the latter in charge of the university's police at the time of the incident, were charged last month with perjury before a grand jury for testimony they gave about their knowledge of the alleged abuse.
McQueary told the hearing that he also talked to Schultz about the incident and in doing so, "I thought I was talking to the head of police."
He said he thought of Schultz as a sort of district attorney who "would know what to do" with the information.
The hearing was in a courtroom at the Dauphin County Courthouse with District Judge William Wenner presiding.
McQueary's story is important to the case against Sandusky and the two officials because he testified to a grand jury that he witnessed Sandusky sodomizing a boy in the showers of the football building, and reported it to then head coach Paterno.
Paterno said he told his boss, Curley, but no one told police, and Sandusky's alleged behavior continued, according to a grand jury report.
The preliminary hearing on Friday is to determine if there is enough evidence for Curley and Schultz, both of whom were present, to go to trial.
McQueary has not been charged in the case but was put on administrative leave from the university, as was Curley. Schultz retired shortly after he was arraigned November 7 in suburban Harrisburg.
Paterno and Penn State President Graham Spanier were fired for not telling police what they knew.
Sandusky waived his preliminary hearing on Tuesday and will go straight to trial on 52 counts of alleged sex abuse of boys over a 15 year period.
At issue on Friday is what McQueary, who was 28 at the time, actually saw in the football shower. Since Curley's and Schultz's arrests, different versions of what McQueary witnessed have been reported.
Penn State faces a raft of investigations into the Sandusky case and how the school handled it. The university said on Thursday it had asked for more time to respond to questions from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
The university has told the NCAA that it is clear that the questions "might be answered in the course of the investigations currently in progress," it said in a statement.
(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Greg McCune and Jerry Norton)
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