Arguments Heard in Mike McQueary vs. Penn State Case
Attorneys representing Mike McQueary and Penn State convened at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte today to present their preliminary arguments before Judge Thomas Gavin.
As you may recall, McQueary is suing Penn State for a total of $4,000,000 on the grounds of “lost future earnings, general damages to be determined at trial for distress, anguish, humiliation and embarrassment, plus punitive damages…” The former assistant coach was not in attendance today.
The main topic of contention today was Graham Spanier’s statement from November of 2011, where he placed “complete confidence” in the way Gary Schultz and Tim Curley handled the allegations against Jerry Sandusky in 2001.
Nancy Conrad, Penn State’s attorney on the case, argued that there is no reference to McQueary in the statement.
“It does not target Mike McQueary and, as a result, you would have to pull something out of thin air,” she said.
However, McQueary’s attorney, Elliot Strokoff, asserted that Spanier’s statement is full of defamation, citing one line that reads “I am confident the record will show that these charges are groundless…”
“If these men were charged with something that is ‘groundless,’ that can only mean Mike McQueary was lying,” Strokoff said.
Interestingly enough, Judge Gavin seemed to be in McQueary’s corner for a majority of the 30-minute hearing. At one point, Conrad argued that McQueary is a “limited purpose public figure” (which would require Spanier to have acted with malice), because he was a former assisntant football coach at a nationally-known football program and testified to the Grand Jury.
Not having it, Gavin responded “So anyone that comes forward with information relating to a crime is a public figure? You have to be kidding me.”
No rulings were made today. Gavin told the attorneys that he’d get back to them in late April.
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