The Cast Of Characters As Penn State Trial Starts

The main players in the Penn State scandal:

JERRY SANDUSKY

Role: Former assistant football coach and founder of The Second
Mile charity for children, accused of molesting boys over a 15-year
period.

Background: Arrested in November after a long investigation by a
statewide grand jury. He had been a very successful defensive coach
for the Nittany Lions for 30 years, and prosecutors say he used his
fame in the community to attract victims.

Charges: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent
assault of a young child, unlawful contact with minors, corruption
of minors, endangering the welfare of children.

Status: Awaits trial in Centre County, with jury selection
scheduled for Tuesday.

DOTTIE SANDUSKY

Role: Married to Jerry Sandusky.

Background: Dottie Sandusky has stood by her husband, posting
his bail, accompanying him to court proceedings and issuing a
statement in December that proclaimed his innocence and said
accusers were making up stories. She is not charged.

TIM CURLEY

Role: Penn State athletic director, on leave while he fights
criminal charges for actions related to the Sandusky scandal.

Background: Curley fielded a complaint about Sandusky in a team
shower with a boy in early 2001, and told a grand jury he
instructed Sandusky not to be inside Penn State athletic facilities
with any young people.

Charges: Failure to properly report suspected child abuse and
perjury for lying to the grand jury. He's not on trial with
Sandusky, denies the allegations and is seeking to have the charges
dismissed.

GARY SCHULTZ

Role: Penn State vice president for business and finance, now
retired.

Background: Schultz told the grand jury that head coach Joe
Paterno and assistant Mike McQueary reported the 2001 shower
incident "in a very general way" but did not provide details.

Charges: Failure to properly report suspected child abuse and
perjury for lying to the grand jury. He's not on trial with
Sandusky, denies the allegations and is seeking to have the charges
dismissed.

MIKE MCQUEARY

Role: Assistant Penn State football coach. Was a graduate assistant in 2001, when he says he witnessed Jerry Sandusky and a boy naked together in a team shower. McQueary took his complaint to
Paterno, who alerted university administrators.

Background: McQueary testified at a court hearing in December
that he "believed Jerry was sexually molesting" the boy and
"having some type of intercourse with him."

JOE AMENDOLA

Role: Defense attorney for Jerry Sandusky.

Background: Amendola has been second-guessed for allowing
Sandusky to go on network television and speak at length with a
reporter for The New York Times after his arrest. Has won several
legal battles for Sandusky, including getting him released on bail
and fighting the prosecution's effort to have the case heard by a
jury from outside the State College area. His office is in State
College.

KARL ROMINGER

Role: Another defense attorney for Jerry Sandusky.
Background: Rominger suggested in media interviews that Sandusky
might have been teaching "basic hygiene skills" to some of the
youths, such as how to put soap on their bodies. His office is in
Carlisle.

JOHN CLELAND

Role: Judge presiding over Sandusky's trial.

Background: Cleland is a semi-retired senior judge from McKean
County in western Pennsylvania. Known as courteous and fair-minded,
Cleland previously chaired a state panel that investigated a
nationally reported scandal in Luzerne County involving the trading
of juvenile-detention suspects for cash.

JOE PATERNO

Role: The longtime football coach was told by McQueary in 2001
that he saw Sandusky and Victim No. 2 in a shower on the Penn State
campus and, in turn, told Curley and Schultz.

Background: The head coach at Penn State from 1966 through 2011,
and major college football's winningest, he offered to resign at
the end of the 2011 season amid the uproar after Sandusky's arrest
Nov. 6. The Penn State Board of Trustees, however, ousted him for
what was called his "failure of leadership" surrounding
allegations about Sandusky. He died of lung cancer Jan. 22.

SUE PATERNO

Role: Married to Paterno for almost 50 years, she raised five
children with him and passionately defended her husband during the
scandal and after he died. It's unclear whether she might testify.

TOM CORBETT

Role: Now the governor of Pennsylvania, he was attorney general
when the investigation into Sandusky was launched by state
prosecutors.

Background: Corbett is an ex-officio member of the Penn State
Board of Trustees, although he did not actively participate until
after Sandusky was charged in December.

LINDA KELLY

Role: Pennsylvania attorney general, whose office is prosecuting
Sandusky.

Background: A career prosecutor in the Pittsburgh area, Kelly
inherited the Sandusky probe from Corbett when she was confirmed as
his temporary successor as attorney general. She leaves office in
January.

FRANK NOONAN

Role: Pennsylvania State Police commissioner.

Background: Noonan garnered national attention two days after
Sandusky's arrest when he criticized Paterno, a Penn State and
sports icon, for failing his "moral responsibility" to do more
when McQueary told him of the 2001 shower incident.

JACK RAYKOVITZ

Role: Former CEO of The Second Mile, the charity Jerry Sandusky
founded.

Raykovitz led the charity for almost 30 years and was a longtime
friend of Sandusky's. Raykovitz testified before the grand jury
that recommended indicting Sandusky on child abuse charges. He
resigned from The Second Mile soon after the scandal broke, and
board members later complained that Raykovitz hadn't told them
enough about earlier allegations against Sandusky.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)