Penn State will not renew the contract of athletic director Tim Curley, who has been on leave since being charged last year with perjury and failing to report a child sex abuse allegation against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
University spokesman Dave La Torre said in a statement that the school notified Curley that his contract would not be renewed when it expires in June.
La Torre declined further comment Tuesday, citing a personnel issue.
Curley and retired vice president Gary Schultz are scheduled to stand trial in January in Harrisburg on the perjury and failure to report charges. Both men have denied the allegations against them.
Curley was charged last November.
The school has paid about $2 million so far for the legal defense of Curley, Schultz and former president Graham Spanier.
This decision comes a week after former assistant football coach and convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison on 45 counts of child sex abuse. Sandusky abused 10 boys, and some of that abuse occurred while he was coaching at Penn State and working in an office just a few feet away from legendary head coach Joe Paterno.
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The scandal prompted Paterno's firing and Gary Schultz and Tim Curley were both criminally charged for their alleged roles. The Freeh Report, an internal investigation of the way in which the university handled the reports of Sandusky's abuse, blasted Paterno, Curley, Schultz and Spanier for protecting the school's image rather than protecting Sandusky's victims.
In a bizarre move before being sentenced, Sandusky recorded a statement in jail blaming his downfall on a big conspiracy that involved everyone from the prosecutor to the victims.
Days later, the court released a letters that both Sandusky and his wife Dottie had sent to the judge before the sentencing. Jerry talked about how he saw himself as David, pitted against Goliath as the scandal unfolded. Dottie tried to get the judge to see that her husband was not a monster, and that their adopted son Matt was really to blame because he was bi-polar and off his medication:
As far as our son Matt goes, people need to know what kind of person he is. We have forgiven him many times for all he has done to our family thinking that he was changing his life, but he would always go back to his stealing and lies. He has been diagnose with Bipolar, but he refuses to take his medicine. He has had many run-ins with the law and stolen money and items from our family. We still love him and want the best for him, but because of his actions we cannot express this to him.
Matt's attorney said Matt was extremely disappointed with the way he was characterized by his parents in the letters, and attorney Joel Feller said Jerry's letter clearly indicated the behavior of a psychopath.
"Rather than assisting in the healing process, Dottie and Jerry have taken it upon themselves to perpetuate this abuse," Feller said.
While the jury was deliberating in the Sandusky trial, Matt Sandusky's attorneys dropped a bombshell, announcing that when Matt was young he'd also been abused by his father.
