PENNSYLVANIA RECORD

Former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz has filed court papers in central

Pennsylvania signaling his intention to sue the university’s former in-house attorney.

Court records show that attorneys from the Philadelphia firm Sprague & Sprague filed what is known as a praecipe to issue writ of summons, a procedural step that indicates a plaintiff is likely to initiate civil litigation.

The paperwork was filed Dec. 10 at the Centre County Court of Common Pleas.

Centre County is home to Pennsylvania State University.

The paperwork only consists of two pages, and doesn’t say much about the crux of the pending lawsuit because there is no official complaint attached to the filing.

However, local media has reported that the litigation will likely concern Schultz’s testimony to the grand jury investigating former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, and the fact that Schultz believed Baldwin was technically representing him during that time.

Sandusky was arrested in November 2011 following an indictment on child sex-abuse charges.

This past June, following a two-week jury trial in Centre County that gained worldwide attention, Sandusky was convicted on 45 criminal counts relating to his sexual abuse of 10 underage boys during a 15-year time period.

Sandusky was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in state prison.

The fallout from the scandal led to criminal charges against both Schultz and former university athletic director Timothy Curley.

Both were scheduled to go on trial early next year on failure to report and other charges, but the trials have since been put on hold.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly has since lodged additional criminal charges against the former university officials, including allegations of conspiracy for their alleged role in a cover-up relating to the sex-abuse scandal.

The Centre Daily Times reported this week that Baldwin, a former state Supreme Court justice and former Penn State trustee, was a key grand jury witness whose testimony was used by state prosecutors to bring charges against Schultz and Curley, and used in the indictment of since-fired Penn State President Graham Spanier.

Lawyers representing Schultz and Curley want the charges against their clients tossed, the newspaper reported, because they contend Baldwin violated attorney-client privilege when she testified against the two, since the men believed she was representing them at the time as Penn State’s general counsel.

Baldwin left her job as the university’s general counsel this past summer, according to the paper.