(The following is excerpted from The Philadelphia Inquirer) Penn State board OKs up to $60 million to settle claims by Sandusky victims

did university spokesman David papering and documenting numer- La Torre. ous previously achieved informal By Jeff Gammage INQUIRER STAFF WRITER deals." Attorney Kenneth Feinberg, hired by Penn State in September to help Victim 5 testified that he met PHILADELPHIA -- The govern- settle the personal-injury claims, Sandusky through the coach's Se- ing board of Pennsylvania State declined to comment when reached cond Mile charity in the mid-1990s University has authorized the in Washington. Feinberg is known when he was age 7 or 8. The coach payment of up to $60 million to for having administered claims by took him to more than a dozen settle claims by the sexual-abuse families of victims of the Sept. 11 Penn State football games. When victims of former assistant football attacks. he was 12 or 13, Sandusky ex- coach Jerry Sandusky, a trustee posed himself in a Penn State said Thursday. News of the allocation came six days after university trustees an- locker-room sauna, then sexually About 30 claims have been filed. nounced at their regular meeting assaulted him in the shower, the It is not known if all would be that they had reached tentative youth testified. covered by that sum. agreements with some victims. For Kline said his client's claim was "First and foremost, I hope this is several weeks, officials have said key to any larger settlement at closure for the victims," said Ed- the university was nearing settle- Penn State because of its timing. ward "Ted" Brown III, a trustee ment with the bulk of those victim- At trial, former assistant coach who is president and chief execu- ized by Sandusky, convicted last Mike McQueary testified that he tive officer of KETCH Consulting year of sexually abusing 10 boys saw Sandusky assaulting a boy in in State College.Asked what it over 15 years. Sandusky was sen- the showers in February 2001, and meant for the university, Brown tenced to 30 to 60 years in prison. the next day notified head coach said he did not have a good an- "We have a tentative agreement Joe Paterno. A week later he talked swer. in place for my client," said Phila- about the incident with then- "It's a settlement, and a settle- delphia lawyer Thomas Kline, university athletic director Tim ment means we have not admitted who represents the youth identified Curley and vice president for busi- any guilt," he said. "A settlement at Sandusky's trial as Victim 5. ness and finance Gary Schultz. means just what the word says." Kline said he could not reveal the Victim 5, Kline said, was assault- The $60 million figure was the amount due to a confidentiality ed in August 2001 -- six months suggestion of outside counsel, who agreement with Penn State. "There after McQueary told the Penn State believed that was the figure need- are tentative agreements reached in officials what he had seen. ed, he said. many cases," he said. "PSU and "That is the key," Kline said. "It University board chairman Keith the lawyers for the Sandusky vic- is the claim which PSU clearly Masser declined to comment, as tims have now moved from the should have and could have stage of negotiating to the stage of stopped." … Curley, Schultz and former university president Graham B. Spanier face a preliminary hearing this month on criminal charges of covering up sexual-abuse allega- tions against Sandusky. At the board's meeting last week, the trustees released no amounts on possible settlements but noted that "a range of dollar values" had been shared in closed sessions. The school emphasized that no settle- ment agreements had been signed and gave no timetable for the pro- cess to be completed, but hoped that it would be in the next several weeks. The school and its insurer, Penn- sylvania Manufacturers' Associa- tion Insurance Co., are in a dispute over responsibility for paying claims related to the Sandusky case. In March, the university filed a lawsuit saying it had been sued or contacted by 29 claimants, but its insurer did not provide coverage for which the school had paid pre- miums. (Susan Snyder contributed to this article.)