Former Penn State wide receivers coach Mike McQueary will sue the university in what his court filing describes as a whistleblower lawsuit.The attorney for McQueary filed what’s called a writ of summons in county court Tuesday for an employment dispute. While it doesn’t outline the details and cause for the civil lawsuit, the document gives Penn State notice the 37-year-old former Nittany Lion quarterback plans to sue his alma mater and employer.
The document indicates McQueary intends to seek damages outside the normal arbitration limits.
Penn State spokesman David La Torre said McQueary remains on the university’s payroll. He said he couldn’t comment on the lawsuit because the university hadn’t received the complaint yet.
McQueary testified in December that he saw Jerry Sandusky in an “extremely sexual” position with a young boy in a Penn State shower room. The date of that incident is officially Feb. 9, 2001, not March 1, 2002, as previously alleged.
McQueary said he didn’t see intercourse but said he thought Sandusky was molesting the boy. McQueary reported the incident the next day to former head football coach Joe Paterno, who reported it to his superior, then-athletic director Tim Curley.
Sandusky’s defense attorney, Joe Amendola, has said Sandusky remembers that incident but it wasn’t sexual in nature.
“It became came clear that coach McQueary could not function in this role, under these circumstances,” Erickson said at the time.
The identity of the boy, alleged victim No. 2, remains unknown, although Amendola thinks a young man who was that boy came to his office months ago. The young man has since gotten an attorney, Amendola has said.
In November, Penn State President Rodney Erickson and then-interim athletic director Mark Sherburne put McQueary on administrative leave.
“It became came clear that coach McQueary could not function in this role, under these circumstances,” Erickson said at the time.
McQueary is represented by Harrisburg attorney Elliot Strokoff, who didn’t return a message seeking comment Tuesday. McQueary’s father, John McQueary, declined to comment when reached by phone.
Earlier this year, McQueary put his State College home up for sale. The house remains on the market listed for $575,000.
The 2001 shower incident ultimately led to Paterno’s firing and criminal charges against Penn State administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz.
Prosecutors allege they lied to a grand jury about their knowledge of the incident and that they failed to report it.
They maintain their innocence, and their attorneys have filed requests for a Dauphin County judge to dismiss their cases.