Feds investigate if Penn State officials violated US law

Federal officials will investigate whether Penn State officials violated federal law by failing to report alleged sexual abuse by the school's former football defense coordinator Jerry Sandusky.

Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for Education Secretary Arne Duncan, confirmed to NBC News that the department was launching a probe into whether there were possible violations of a federal law called the Clery Act. It requires colleges and universities to publish and distribute information about criminal offenses -- including sex offenses -- that are reported to school authorities.  

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Penn State officials were formally notified of the investigation in a letter received Wednesday, officials said.   

"If these allegations of sexual abuse are true then this is a horrible tragedy for those young boys," Duncan said in a statement. "If it turns out that some people at the school knew of the abuse and did nothing or covered it up, that makes it even worse.  Schools and school officials have a legal and moral responsibility to protect children and young people from violence and abuse."

In an interview with the Associated Press this week, Duncan called reports about the school's handling of the allegations "absolutely devastating," adding: "The fact that this was allowed to go for so long is mind-boggling to me."

U.S. Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Penn., called Tuesday for such a probe in a letter to Duncan after a grand jury report charged that two senior school officials had failed to report allegations that Sandusky had sexually abused a young boy in the locker room of a school athletic building in 2002.  

Sandusky was arrested on Saturday and charged with molesting eight boys over 15 years. In addition, Tim Curley, Penn State's athletic director, and Gary Schultz, the university’s vice president of business and finance, were charged on Monday with failing to report the 2002 incident to the campus police and with perjury. Lawyers for all three men have denied the charges.

Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in the 'Isikoff Files'

According to a grand jury report, a graduate assistant at the school had witnessed an incident in March 2002 in which Sandusky sodomized a naked 10-year-old boy in the locker room shower. He reported the incident to Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who later relayed information about the matter to Curley and Schultz, who oversaw the campus police. But neither of the two men -- or Paterno -- reported the incident to the campus police or to local authorities. The grand jury report quotes Schultz and Curley as acknowledging being told about an incident that Curley described as "horsing around" in the locker room, but both men denied being told that the incident involved anal sex.  

Federal officials view the Clery Act as a lever to prod schools to be more aggressive about investigating and prosecuting crimes on campus. Last March, Virginia Tech University was fined $55,000 for waiting too long to inform students about a gunman on the loose during a 2007 shooting rampage that killed 32 people at the school. Although violations of the Clery Act are punishable by civil fines, officials say schools worry most about the damage that publicized violations can do to their reputations.