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Three former Penn State administrators are still on course, at the moment, for a March 20 trial date in Dauphin County court on charges related to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

(AP File Photo)

Senior Judge John Boccabella has denied a motion from three former Penn State administrators to have an unusual child endangerment case sent to state appellate courts for review before a jury trial.

Boccabella's order makes clear he sees the case against former President Graham Spanier, former Athletic Director Tim Curley and former senior vice president for business and finance Gary Schultz as ready for trial.

The defendants, however, still have one more decision to make.

Because they believe there is no legal basis for the charge against their clients, they could still make a direct appeal to the Superior Court.

If they do not seek an immediate appeal - or if they do and the Superior Court rejects it - Boccabella has set March 20 for the start of jury selection in Dauphin County Court.

Attempts to reach attorneys for Curley and Schultz for this report were not immediately successful.

But Spanier's lead trial attorney, Samuel Silver, said he "looks forward to having a jury hear the evidence, as we expect that Graham Spanier will be acquitted of the charges against him."

The case stems from prosecutors' belief that the men - as captured in university emails - collectively took intentional steps to handle a 2001 eyewitness allegation against former Penn State football assistant Jerry Sandusky internally.

Because that allegation never was forwarded to police or child welfare officials, they allege, Sandusky - whom the world now knows as a convicted serial pedophile - was free to assault at least three more boys, including one at a Penn State locker room shower.

Prosecutors have built their case in part on the successful prosecution of former Philadelphia church official William Lynn. Lynn was charged with child endangerment because he knowingly reassigned Catholic priests with credible allegations of child sex abuse in their past back into new positions where they would have access to children.

But the Penn State defendants' attorneys have consistently argued there are such wide differences between the two cases that the basic foundation for the Sandusky-related charges cannot stand.

Lynn, Spanier's attorney Bruce Merenstein has noted, was specifically tasked for 12 years with the job of investigating sex abuse allegations against priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and then administering treatment or punishment.

Lynn was immersed in the details of these allegations.

Spanier, Curley and Schultz, on the other hand, were college administrators who were directly informed about one allegation against Sandusky.

They never saw their primary roles as dealing with programs that served children, and it is questionable, Merenstein said, whether any of them even had a legal duty to report suspected allegations under the law at that time.

Boccabella ruled against the defendants' petition to have the case dismissed on Feb. 1, putting the case on its present trajectory.