Penn State prosecutors change key date
BELLEFONTE, Pa., May 8 (UPI) -- Prosecutors have changed the year a Penn State graduate assistant allegedly walked in on a shower and saw Jerry Sandusky with a boy from 2002 to 2001.
Frank Fina wrote in a motion the alleged incident in which prosecutors said Sandusky sexually assaulted the boy in a locker room shower happened Feb. 9, 2001, not March 1, 2002, as the prosecution originally alleged, the Centre Daily Times of State College, Pa., reported Tuesday.
The motion did not say what led to the change but called it a "result of specific and authenticated findings" in the investigation. Fina said state law allows for a change in the date of the offense if it doesn't change the offense.
Sandusky's lead defense attorney, Joe Amendola, is barred form speaking to the media because of a gag order.
Lawyers for two university officials charged with lying to a grand jury and not properly reporting suspected child abuse said the change in the date indicates prosecutors filed charges against them before they knew the facts, the State College (Pa.) News reported.
In a statement Monday, the lawyers for Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley, who is on leave from the university, and Gary Schultz, who retired from Penn State as the vice president for business, said: "As we stated in our filings on Friday, the Commonwealth charged this case before it knew the facts. Now, it is clear that Mike McQueary [the graduate assistant] was wrong in so adamantly insisting that the incident happened the Friday before Spring Break in 2002."
Vikings stadium bill heads to state Senate
ST. PAUL, Minn., May 8 (UPI) -- The Minnesota state Senate Tuesday began considering a $975 million plan to build a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings.
The Senate takes up the plan after the state House approved it, 73-58, late Monday after 8 1/2 hours of debate, the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune reported.
The newspaper said numerous senators, particularly Republicans, have expressed opposition to the plan and Senate Republican spokesman Steve Sviggum said the debate would likely be long and predicted a close vote.
Republican senators met behind closed doors for hours before the floor debate began Tuesday afternoon.
If it is approved, a House and Senate conference committee would work out details from two versions of the plan and the measure could reach Gov. Mark Dayton by late this week.
A House amendment would increase the amount the Vikings would pay from $427 million to $532 million, which team officials oppose.
"It's clear the Vikings are going to have to agree to more" funds than originally planned, Republican state Rep. Morrie Lanning said.
The state's contribution would be financed by gambling dollars from pull-tab devices and bingo.
Supporters of the new stadium say the Vikings could leave Minnesota if no stadium deal is reached.
Mixed martial arts fails to win OK in N.Y.
ALBANY, N.Y., May 8 (UPI) -- Ultimate Fighting Championship, the biggest organizer of mixed martial arts, criticized a decision to delay a vote on the sport in the New York Legislature.
Marc Ratner, UFC's vice president for regulatory and governmental affairs, said he was "unhappy" with the decision by State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, not to allow a mixed martial arts bill to come to the floor for a vote, the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union reported.
"I know we have the votes, but to not, in baseball terms, get an at bat is patently unfair and un-American," Ratner said.
Silver's decision came after a meeting Monday with other Democrats on whether to legalize mixed martial arts, The New York Times reported.
"The speaker has indicated there is no clear sense of the conference, and the issue is evolving," Michael Whyland, a spokesman for Silver, wrote in an e-mail. "Therefore, it will not come to the floor for a vote this year."
Ratner said New York and Connecticut are the only two states without laws legalizing the sport.
The Republican-controlled New York State Senate has passed measures last month and each of the past two years to legalize the sport, the Times said.
Juror in Goodman case to be questioned
PALM BEACH, Fla., May 8 (UPI) -- The judge in Florida polo mogul John Goodman's case said he'd question a juror about a drinking experiment he conducted the night before Goodman's conviction.
Palm Beach Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath is to question juror Dennis DeMartin, 68, of Delray Beach, Fla., on Friday, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Tuesday.
The Sun-Sentinel reported Thursday DeMartin said in a 33-page self-published book he drank three vodka tonics as part of an experiment to determine what Goodman's condition would have been if he had consumed three drinks the night of a February 2010 accident in which Scott Wilson, 23, was killed in Wellington, Fla.
Goodman, 40, was convicted in March of DUI manslaughter and vehicular manslaughter and faces up to 30 years in prison.
But the Sun-Sentinel said the judge's decision to interview DeMartin makes it uncertain whether the sentencing will proceed.
Colbath could decide to overturn the conviction, the newspaper said.
Jurors are forbidden from conducting their own research or investigations in a case and must base their verdicts only on evidence presented in court.
Colbath had told jurors of the rule twice during the trial.
DeMartin wrote the three drinks had put him in a "confused" state and helped him conclude Goodman wasn't fit to drive.
