HARRISBURG — The Jerry Sandusky scandal appears headed for another court battle that is sure to prolong the media spotlight and relive the testimony of how the former Penn State football icon molested boys, sometimes in the school's facilities.

Penn State's ex-president and two former top school administrators were ordered Tuesday to stand trial on charges accusing them of covering up their failure to tell police about a 2001 allegation that Sandusky molested a boy in a university locker room shower, even after they knew police investigated complaints about Sandusky showering with boys in 1998.

It was, said lead state prosecutor Bruce Beemer, a “conspiracy of silence.”

District Judge William Wenner called it “a tragic day for Penn State University” after ruling that prosecutors showed enough evidence during a two-day preliminary hearing to warrant a trial for ex-President Graham Spanier, former vice president Gary Schultz and ex-athletic director Tim Curley.

The key testimony centered on a series of e-mails among the three defendants that discussed the 1998 and 2001 cases and the testimony of Mike McQueary, a former team assistant and quarterback who said he had immediately told Schultz, Curley and the late longtime football coach Joe Paterno that he had seen Sandusky molesting a boy in the shower in 2001.

Spanier's lawyer, Elizabeth Ainslie, told Wenner the case against him “amounts to innuendo and far-fetched inference.” Meanwhile, Curley's lawyer, Caroline Roberto, took aim at McQueary, saying his testimony included “embellishment” and that every time he testifies he says “something more or different.”

Sandusky, a defensive coordinator under Paterno until his retirement in 1999, was convicted last year of 45 counts of child sexual abuse. He maintains his innocence and is appealing a 30- to 60-year state prison term.