Pennsylvania names special prosecutor to review Sandusky scandal

(Reuters) - A former federal prosecutor has been named to lead an investigation of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett's handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

H. Geoffrey Moulton, Jr., who worked in the U.S. Attorney's office in Philadelphia, will lead the long-awaited review of the Penn State abuse case, state attorney general Kathleen Kane said in a news release on Monday.

Sandusky, the former football coach convicted of abusing 10 boys from 1994 to 2009, some in the school's showers, is serving 30 to 60 years in prison.

Sandusky's arrest in November 2011 on a grand jury indictment rocked the lucrative world of college sports. Penn State has since been punished by the NCAA, which imposed a four-year ban on post-season play and other sanctions.

Kane, recently elected state attorney general, was highly critical of the way the case was handled by Corbett when he was the state's top prosecutor from 1995 to 1997 and pledged a review. She said that by convening the grand jury, Corbett failed to protect children by delaying prosecution for more than two years.

Corbett has said he would welcome an investigation.

"Once the facts have been uncovered, my office will make these findings available to the public," Kane said in the release.

Moulton, an associate professor at Widener University School of Law, served in 1993 as a special investigator into that year's controversial federal raid of the Branch Davidian headquarters in Waco, Texas, which led to a 50-day siege and a shootout and fire that killed 80 people.

Corbett is suing the NCAA in federal court, demanding the sanctions be thrown out.

Pennsylvania voters have also expressed dissatisfaction with Corbett's handling of the case when he was attorney general. A Franklin & Marshall College survey of registered voters in September found that nearly two-thirds thought he had done a fair or poor job.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg. Editing by Andre Grenon)