A state police report has surfaced suggesting Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno heard at least one other allegation that assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was sexually abusing young boys before a 2001 complaint Paterno admitted receiving, CNN reported Saturday.
According to CNN, the report describes a conversation in 2001 between Paterno and Mike McQueary, a Penn State coach and star witness in the case who testified that he saw Sandusky engaged in “an extreme sexual act” with a young boy in a university locker room shower.
Based on an account from McQueary, the report alleges that Paterno said it was the “second complaint of this nature” he’d received about Sandusky — but the two never talked about the other complaint. McQueary allegedly told Paterno about what he’d seen the day after it occurred. However, the police report was not written until after Sandusky was arrested in 2011, according to CNN.
The state police had no comment Saturday.
Last year, unsealed court records revealed that one accuser said he told Paterno about locker-room abuse in 1976. The records showed four accusers claimed that university officials or employees saw or were told of sex abuse by Sandusky as early as the ’70s or ’80s.
Paterno died of cancer in January 2012, having been fired from his coaching position at Penn State and having told a grand jury and issuing a statement one week before his death saying he was unaware of Sandusky’s abusive conduct before the 2001 shower incident McQueary told him about. Relatives and supporters of the iconic football coach have continued to deny any claims that Paterno had prior knowledge of sexual abuse by Sandusky.
Later in 2012, Sandusky was convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys and was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison. An appeal is ongoing.
In June, former Penn State President Graham Spanier and two other former aides were sentenced to prison for failing to report Sandusky’s behavior. Last week, Penn State — which has paid $93 million to settle claims from 32 accusers — signaled it may sue Sandusky’s former children’s charity, potentially a bid to make up some of the school’s costs in response to the scandal.
