According to a fresh report, former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno knew details of Jerry Sandusky’s child abusing, and did nothing about it.
In the “Report of the Special Investigative Counsel Regarding the Actions of the Pennsylvania State University Related to the Child Sexual Abuse Committed by Gerald A. Sandusky,” conducted by former FBI director Louis Freeh and released today, emails and conversations were recorded showing that Paterno and other top school officials were aware of Sandusky’s activities as far back as 1998.
This was in direct contrast to Paterno’s grand jury testimony that he only knew of the 2001 shower incident involving Sandusky and a boy, witnessed by football staffer Mike McQueary.
“Four of the most powerful people at The Pennsylvania State University — President Graham B. Spanier, Senior Vice President-Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz, Athletic Director Timothy M. Curley and Head Football Coach Joseph V. Paterno — failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade,” the report said. “These men concealed Sandusky’s activities from the Board of Trustees, the University community and authorities. They exhibited a strking lack of empathy for Sandusky’s victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well-being, especially by not attempting to determine the identity of the child who Sandusky assaulted in the Lasch Building in 2001.
“Further, they exposed this child to additional harm by alerting Sandusky, who was the only one who knew the child’s identity, of what McQueary saw in the shower on the night of February 9, 2001.”
For the full, 267-page report, click here.
As for what this means, all doubt is gone. Any scant remaining piece of redeeming quality regarding Paterno’s career is gone. It was the report’s thought that Paterno and the others did nothing because they feared some sort of public relations backlash.
It is this blog’s thought that if there ever was a time for the NCAA to impose a death penalty, this is the screaming example. Penn St. shouldn’t be allowed to ever again field a football team. Not as long as a statue of Paterno or the lasting video images of his waving to crowds in front of his home remain. Not ever.
I’m just sick about what we’re learning this morning. To know that all these powerful people so spectacularly failed to protect the children this man was in contact with is disturbing.
So true, Diana. It’s beyond disgusting how the adults who should have stopped Sandusky have behaved for the last 15 years.