The investigation’s conclusions, especially about Paterno’s involvement, were jarring for some. On the Penn State campus in State College, Freeh’s news conference was watched by some on televisions at the student union. The far more realistic conclusion is that many people didn’t fully understand what was happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events.’’ The family added: ‘‘The idea that any sane, responsible adult would knowingly cover up for a child predator is impossible to accept. “If Joe Paterno had understood what Sandusky was, a fear of bad publicity would not have factored into his actions,’’ the statement said. Paterno’s family released a statement Thursday saying it accepted criticism that Paterno should have done more, but argued that he was being judged with the benefit of hindsight. If that’s the culture on the bottom, then God help the culture at the top.’’ It was like going against the president of the United States. ‘‘They said the university would circle around it. ‘‘They were afraid to take on the football program,’’ Freeh said. The janitors discussed what to do and the witness ultimately decided not to go to university officials, later saying he was afraid he would lose his job if he did so. ‘‘No such sentiments,’’ the investigation said of Paterno, Spanier, Schultz, and Curley, ‘‘were ever expressed by them for Sandusky’s victims.’’įreeh singled out the reaction in 2000 of a group of janitors after one of them said he witnessed Sandusky abusing a boy in the locker room showers at the football building as indicative of the culture of the university. It was then decided the ‘‘humane’’ thing to do would be to speak to Sandusky and warn him not to bring children on campus any longer. The Freeh investigation suggests that the university’s senior administrators were prepared to report Sandusky to authorities, but that Paterno persuaded them to do otherwise.Īfter the university’s president, Graham Spanier, and athletic director, Tim Curley, decided to report Sandusky, the investigation asserted, ‘‘the only ‘known, intervening factor’ was a conversation between Curley and Paterno. Paterno said he would figure out how to handle the alarming report and inform his superiors. ‘‘I wouldn’t be surprised if these leaders face new criminal charges for failure to report what they knew to the authorities.’’įor Paterno, one of the most damning implications of the Freeh investigation involves the university’s handling of a 2001 report of Sandusky sexually attacking a 10-year-old boy in the football building’s shower.Ī graduate assistant had witnessed the assault and reported in person to Paterno the next day. Boni, a lawyer for one of Sandusky’s victims, said of the investigation’s findings. ‘‘I can’t say that anything astonishes us anymore, but it’s pretty astonishing,’’ Michael J. The jury found he had assaulted young boys at his home, on the Penn State campus, and at other locations over many years. Sandusky last month was convicted of 45 counts of sexual abuse, including rape and sodomy, by a jury in Bellefonte, Pa. The investigation’s findings will have significant ramifications - for Paterno’s legacy, for the university’s legal liability as it seeks to compensate Sandusky’s victims, and perhaps for the wider world of major college athletics.Īlready, though, the fallout from the Sandusky scandal has been extraordinary, its effects felt in everything from the shake-up in the most senior ranks of the university to the football program’s ability to recruit the country’s most talented high school prospects to a growing wariness among parents about the relationships their children have with their sports coaches. Paterno failed to take any action, ‘‘even though Sandusky had been a key member of his coaching staff for almost 30 years and had an office just steps away from Mr. Local prosecutors ultimately decided not to charge Sandusky, and Paterno did nothing. But Freeh’s report asserts that Paterno not only knew of the investigation but followed it closely. Paterno, through his family, insisted after Sandusky’s arrest that he never knew anything about the 1998 case. It was then that campus police investigated a claim by a mother that her son had been molested by Sandusky in a shower at Penn State. One new and central finding of the investigation is that Paterno, who died in January, knew as far back as 1998 that there were concerns that Sandusky might be behaving inappropriately with children.
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