A Victim Approached Joe Paterno About Sandusky's Molestation As Early As 1976

PennLive- A new bombshell dropped in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal Thursday.

It came in the form of a single line in a court order on a related insurance coverage case involving Penn State, and its full ramifications can't immediately be gauged.

But that line was eye-popping in itself.

The line in question states that one of Penn State's insurers has claimed "in 1976, a child allegedly reported to PSU's Head Coach Joseph Paterno that he (the child) was sexually molested by Sandusky."

The order also cites separate references in 1987 and 1988 in which unnamed assistant coaches witnessed inappropriate contact between Sandusky and unidentified children, and a 1988 case that was supposedly referred to Penn State's athletic director at the time.

​All, the opinion states, are described in victims' depositions taken as part of the still-pending insurance case, but that, according a PennLive review of the case file, are apparently under seal.




​Oops, is this the part where I am supposed to be surprised? You're going to have to forgive me because my fake startled face needs a lot of work. I want to be shocked, I really do. I just found out that a child molester was being enabled for nearly FORTY years. I read this last night and it's depressing to me that my jaw didn't exactly hit the floor. This new information is a lot of things. It's sickening, disgusting, and saddening, but what it's not ( to me anyway) is astonishing. Joe Paterno knowingly turned a blind eye to pedophilia for 36 years and probably put the lives of hundreds of children at risk? I don't find that to be all that much more unbelievable than the original allegetion that he did so for about 15 years and put a couple dozen children at risk. I've never covered up for a sexual deviant, but I would imagine that there is a point of no return. That point certainly comes before a decade elapses. If Joe Paterno was going to let his conscience win out he was going to do it within the first month or so in which he knew his defensive coordinator was diddling children on school grounds. He would have done so the second he looked in the eye of a scared, victimized child that was confiding in him.

Looking back on this we are all pretty naive for not assuming this was the case when the story first broke. Joe Paterno treated Penn State football like the average housewife treats her living room. You know how you can't move a lamp 6 inches without your mother conducting a federal investigation? That's how much knowledge Joe Paterno had of everything that was happening behind closed doors on that campus. It's not like Jerry Sandusky decided that he had a sexual attraction to underaged boys on his 50th birthday. This was always was a sick, sick man, and he was a sick, sick man that worked in close quarters with one of the most meticulous program engineers since the 60's. If Paterno didn't know about Sandusky's extra cirriculars he would have been one of the most oblivious people on the planet, and - considering he was the face of a prestigious state university - we know for a fact that's not the case. I really hate to do this to Penn State fans, but it's time they realize that JoePa's entire tenure was tainted. That his lasting (and hopefully only) legacy will always be that of someone that prioritized football over the well being of innocent children. If you were too stupid to understand that before then you certainly shouldn't be now.