Paterno told of sex abuse in 1976

Court filing alleges child alerted coach

The late Joe Paterno, Penn State’s iconic football coach, “allegedly” was told as early as 1976 about alleged child sexual abuse by assistant Jerry Sandusky, according to a report Thursday on the website PennLive.

Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse in June 2012, five months after Paterno’s death, and is serving 30 to 60 years in prison. According to PennLive, a court order related to an insurance coverage case involving Penn State includes a line that a school insurer has claimed “in 1976, a child allegedly reported to PSU’s Head Coach Joseph Paterno that he (the child) was sexually molested by Sandusky.”

School spokesman Lawrence Lokman said school officials involved in cases related to the Sandusky scandal were aware of the new allegations in a broad sense. If true, this would be a significant development in the timeline of when Paterno allegedly was aware of Sandusky’s actions. Reports, including from special investigator, Louis Freeh, have said Paterno was aware of allegations against Sandusky from 1998.

The Paterno family attorney, Wick Sollers, released a statement to PennLive that said, in part: “An allegation now about an alleged event 40 years ago, as represented by a single line in a court document regarding an insurance issue, with no corroborating evidence, does not change the facts. Joe Paterno did not, at any time, cover up conduct by Jerry Sandusky.”