Police Report Sheds Doubt on Paterno's Claims on Sandusky

It's long been alleged that the late Joe Paterno had been informed about sexual abuse at the hands of Jerry Sandusky decades before the Penn State head coach said he knew. But a Pennsylvania State Police report seen exclusively by CNN appears to strengthen those claims, laying out newly revealed allegations by Mike McQueary, the whistleblower whose abuse claims led to the 2012 conviction of Sandusky, Paterno's assistant coach, for sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year timespan. The one-page report from 2011 outlines the day in 2001 that McQueary said he'd told Paterno he'd seen "an extreme sexual act occurring between Sandusky and a young boy" in the shower of the locker room—which, per the police report, caused Paterno to "[sit] back in his chair with a dejected look upon his face," with McQueary adding "Paterno's eyes appeared to well up with tears."

It was then, McQueary claimed, that Paterno told him "this was the second complaint of this nature" he'd heard about Sandusky. This information would be at odds with Paterno's longtime claim that McQueary's allegation was the first red flag he'd received about Sandusky. It would, however, match up with previous court documents that lay out allegations Paterno had been told in 1976 about sexual abuse by Sandusky—and perhaps even as early as 1971 by another man whose claims couldn't be heard during Sandusky's trial because the statute of limitations had run out. The police report notes McQueary said he and Paterno didn't talk in detail about the previous complaint. It also says, per McQueary, that Paterno told McQueary his own wife, Sue, had told him Sandusky's wife, Dottie, had told her "Jerry doesn't like girls." (More Joe Paterno stories.)