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<div class="timestamp">July 12, 2012</div>
<h1>Abuse Inquiry Faults Paterno and Others at Penn State</h1>
<h6 class="byline">By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/ken_belson/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by KEN BELSON">KEN BELSON</a></span></h6>
<div id="articleBody">
<p>
The most senior officials at Penn State University failed for more than a
decade to take any steps to protect the children victimized by <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/jerry_sandusky/index.html?8qa">Jerry Sandusky</a>, the longtime lieutenant to head football coach <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/p/joe_paterno/index.html">Joe Paterno</a>, according to an independent investigation of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the university last fall. </p>
<p>
“Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the
safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims,” said Louis J. Freeh,
the former federal judge and director of the F.B.I. who oversaw the
investigation. “The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any
steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.”
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.TheFreehReportonPSU.com">Freeh’s investigation</a> —
which took seven months and involved more than 400 interviews and the
review of more than 3.5 million documents — accuses Paterno, the
university’s former president and others of deliberately hiding facts
about Sandusky's sexually predatory behavior over the years. </p>
<p>
"The facts are the facts," Freeh said of Paterno. "He was an integral part of the act to conceal." </p>
<p>
One new and central finding of the Freeh investigation is that Paterno, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/sports/ncaafootball/joe-paterno-longtime-penn-state-coach-dies-at-85.html?pagewanted=all">who died in January</a>,
knew as far back as 1998 that there were concerns Sandusky might be
behaving inappropriately with children. It was then that the campus
police investigated a claim by a mother that her son had been molested
by Sandusky in a shower at Penn State. </p>
<p>
Paterno, through his family, insisted after Sandusky’s arrest that he
never knew anything about the 1998 case. But Freeh’s report asserts that
Paterno not only knew of the investigation, but followed it closely.
Local prosecutors ultimately decided not to charge Sandusky, and Paterno
did nothing. </p>
<p>
Paterno failed to take any action, the investigation found, “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. Paterno’s.” </p>
<p>
The investigation also presented evidence that in the wake of the 1998
case, top university officials contemplated the possibility that
Sandusky could be a serial pedophile. A second boy, according to notes
taken by a university vice president, Gary Schultz, described actions
similar to what had happened to the first boy, including Sandusky
hugging him from behind in the shower. Schultz wrote in his notes: “Is
this opening of Pandora’s box? Other children?” </p>
<p>
“In order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity,” the most powerful
leaders of Penn State University, Freeh’s group said, “repeatedly
concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse from the
authorities, the board of trustees, the Penn State community and the
public at large.” </p>
<p>
The investigation’s findings doubtless 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. </p>
<p>
Already, 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. </p>
<p>
Sandusky last month was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/23/sports/ncaafootball/jerry-sandusky-convicted-of-sexually-abusing-boys.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all">convicted of 45 counts of sexual abuse</a>,
including rape and sodomy, by a jury in Bellefonte, Pa. The jury found
he had assaulted young boys at his home, on the Penn State campus and at
other locations over many years. </p>
<p>
“I can’t say that anything astonishes us anymore, but it’s pretty
astonishing,” Michael J. Boni, a lawyer for one of Sandusky’s victims,
said of the investigation’s findings. “I wouldn’t be surprised if these
leaders face new criminal charges for failure to report what they knew
to the authorities.” </p>
<p>
For 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. </p>
<p>
A graduate assistant had witnessed the assault, and reported in person
to Paterno the next day. Paterno said he would figure out how to handle
the alarming report, and inform his superiors. The Freeh investigation
suggests that the university’s senior administrators were prepared to
formally report Sandusky to state authorities, but that Paterno
persuaded them to do otherwise. </p>
<p>
After the university’s president, Graham B. 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. </p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
“No such sentiments,” the investigation said of Paterno, Spanier,
Schultz and Curley, “were ever expressed by them for Sandusky’s
victims.” </p>
<p>
Freeh, appearing at a news conference in Philadelphia, 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. 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. </p>
<p>
"They were afraid to take on the football program," Freeh said. "They
said the university would circle around it. It was like going against
the president of the United States. If that's the culture on the bottom,
then God help the culture at the top." </p>
<p>
Paterno's family released a statement Thursday saying that it accepted
criticism that Paterno should have done more, but argued that he was
being judged with the benefit of hindsight. </p>
<p>
"If Joe Paterno had understood what Sandusky was, a fear of bad
publicity would not have factored into his actions," the statement said.
</p>
<p>
The family added: "The idea that any sane, responsible adult would
knowingly cover up for a child predator is impossible to accept. The far
more realistic conclusion is that many people didn't fully understand
what was happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events." </p>
<p>
On the Penn State campus in State College, Freeh's news conference was
watched by some on televisions at the student union. The investigation's
conclusions, especially about Paterno's involvement, were jarring for
some. </p>
<p>
"The conclusions could not be any more harsh," said Russell Frank, a
journalism professor. "It's a very powerful indictment of the people in
charge." </p>
<p>
Freeh was named to head the investigation by the university’s board of
trustees shortly after Sandusky was arrested and Schultz and Curley were
criminally charged for perjury in November 2011. </p>
<p>
“No one is above scrutiny,” Kenneth Frazier, a trustee, said at the time
Freeh’s probe was announced. “He has complete rein to follow any lead,
to look into every corner of the university to get to the bottom of what
happened.” </p>
<p>
The Paterno family, in an attempt to blunt the force of any critical
findings by Freeh, issued a statement Tuesday that sought to undermine
the fairness of the investigation. The statement said Paterno, before
his death, had been eager to tell all he knew about the university’s
dealings with Sandusky and had admitted to having failed to do more to
stop Sandusky. But it lamented what it called the improper and
misleading disclosure in recent weeks of aspects of Freeh’s findings.
</p>
<p>
On Thursday morning, before Freeh's findings were released, Paterno's
son Jay appeared on the "Today" show. "This investigation is still one
opinion, one piece of the puzzle," he said. "We’ve never been afraid of
the truth." </p>
<p>
Joe Paterno, in a letter that he had prepared but that was not published
before his death, asserted that whatever the failings in the Sandusky
affair — his or the university’s — it did not constitute a “football
scandal.” </p>
<p>
“Regardless of anyone’s opinion of my actions or the actions of the
handful of administration officials in this matter, the fact is nothing
alleged is an indictment of football or evidence that the spectacular
collections of accomplishments by dedicated student athletes should be
in anyway tarnished,” Paterno said in the letter. </p>
<div class="authorIdentification">
<p>Tim Rohan, from State College, Pa.; Zach Berman, from Philadelphia; and Richard Pérez-Peña contributed reporting.</p> </div>
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