UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Supporters of Joe Paterno are pressuring Penn State University to detail the private allegations against convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky, including a volatile new claim involving the late head football coach.
Widow Sue Paterno and school trustee Anthony Lubrano made the plea Friday as it became clear that Penn State settled the accusation tied to Mr. Paterno, who died in 2012. A boy reportedly told him in 1976 about alleged abuse by Sandusky, years before the former assistant coach's arrest in 2011, according to a Philadelphia court filing this week.
"The seriousness of this matter demands that we all insist on facts and due process. My family and I have no knowledge of the allegation released [this week]," Mrs. Paterno wrote in a letter to the university’s board of trustees. "No party has shared any information with us, and yet it is now taken by many as a confirmed fact."
She condemned "this endless process of character assassination by accusation."
Paterno family attorney Wick Sollers has said Mr. Paterno did not cover up for Sandusky, who was convicted in 2012 of abusing 10 boys as early as the 1990s. Mr. Lubrano argued that a public, thorough airing of confidential claims by Sandusky victims would help people evaluate the accusations.
A longtime Paterno ally, Mr. Lubrano cast the 1976 allegation in particular as "stale and highly suspect."
Still, Penn State chose to resolve the matter with a monetary settlement, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. The university has agreed to pay more than $90 million in damages to at least 32 people identified as Sandusky's victims or likely victims.
While school officials did not directly answer Mr. Lubrano and Mrs. Paterno's request, they said Penn State is bound by confidentiality obligations in the settlements.
"Serial pedophiles do not suddenly become pedophiles. I believe that children were being abused for decades at Penn State and that there were officials who knew and did not do what was necessary to protect children," said State College attorney Andrew Shubin. He has represented some Sandusky victims, including three who testified at the criminal trial in Centre County.
The 1976 claim emerged from an lawsuit between Penn State and one of its insurers, Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association Insurance, which has resisted covering the university's Sandusky-related payouts. Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Gary Glazer ruled Wednesday that Penn State may not receive insurance coverage for much of those damages.
In his written opinion, he included several details from depositions of identified Sandusky victims, Mr. Shubin said. The documents point not only to the 1976 claim, but also to three other reported incidents tied to the late 1980s.
Penn State assistant coaches are alleged to have seen inappropriate contact twice between Sandusky and a minor, according to Judge Glazer's filing. In 1988, he wrote, the athletic director at the time reportedly received a complaint of alleged abuse.
Judge Glazer had no evidence "that reports of these incidents ever went further up the chain of command at PSU,” he wrote. Penn State said it has no records from that time ”to help evaluate the claims.”
Jim Tarman, who was the university athletic director in 1988, has dementia and cannot speak to the issue, said his wife, Louise Tarman, who lives in State College.
But in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s office was ”reading the news with great interest,” spokesman Chuck Ardo said, adding that prosecutors there had been unaware of the ”new revelations” in the civil litigation.
“If and when this office gets information we can reasonably investigate, we will certainly do so,” Mr. Ardo said in a statement.
The attorney general’s office did not prosecute Mr. Paterno, who told an investigating grand jury in 2011 that he first heard concerns about Sandusky and a child in 2001. However, a Penn State-commissioned internal report indicates that Mr. Paterno was alerted to similar worries in 1998.
In a related development Thursday, NBC News reported that up to six assistant coaches at Penn State saw "inappropriate behavior" between Sandusky and boys as early as the 1970s. Penn State said it would “not speculate publicly or hypothesize about individual allegations.”
Sandusky is appealing his conviction while he serves a 30- to 60-year sentence in the state prison near Waynesburg, Greene County. Marci Hamilton, a New York law professor who has represented some of his victims, said ”overwhelming evidence” shows he was a serial pedophile.
“Penn State is like every other institution that has put adult interests ahead of child welfare,” Ms. Hamilton wrote in an email message. ”It is a scourge we are now trying to reverse.”
Adam Smeltz: asmeltz@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2625 or on Twitter @asmeltz.
First Published: May 6, 2016, 9:04 p.m.
