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What still matters in Penn State's sordid scandal: No one stopped Jerry Sandusky

It is but a few lines in a court order – unsubstantiated and unproven. It comes from the kind of insurance case that is so often unreliable. Everyone involved, including Joe Paterno, deserves that disclaimer – that reminder for fairness – even if the accusation produces the kinds of questions that can, and should, cause blood to boil all over again.

What did Joe Paterno know and when did he know it, and why couldn't he or someone – or anyone – have stopped Jerry Sandusky when they had the damn chance?

Sandusky and Paterno and Penn State are back in the awful news because of a Thursday court order in a legal fight between Penn State and the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association Insurance Co. It was over who was responsible for the approximate $60 million in civil payouts to sexual molestation victims of Sandusky, the school's former defensive coordinator.

Sandusky, now 72, was criminally convicted of 45 counts of sexual abuse in 2012 and is serving a 30-to-60 year sentence.

Penn State football coach Joe Paterno died in 2012. (AP)
Penn State football coach Joe Paterno died in 2012. (AP)

Penn State wanted the insurer to pay. The insurer, PMA, wanted Penn State to pay. Judge Gary Glazer in Philadelphia ruled mostly in favor of PMA, saying Penn State was "more than negligent" when it came to Sandusky.

Few would care except Glazer's order included the following passage, mentioning allegations against Paterno and Penn State never publicly heard:

"PMA claims Sandusky committed several acts of molestation early in his career at PSU: in 1976, a child reported to PSU's head Football Coach Joseph Paterno, that he [the child] was sexually molested by Sandusky; in 1987, a PSU Assistant Coach is alleged to have witnessed inappropriate contact between Sandusky and a child; and also in 1988, a child's report of his molestation by Sandusky was allegedly referred to PSU's Athletic Director. There is no evidence of these incidents ever went up the chain of command at PSU."

The Harrisburg Patriot-News first reported the court order on Thursday.

The wording begs for additional details. For instance, it suggests a child reported to Paterno he was molested by Sandusky. That implies he either told no one else, or no one else (a parent, a friend, a police officer) who pressed the case. How did he report it? How did he even have access to Paterno? The scenario is certainly possible but there has to be more to the story.

It's worth noting, though, Penn State agreed to pay civil settlements to aforementioned parties, meaning somewhere in this process some lawyer(s) at the school found it credible enough, or winnable enough, to cut a check. Though the school settled with most victims who came forward, it did reject and fight some claims against Sandusky.

So did Joe Paterno know about Sandusky in 1976 and do nothing? Did an assistant coach know in 1987? Did another claim of abuse come to the AD in 1988? If so, how could Paterno not have heard about those two accusations?

What about the police investigation into Sandusky and a State College boy in 1998? No charges were filed, but the investigation was intense; Sandusky even admitted making a "mistake." State College is a small town and Sandusky was a big figure. Paterno never heard? What about the email chain about the situation involving three Penn State administrators, including the athletic director, Tim Curley, who wrote he had spoken to "the coach" about the situation? If Paterno isn't "the coach" then who else could have been the coach?

Essentially, there is this: How many allegations can there be that Paterno was told something, only for his supporters to keep claiming he didn't know anything?

The Paterno family is maintaining their father's innocence, which isn't surprising. They won't be alone. There remain plenty of Paterno and Sandusky fans (yes, there exists a smaller, but no less vociferous group of them) willing to go along.

"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," the Paterno family's attorney said in a statement to PennLive.com. "Joe Paterno did not, at any time, cover up conduct by Jerry Sandusky."

Perhaps, but it's also impossible for anyone to know everything Paterno did or didn't do, did or didn't know. Impossible for his kids. Impossible for his wife. Impossible for his lawyer.

What we do know is Sandusky used his fame and stature to open a charity designed to aid at-risk area children. It sounded good, but it was the tool of a predator, the perfect lure to draw out desperate young boys, often from broken homes. In search of a father figure, they found Sandusky. Plied with attention and access and football tickets, some of them wound up molested.

Former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse. (AP)
Former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse. (AP)

Sandusky was a monster in plain view. Victims described him crawling shirtless into bed during sleepovers at his house. Or his habit of rubbing their legs while driving in the car, or having his hands repeatedly "slip" into their crotch while he supposedly playfully threw them in the pool, or engaging in wrestling matches that ended with oral sex.

He repeatedly showered with them, even after being investigated by police. He bought them gifts, took them on road trips, rented local hotel rooms, all while pretending he was a surrogate father teaching them how to become a man. He was a pathetic punk.

"He treated me like a son in front of other people," a then-grown man known as Victim 4 testified at Sandusky's trial about their old relationship. "Aside from that, he treated me like his girlfriend."

Paterno is dead, and no one is ever going to know the full truth of his culpability. The debate in and around State College could rage forever. A statue comes down. A statue should be put back up. These simple, detail-starved allegations are just the latest.

Perhaps, though, the most troubling thing remains that Friday night in 2001, when then-assistant coach Mike McQueary decided to head to the office and do some late work. He walked into an otherwise empty coaches' locker room to find Sandusky, who was retired at the time, showering with a boy. McQueary believed something sexual in nature was going on, but rather than physically stop it, he panicked, left and called his father.

First thing the next morning – a Saturday – McQueary went to Paterno's home to tell the coach what he saw. Paterno later testified he was told it was something "sexual in nature." It was enough of a concern that Paterno called his athletic director, Tim Curley, and a school vice president, Gary Schultz, to his home on Sunday morning to relay the story. By the letter of Paterno's job, that was all he was required to do.

That afternoon, the administrators hired outside counsel. The bill for 2.9 hours of work that Sunday afternoon included the following notation: "Conference with G Schultz re reporting of suspected child abuse; Legal research re same."

So Paterno took McQueary's story seriously enough to call the administrators, and the administrators took it seriously enough to hire a law firm on a Sunday, and the law firm took it seriously enough to mention "suspected child abuse."

Some Penn State supporters want to see Joe Paterno's statue restored. (AP)
Some Penn State supporters want to see Joe Paterno's statue restored. (AP)

Except, then no one really took it all that seriously. Paterno never really followed up. It took nearly two weeks for a meeting to be scheduled with McQueary to get his story directly. Police were never brought in to investigate. Everyone moved on.

And, most troubling, at no point did anyone, including Paterno, go looking for the boy in question, even though he could have still been in the clutches of Sandusky, for all anyone knew at the time.

Sandusky wasn't arrested for another decade.

So maybe he could've been stopped in 1976. Or 1987. Or 1988. Or 1998. Or after McQueary showed up on Paterno's doorstep that Saturday morning in 2001. Or any and every day in between.

Jerry Sandusky wasn't stopped, though. Not by Penn State. Not by Joe Paterno. Not by a culture that celebrated itself for building football-playing men, but didn't do enough for desperate boys.

While Thursday churned up the story again in the national consciousness and renewed the screams for and against Joe Paterno, what is undeniable is that, even after the convictions and civil suits and nearly four years of Sandusky rotting in a Western Pennsylvania prison cell, in this savagely sad scandal, it never ends for all those victims, it just never goes away. Not the stories. Not the hurt.

They don't need a statue to remember that.