Abuse victim: Callous Paterno ignored ’76 Sandusky complaint

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A man who says former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abused him as a boy in 1976 testified in court documents unsealed Tuesday that head coach Joe Paterno was told about it the very next day and responded callously.

The man identified as John Doe 150 said in 2014 that other boys in a shower heard him yell that Sandusky had just touched him sexually.

He said he told several adults about it, then sought out Paterno.

“Is it accurate that Coach Paterno quickly said to you, I don’t want to hear about any of that kind of stuff, I have a football season to worry about?” a lawyer for Penn State’s insurance carrier asked the man. “Specifically, yes,” the man replied.

“I was shocked, disappointed, offended, I was insulted,” John Doe 150 testified. “I said, is that all you’re going to do? You’re not going to do anything else?”

He said Paterno then “just walked away.”

Dozens of documents and excerpts were released Tuesday by a judge who is presiding over litigation by Penn State against Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association Insurance Co. over payment of claims for abuse by Sandusky, who is now serving decades in state prison for child molestation.

The judge two months ago disclosed the existence of the 1976 allegation, along with claims coaches witnessed inappropriate contact between Sandusky and children in the ’80s, but the newly unsealed documents provide far greater detail.

Paterno told a reporter before he died in early 2012 — just months after Sandusky’s arrest — that the first inkling he had that Sandusky might be abusing children occurred in 2001, though there are records that show high-ranking Penn State officials dealt with a complaint in 1998 by a mother that Sandusky had showered with her son.

A lawyer for Paterno’s family issued a statement Tuesday claiming there is evidence that “stands in stark contrast” to John Doe 150’s story.

The lawyer, Wick Sollers, said, “There are numerous specific elements of the accusations that defy all logic and have never been subjected to even the most basic objective examination.”

Sandusky’s lawyer has also denied the allegation.

Paterno told a grand jury in 2011 that he first learned in 2001 of inappropriate sexual contact by Sandusky involving young boys.

“I do not know of anything else that Jerry would be involved in of that nature, no. I do not know of it. You did mention — I think you said something about a rumor. It may have been discussed in my presence, something else about somebody. I don’t know. I don’t remember, and I could not honestly say I heard a rumor,” Paterno testified.

Mike McQueary, a former assistant who reported to Paterno the 2001 incident in a team shower and who testified against Sandusky at trial, said in a 2015 deposition that former defensive coordinator Tom Bradley was “not shocked” when told of it, according to the newly unsealed documents.