Cops: Sandusky admitted to '98 shower with boy

(CBS/AP) 

Jerry Sandusky, the one-time heir apparent to Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, told a boy's mother in 1998 that he had showered with her son and with other boys but he wouldn't promise to stop, according to a Pennsylvania grand jury report.

Police in State College, Penn., listened in to two conversations Sandusky had with the mother, with her permission, after her then-11-year-old son came home with hair wet from showing with Sandusky. At the end of the second conversation, Sandusky was told he could not see the boy anymore.

"I understand," State College Detective Ronald Schreffler testified Sandusky said. "I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won't get it from you. I wish I were dead."

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Sandusky — who maintains he is innocent — has since been charged with 40 criminal counts, accusing him of molesting eight young boys between 1994 and 2009. Two PSU administrators who have since stepped aside have also been charged with failing to notify authorities of a 2002 incident reported by an eyewitness.

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The 11-year-old was only identified as the former assistant football coach's sixth alleged victim. In 1998, his mother tried to make Sandusky promise never to shower with a boy again, but he wouldn't make that promise, Schreffler testified.

Jerry Lauro, an investigator with the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, testified to the grand jury Sandusky admitted to him and Schreffler in an interview that he hugged the boy while naked in the shower and that he knew it was wrong.

However, the case was closed after then-Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar decided there would be no criminal charges filed.

Late Tuesday night, Penn State's board of trustees said it would appoint a special committee to conduct an investigation into the "circumstances" that resulted in the indictments of Sandusky, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz. The committee will be appointed Friday at the board's regular meeting, which Gov. Tom Corbett said he plans to attend, and will examine "what failures occurred and who is responsible and what measures are necessary to ensure" similar mistakes aren't made in the future.

The board also promised those responsible would be held "fully accountable."

"We are committed to restoring public trust in the university," the board statement concluded.

Paterno is fighting for his job amid "eroding" support from the board and the widening sex-abuse scandal.

Paterno's regularly scheduled news conference was abruptly canceled Tuesday. A university spokesman cited "ongoing legal circumstances," a reference to the charges announced over the weekend.

At least a thousand students descended on the administration building about 11 p.m., EDT, chanting "Joe Paterno!" over and over, along with Penn State cheers. Many held up their smartphones to take photos or simply light up the night. A few young men climbed flag poles.

About 10 police officers stood on the steps of the building, guarding it.

Paterno's son, Scott, said his father was disappointed over the decision by PSU President Graham Spanier to cancel the news conference. Addressing reporters outside his parents' house, Scott said Joe was prepared to answer questions about Sandusky and further that his father plans to coach not only Saturday's game against Nebraska, but for the long haul.

Hundreds of fans staged a raucous rally outside Paterno's home. He appeared briefly, along with some family members, and thanked the crowd for coming.

"It's hard for me to say how much this means," the 84-year-old coach said. "I've lived for this place. I've lived for people like you guys and girls."

Asked if he was still the coach, Paterno didn't answer but a young woman who stood with her arm around him replied: "Now is not the time."

As he returned to his house, Paterno stopped and pumped his fists above his head, yelling, "We are ..."

"Penn State!" the crowd replied.

"We're always going to be Penn State," Paterno said. "I'm proud of you. I've always been proud of you. Beat Nebraska."

At an afternoon practice, managers hastily put plywood boards over an exposed fence to block photographers' view of the field.

Paterno, who earns about $1 million annually from the school, has been head coach for 46 years and part of the Penn State staff for more than six decades, and his old-school values pervade every corner of the program.

Over that span, the Nittany Lions won two national championships, but unlike many other Division I powerhouses, the program avoided run-ins with the NCAA. The team generates millions of dollars each year in revenues from attendance, TV rights and sponsorships, but it has stubbornly stuck with the basic white-and-blue uniforms that are now among the most recognizable in college football.

All those things have inspired pride in the region and fierce loyalty to Paterno, who is the winningest coach in Division I and one of the most respected in any sport. That lofty status, however, has been the subject of heated arguments in recent days, among students on campus, construction workers on the street and the PSU board of trustees.

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[binturong]

Watch: Jerry Sandusky will be "suicided" just like Ray Gricar, the Centre County, Pa., district attorney who mysteriously disappeared while investigating Sandusky in 2005.
Sandusky reportedly was pimping out his boys to wealthy, powerful donors to Penn State. Arrangements have probably already been put in place.

[MsNimitz25]

The mother who talked with Sandusky is not the mother of the boy who the graduate student saw being raped. I think some people are confused about that. Because of the lack of action on the part of everyone from the cowardly grad student all the way up to the university president, the identity of the rape victim is not known. When the mother saw her son's wet hair and found out that coach Sandusky had showered with him, she did everything she could - called the police and talked to the child protective agency. If the authorities decided not to do anything to Sandusky, what the heck could she do? Demonstrate at the Penn State halftimes? A poor woman complaining about the football god who soaped her naked son's body and then hugged him? Who would listen to her, when the authorities had already dropped the case?

[jimdonovanboogie]

I was lucky when i played Pop Warner - my family lived in an apartment about 1/2 a block from the field. I showered at home! This master coach was famous back then, in 1974, and he came to one of our games, as he'd coached my head coach. That game ended ina huge onslaught, and coach Psterno asked to speak with 2 of us, myself and a black kid who was our fullback/cornerback. The two of us were applauded by this coach, as we'd both had huge games, as usual. He told us at 13 that were were hitting like only his best players, and that if we stayed away from the drugs and drinking thta we could play for him one day. He told me it wasnt the 6 QB sacks that I had as left defensive end that got his attnation, it was the other 15 times i chased the QB out of bounds or into another teamamte of mine. We had played a scrambler like Tarkenton who had an offensive line that would not block for him.

My dream was to play for this man, but it ended witha brutal spinal injury the wek i turned 14, in our last game. Jerome never played again when his parents stressed school achievements.

Now this sad ending. Kids getting their lives ruined was never supposed to be a part of any sport. I cant understand how he did nothing when it was brought to his attnetion. Perhaps that job requires too much. He forgot to guard his kids - unforgivable!

[vista8635]

Pedophilia is the most inappropriate sexual attraction. Life is tough enough being a heterosexual, and it's even tougher being a homosexual, but it would absolutely suck being a pedophile. I pity the fools who, when their sexuality is unpacked during their sexual development, become sexually attracted to children; God what a bummer that must be! If I was at Penn State, I would look at those beautiful cheerleaders (and football studs) - ripe, sexy, college students in the sexual prime of their lives - and think "I see Beauty Queens and Beauty Kings; what's not to be attracted to?" lol

[rsmik]

I still can't believe the mother tried to get a promise instead of a prosecution. Jock-jerk parents will put up with anything as long as their kid can play on the team..

[RickCain4150]

Sandusky didn't "Shower with a 10 year old boy". He was anally raping a 10 year old boy in a Penn State locker room shower.

[gruven13777]

What's an 84-year-old doing in this kind of position of power anyway? How does the old saying go?...It's better to quit while you're ahead?

[rocketfueler]

Sickening, really.... The Athletic Director (my then-boss) at New Paltz State College in NY decades ago insisted on negotiating salary with me in the locker room; he took a shower alone, but made a big show of toweling himself off in front of me, and asked if I wouldn't like to "join his club" while holding his dick in his hand, wrapped in the towel. I wanted to slug the bastard, and was farking sickened, and I told him so before walking out of the damn locker-room without an agreement, thank you.

I was 21 and went about 6'2"/275 so he wasn't about to lay a hand on me, lucky him - I had a gun in my dorm - but I don't know why he pulled that sick, disgusting stunt in front of me. I didn't talk to the drunken little **** for the entire rest of the semester, which was difficult, because I was a part of his department.

Funny this should pop back into my mind after 35 years. Maybe funny is the wrong word. But fortunately for me, I was able to ward off the predator. Unfortunately, the kids who were repeatedly victimized in this case weren't, and the entire community dropped the ball. And now they've all got to pay, including, sadly, the innocent ones.

They need to clean out the Athletic Department at Penn State and get those good ol' boys into a farkin' courtroom in front of a jury of their peers, like pronto. I guess turning them into eunuchs isn't a possibility.... What a shame, all around.

[87lwrdr]

Joe Paterno got fired because he MORALLY didn't do enough at the time of the incident. What about McQueary? Here is a well educated grown man who also didn't do enough beyond telling his daddy first. Why isn't he being let go or mentioned in this whole process tonight? He's the one that should have went in the shower and kicked the hell out of Sandusky and stopped it right there. But I'll bet the reason he didn't do anything was because he feared for his job. Yes, Joe Pa is gone do to poor judgement but McQueary should be gone too for the same reasons.

[prffsrx]

This act of perversion was brought to you by the Homosexual "bowel" Movement legitimized in America.

[retiredgustav]

That so called "bowel" movement has been with us since the begining of time.

[RickCain4150]

Homosexuality isn't illegal. Raping children is, regardless of the child's sex.