Penn State Trustee Still Fighting For Joe Paterno's Name: 'Completely Wrong' To Call Him A Knowing Facilitator Of Child Rape
(CBS) One of the leading figures and most influential voices in the Penn State faction that's looking to restore the legacy of the late former coach Joe Paterno following his role in the Jerry Sandusky child rape scandal, school trustee Anthony Lubrano emphasized that his viewpoint hasn't changed despite more court documents emerging Tuesday morning that Paterno was told by a 14-year-old boy in 1976 that he'd been sexually assaulted by Sandusky.
Paterno then responded by doing nothing, saying he had a football season to worry about, per court documents of sworn testimony. This news was in stark contrast to previous timelines of when Paterno was believed have known about Sandusky's abuses. Before his death in 2012, Paterno claimed the first idea he had that Sandusky might be abusing children was in 2001. A university-commissioned has previously indicated Paterno likely knew in 1998.
With that as context, Lubrano indicated he'll keep his support for Paterno going, saying it's "completely wrong" to call Paterno a "knowing facilitator of decades of child rape." Recently, 200 former players signed a petition calling for Paterno's statue to be returned to campus.
"Unsubstantiated and uncorroborated -- if you've been following this carefully, you'll know the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General's solicitor general made that very clear in the last several weeks," Lubrano said in an interview with Dan Bernstein and Barry Rozner on 670 The Score.
"What I'm saying is we have uncorroborated and unsubstantiated allegations.
"This information that you see today is part of a larger process in which there's a great deal of more information that wasn't made part of the record."
Anthony Lubrano on with Bernstein and Rozner
Asked multiple times if he believed the victim from 1976 was lying, Lubarno said some form of, "What I believe in is due process."
Told by Bernstein he was "discrediting" and "shaming" victims through his rhetoric over the years, Lubrano said, "I'm certainly not shaming anyone."
"If someone feels shamed, that's internal," Lubrano said. "But I'm not certainly trying to shame anyone. I'm simply trying to point out the facts. The facts are these are unsubstantiated, uncorroborated allegations."
Lubrano explained why he continues the effort to protect Paterno's name.
"Because Penn State is a great institution and has had some great people at the institution," Lubrano said. "That includes people like (former president) Graham Spanier, (former athletic director) Tim Curley and Joe Paterno.
"I very much care about victims, but I care about process too.
"If you have a fiduciary duty to your institution, do you just open up the checkbook and really just write checks?"
Paterno died in January 2012. Sandusky was found guilty on 45 counts of sexual abuse in June 2012 and was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison. Lubrano became a trustee in July 2012.
