- Late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was told by a 14-year-old boy in 1976 that he had been sexually assaulted by assistant coach Jerry Sandusky but ignored the complaint, according to court documents unsealed on Tuesday in a Philadelphia court.
The alleged attack occurred long before a 1998 incident that investigators had set as the earliest date that Paterno and university officials knew, or should have known, about reports to authorities of sexual abuse by Sandusky.
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The victim, who was identified in court records as John Doe 150, gave graphic testimony in 2014 about an abusive touching incident he said he suffered at the hands of Sandusky when he was in a shower while attending a football camp at Penn State.
His redacted statement released in Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas was among excerpts of depositions by accusers who said they reported abuse to Paterno or his assistants in the 1970s and 1980s.
When staff members were told about the molestation they did nothing, the man said. He said he then spoke to Paterno, with several people nearby.
"'I don't want to hear about any of that kind of stuff, I have a football season to worry about,'" the man recalled Paterno as saying before walking away.