10 years later, Sandusky scandal at Penn State has opened the door to others coming to light, experts say

Nov. 5—Few saw it coming.

Even fewer had any idea that a Nov. 5, 2011, grand jury report that unmasked retired Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky as a serial pedophile would trigger a tidal wave worldwide.

"When the scandal at Penn State broke, it was as though it radically changed what people were willing to talk about," said Marci Hamilton, a legal scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and CEO of Child USA, a nonprofit think tank working to end child abuse and neglect. "It was the case that opened up a whole, dark universe."

Hamilton has spent decades studying institutional child sexual abuse. She said the investigation that also prompted authorities to charge three top Penn State administrators made it clear that officials no longer could be dismissive of such complaints.

Since then, thousands of allegations have surfaced. Some of the most notable involved trusted figures at Ohio State University, Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and the University of Southern California accused of preying on students for years.

—In September, a congressional committee heard Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and her teammates tell how the FBI and USA Gymnastics, as well as Michigan State, discounted repeated complaints about Dr. Larry Nassar. Nassar, a Michigan State sports doctor and the former U.S. Olympic gymnastics team doctor, is now serving up to 175 years in prison for abusing young gymnasts and college athletes. Michigan State has paid $500 million to settle lawsuits.

—About 350 Ohio State University athletes came forward in 2018 with similar complaints about Dr. Richard Strauss. They said Strauss, a former team doctor who killed himself in 2005, preyed on athletes for about 20 years, from 1979-96, despite repeated complaints. Ohio State has paid about $41 million to settle lawsuits.

—In March, the University of Southern California agreed to pay more than $852 million to settle claims from about 700 women who said Dr. George Tyndall, a gynecologist at the student health center, abused patients there for nearly three decades until 2016.

—More than 900 former University of Michigan students came forward earlier this year with complaints about Dr. Robert E. Anderson, who worked at the university from 1966 to 2003. They said administrators and coaches ignored repeated complaints about Anderson. The Detroit News reported that, as of late October, the university had spent $10.7 million investigating the allegations, providing counseling to survivors and defending 235 lawsuits. Anderson died in 2008.

"The cover-up always makes it worse," said Tom Corbett, who served as Pennsylvania attorney general when allegations against Sandusky were referred to that office in 2009. "It happened at Penn State. It happened at Michigan. It can happen at any major or small college."

It can rise even to the professional ranks.

The Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL are at the center of sexual abuse scandal involving a former player and video coach in which the head coach and five senior staffers are accused of failing to take immediate action over a 2010 alleged assault. The NHL fined the franchise $2 million.

Social media figured prominently into the sea change in public attitudes that opened the door anew to such complaints.

Twitter and Facebook were just becoming common platforms when the Sandusky scandal broke.

Kristen Houser, former chief public affairs officer for the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, followed the events surrounding the Sandusky grand jury presentment and attended his trial. She said social media magnified the shock value of seeing a well-known figure in college athletics at the center of a child sexual abuse case.

"People were sharing the story on social media, and others were responding, saying it happened to them, too. And they would hear encouraging messages from others saying, 'Oh, I'm sorry this happened to you,' or, 'It happened to me, too,' " Houser said. "Social media became a place for people to share their truth. It opened a door, and Sandusky was this explosive story where this all started to happen."

Sandusky, now 77, was convicted and sentenced to up to 60 years in prison on multiple counts of sexually abusing boys in and around university facilities over more than a decade. Three university administrators were found culpable for failing to act. And Penn State ended up paying nearly $250 million in legal and consulting fees and fines, as well as settlements, to about three dozen men who said they were abused by Sandusky in incidents dating back decades.

Penn State officials, contrite over the scandal, went on to establish the first multi-disciplinary university research center for the study and prevention of child abuse.

But there was little hint of what was coming that late autumn day when news of the Sandusky case broke.

Key witness

On Nov. 4, 2011, it seemed everyone in State College was celebrating hall of fame football coach Joe Paterno's record-setting 409th victory the previous week.

Paterno, with his iconic rolled-up khakis and Coke-bottle eyeglasses, had won two national titles and defined the program for decades. A larger-than-life statue of the heretofore unblemished 84-year-old coach affectionately known as "JoePa" greeted Beaver Stadium visitors for years.

Penn State President Graham Spanier was in his 16th year at the land-grant university, a tenure almost unheard of in higher education.

Like Paterno, Sandusky was a beloved figure. The tall, rangy coach with the goofy grin and his wife Dottie had adopted six children. Over the years, Sandusky had mentored countless boys through The Second Mile, a charity he founded to serve for at-risk children.

Everything seemed fine.

Corbett, finishing his first year as Pennsylvania's governor and a member of Penn State's Board of Trustees, knew that was about to change.

He had learned of the Sandusky grand jury investigation when it was referred to his office while he was still attorney general in 2009. In Sandusky, he saw a figure that fit the profile of a serial predator who cultivated a niche where he could befriend and groom boys.

As attorney general, Corbett advised his staff to take their time, leave no stone unturned and maintain the secrecy of their grand jury investigation.

They continued to do that even after he became governor.

Months into their probe, investigators learned a graduate assistant, former quarterback Mike McQueary, had come forward to Paterno years earlier and said he witnessed what he thought was Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in a locker room shower.

Investigators learned Paterno referred the allegations to university officials. But the case went no further. Officials dismissed the incident as horse play, and Sandusky, who had retired from coaching but retained emeritus status, continued to be a fixture around Penn State.

Corbett said McQueary's account was a turning point in the investigation that found Sandusky had abused 10 boys.

'Didn't they learn anything?'

Less than a week after Sandusky was arrested and university vice president Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Tim Curley were charged with failing to act, things began to move quickly.

On the morning of Nov. 8, Paterno announced he would retire at the end of the season and expressed his regrets about Sandusky.

"I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this case," Paterno said. "This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."

That night, Penn State trustees fired Paterno and Spanier.

"Didn't they learn anything from Jerry Sandusky?" he said. "The cover-up always compounds it."

That would be the case in 2018. That summer another Pennsylvania grand jury made headlines when it detailed allegations that trusted leaders in the Catholic Church had been complicit in decades of cover-ups of child sexual abuse by priests statewide.

'He's an innocent person'

The cases against Spanier, Schultz and Curley dragged on for years. In 2017, Curley and Schultz each entered guilty pleas to misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare of children. Spanier was tried and convicted of a single count of endangering the welfare of a child. He began serving a two-month prison sentence earlier this year.

Through it all, Sandusky has maintained his innocence.

Lawyer Al Lindsay of Butler, who is handling Sandusky's appeals, said they speak by phone about once a week.

He said the rush to judgment — Sandusky was charged, tried and convicted within eight months — failed to provide his lawyers time to build a defense.

"Our position is he's an innocent person. He's been wrongfully convicted. We're still optimistic he's going to get a new trial. And if he gets a new trial, he'll be acquitted," Lindsay said in an interview last month. "I've said this is the worst thing I've ever seen since the Salem witch trials."

Paterno, whom many feel was wrongly sanctioned for Sandusky's predations, died of lung cancer about two months after the scandal broke. Devoted fans blamed Sandusky and the trustees for hastening Paterno's death.

Six months later, Penn State, acting under cover of night, removed the Paterno statue, hoping to tamp down the controversy. They would only say that it was taken to a secure location for safekeeping.

Path forward

The NCAA invoked harsh sanctions against the football program — a $60 million fine, a four-year ban from playing in bowl games, limits on scholarships and 112 victories between 1998 and 2011 vacated. Several years later, the NCAA reversed most of those penalties.

University officials, meanwhile, worked to restore Penn State's tarnished image.

They created the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network in 2012 and agreed to help fund 12 positions at the nation's first multidisciplinary university research center for the study and prevention of child abuse.

In 2013, Jennie Noll left her post at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, where she had been applying science to study the effects and prevention of child sexual abuse. She became a Penn State professor and was charged with leading the new program.

Noll agrees with those who say the Sandusky case has had the far-reaching impact of opening the door to discussions about child sexual abuse.

"(People) are willing to broach the subject and to be empowered to inquire as to how this happened and how to stop it," Noll said.

As word of its work grew, the Penn State project was awarded a $7.7 million federal grant to create the first national center for child maltreatment studies.

"Penn State didn't have to do this, but they did," Noll said. "We are arguably the place in the country doing the most impactful research."

"I know a lot of things were spawned by our case," Lindsay said. "But in our case, (the system) got the facts wrong."

Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter .