Penn State report on Jerry Sandusky scandal due Thursday

The report is expected to reveal how the university treated Sandusky after fielding complaints about his encounters with young boys in 1998 and 2001.

An internal investigation into whether football coach Joe Paterno and other Penn State officials helped cover up reports that Jerry Sandusky was molesting children in the school’s locker rooms will be released Thursday, officials said today.

The report, commissioned by school trustees following the former assistant football coach’s arrest last year, is expected to reveal how the university treated Sandusky after fielding complaints about his encounters with young boys in 1998 and 2001. It is also expected to cast additional light on how Paterno exerted control over the football program while Sandusky worked under him and after Sandusky retired from coaching.

Not only could the report shape how Paterno is remembered, but it also could affect an ongoing NCAA probe into the school’s conduct and criminal cases against two Penn State administrators.

The report will be published online at 9 a.m. Thursday. Investigators will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. to discuss the findings and recommendations in the report.

Sandusky was convicted in June of 45 counts of sexual abuse involving 10 boys.

The 68-year-old is awaiting sentencing, but given the seriousness of the offenses and state guidelines, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

The seven-month university review was led by former FBI director and federal judge Louis Freeh and was designed, according to trustee Ken Frazier, to reveal “who know what, when” among Penn State officials. When Freeh was hired two weeks after Sandusky’s arrest, he promised a wide-ranging investigation.

Several of the more than 400 people interviewed by Freeh’s investigators have said they were asked questions that went beyond Sandusky and the child sex-abuse scandal.

The focus and tact of questioning depended on who was being interviewed, but among the broader subjects have been Paterno’s influence outside of football and how then-president Graham Spanier and the administration handled athletics, including disciplinary issues.

Two Penn State administrators are charged with lying to a grand jury and failing to properly report suspected abuse when a graduate assistant described an attack in a team shower by Sandusky on a boy in 2001. Athletic director Tim Curley, now on leave, and vice president Gary Schultz, who has since retired, deny the allegations. Their trial date has not yet been set, but it could be announced soon.

Paterno was fired by the trustees shortly after Sandusky was arrested in November. He died of lung cancer in January at age 85.