Transcript: Joe Paterno’s Grand Jury Testimony
Q: Without getting into any graphic detail, what did Mr. McQueary tell you he had seen and where?
Mr. Paterno: Well, he had seen a person, an older — not an older, but a mature person who was fondling, whatever you might call it — I’m not sure what the term would be — a young boy.
Q: Did he identify who that older person was?
Mr. Paterno: Yes, a man by the name of Jerry Sandusky who had been one of our coaches, was not at the time.
(snip)
Q: I think you used the term fondling. Is that the term that you used?
Mr. Paterno: Well, I don’t know what you would call it. Obviously, he was doing something with the youngster.
It was a sexual nature. I’m not sure exactly what it was.
I didn’t push Mike to describe exactly what it was because he was very upset. Obviously, I was in a little bit of a dilemma since Mr. Sandusky was not working for me anymore.
So I told — I didn’t go any further than that except I knew Mike was upset and I knew some kind of inappropriate action was being taken by Jerry Sandusky with a youngster.
Q: Did Mike McQueary tell you where he had seen this inappropriate conduct take place?
Mr. Paterno: In the shower.
(snip)
Q: Did you tell Mike McQueary at that time what you were going to do with that information that he had provided to you?
Mr. Paterno: I don’t know whether I was specific or not. I did tell Mike, Mike, you did what was right; you told me.
Even though Jerry does not work for the football staff any longer, I would refer his concerns to the right people.
Q: You recall this taking place on a Saturday morning, the conversation with Mike?
Mr. Paterno: Yes.
Q: When did you — did you do something with that information?
Mr. Paterno: Well, I can’t be precise.
I ordinarily would have called people right away, but it was a Saturday morning and I didn’t want to interfere with their weekends.
So I don’t know whether I did it Saturday or did it early the next week.
I’m not sure when, but I did it within the week.
Q: To whom or with whom did you share the information that McQueary had given you?
Mr. Paterno: I talked to my immediate boss, our athletic director.
Q: What is that person’s name?
Mr. Paterno: Tim Curley.
Q: How did you contact Mr. Curley?
Mr. Paterno: I believe I did it by phone. As I recall, I called him and I said, hey, we got a problem, and I explained the problem to him.
Q: Was the information that you passed along substantially the same information that Mr. McQueary had given you?
Mr. Paterno: Yes.
Q: Other than the incident that Mike McQueary reported to you, do you know in any way, through rumor, direct knowledge or any other fashion, of any other inappropriate sexual conduct by Jerry Sandusky with young boys?
Mr. Paterno: I do not know of anything else that Jerry would be involved in of that nature, no. I do not know of it.
You did mention — I think you said something about a rumor. It may have been discussed in my presence, something else about somebody.
I don’t know.
I don’t remember, and I could not honestly say I heard a rumor.
Q: You indicated that your report was made directly to Tim Curley. Do you know of that report being made to anyone else that was a university official?
Mr. Paterno: No, because I figured that Tim would handle it appropriately.
I have a tremendous amount of confidence in Mr. Curley and I thought he would look into it and handle it appropriately.
Q: We have no further questions of you.
And Paterno then did nothing to follow up about what was going on in his locker room. NOTHING. He washed his hands of it and even admitted later that he should have done more.
Joe Paterno: ‘I Wish I Had Done More’
Nobody's buying your spin to try and rehabilitate this enabler.