Third hand? Sorry, but he got a first hand report from a witness to the event. He did the minimal to cover his ass and walked away.
You have someone come to you and tell you he saw someone having sex with a child, what are you going to do? Just tell your boss and walk away? or are you going to call the cops, or at the very least advise the witness to call the cops?
Joe Pa is no dummy, he knew exactly what he was doing.. he was protecting a friend, pure and simple, and that friend went on molesting for another 9 years.
There is no moral defense for Joe or his actions, and you can claim its a press lynching all you want, but its not. You do the right thing, this is a guy who claims his program is all about integrity, but he clearly showed none in his handling of this.
Penn State is done if Joe Pa isn’t gone and gone quickly.. No alumni or endowment is going to send money that way as long as he is still there.
I suspect highly that Penn State knew long before 2002, and Sandusky’s retirement in 1999 was a direct result of folks knowing and covering it up then. Now, THAT IS admittedly conjecture, but given how much of an “open secret” this guys behavior has turned out to be since this broke, I have a hard time believing 2002 was when it first started to come to light.
The university police investigated the report in 1998. University attorneys reviewed the report against Sandusky in 1998.