Ex-Penn State Coach Jerry Sandusky Charged in Child Sex-Abuse Scandal

On November 5, 2011, former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was arrested and charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year period, from 1994 to 2009. Sandusky, 67, had retired from coaching in 1999 but kept using university facilities through The Second Mile, the charity for at-risk children he founded in 1977, where prosecutors said he met his victims.

The case widened the same weekend: athletic director Tim Curley and vice president for finance Gary Schultz were charged with perjury and with failing to report the allegations to police as Pennsylvania law requires. The charges followed an incident in 2002 in which a graduate assistant — later identified as wide-receivers coach Mike McQueary — told head coach Joe Paterno he had seen Sandusky assault a boy in the team showers. Paterno relayed the report to Curley, but the university never contacted law enforcement. Paterno was not charged.

The scandal ended Paterno's legendary 46-year tenure as head coach — Penn State fired him in November 2011, and he died in January 2012. The university eventually paid more than $100 million to settle abuse claims.

The outcome: On June 22, 2012, Sandusky was convicted on 45 of 48 counts related to the abuse of 10 boys. That October, Judge John Cleland sentenced him to 30 to 60 years in prison — effectively a life term. Sandusky continues to maintain his innocence; his appeals have failed, and he was resentenced to the same term in 2019.