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Report: Years And Years Of Missed Chances In Penn State Scandal

During Saturday's game against Nebraska, a Penn State fan looks on in State College, Pa.
Patrick Smith
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During Saturday's game against Nebraska, a Penn State fan looks on in State College, Pa.

Reporter Sara Ganim of The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., continues to lay out the scope of the child sex abuse scandal that has engulfed Penn State University and the many missed chances that authorities had to stop what former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky allegedly did to many young boys.

Ganim, whose reporting has been way ahead of others,' today walks through how "clues seem to have been ignored in 1995 and 1999; an alleged victim came forward in 1998; and adults allegedly witnessed sexual assaults by Sandusky in 2000 and 2002."

It wasn't until 2008, she adds, that "Victim One ... came forward and was believed" and it wasn't until 2010 that the state attorney general's office "began to supervise the case" and the investigation picked up.

"We expected you just arrest people who do stuff like that," Victim One's mother told Ganim. "We didn't realize it was going to be this difficult and take this long."

Through his attorney, Sandusky has professed his innocence.

Related stories:

-- The judge who released Sandusky on $100,000 unsecured bail has been a volunteer at the charity for at-risk children that Sandusky founded, Deadspin reports.

-- Sandusky's home "borders the grounds of Lemont Elementary School, in College Township," according to StateCollege.com. School officials have added extra security. Sandusky's house was reportedly vandalized last week.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.