Report: Joe Paterno reworked deal

Story by ESPN and AP

In the midst of the Jerry Sandusky child-sex abuse investigation, former Penn State coach Joe Paterno was planning his exit strategy, according to a report by the New York Times.

The newspaper reported that in January 2011, the same month he testified before the grand jury regarding Sandusky, Paterno began negotiations on a package that gave him $3 million if he retired from coaching after the 2011 season.

The amended contract, reached in August, months before charges were filed against Sandusky, also included perks such as use of a plane and hydrotherapy equipment for his wife that totalled $5.5 million.
Paterno's contract was not set to expire until the end of 2012, according to university documents.

According to the newspaper, the university's full board of trustees were kept in the dark about Paterno's arrangment until November, when Sandusky was fired.

When Paterno was fired in the wake of the scandal, board members who raised questions about whether the school should go forward with Paterno's retirement package were shot down due to mounting pressure and the threat of a lawsuit from Paterno's family.

On Friday, a lawyer for the Paterno family said that it was Penn State that proposed the retirement and that many aspects of the lucractive deal -- use of plane and a luxury box at Beaver Stadium -- had existed in prior contracts.

Louis Freeh, the former director of the FBI who was hired by university trustees to look into what has become one of sports' biggest scandals, produced a scathing 267-report Thursday.

Freeh, after an eight-month inquiry concluded that Paterno, then-president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and now-retired vice president Gary Schultz "failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade."

Freeh called the officials' disregard for child victims "callous and shocking."

Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of 45 criminal counts for abusing 10 boys. He faces a minimum of 60 years in prison.

The Penn State Child Sex Abuse Scandal led to the ouster of Paterno and Spanier. Curley and Schultz are awaiting trial on charges accusing them of lying to a grand jury and failing to report abuse. They have pleaded not guilty.

Legal experts said emails and other evidence in the Penn State Child Sex Abuse investigative report released Thursday suggest Paterno may have misled a grand jury when asked when he first heard about Sandusky's misconduct.

Experts have said Paterno, if alive today, could be looking at charges such as child endangerment, perjury and conspiracy.