Paterno family sues NCAA over Penn State’s Sandusky fine

Joe Paterno’s family is suing the National Collegiate Athletic Association over penalties levied against Pennsylvania State University and its football program for its role in the Jerry Sandusky sexual-abuse case.

In a complaint filed Thursday in state court in Bellefonte, Pa., the family of the deceased coach and five members of the school’s board of trustees said the Indianapolis-based NCAA improperly interfered and grossly mishandled a criminal matter outside the scope of its authority. The NCAA’s actions also interfered with contractual relations and defamed the Paternos, they said.

“This case is further proof that the NCAA has lost all sense of its mission,” Wick Sollers, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a prepared statement. “An illegally imposed penalty that is based on false assumptions and secret discussions is a disservice to the victims and everyone else who cares about the truth of the Sandusky scandal.”

Paterno, who set records for on-field success as the coach of Penn State’s Nittany Lions, died Jan. 22, 2012, at the age of 85. He was fired in November 2011 after 46 seasons at the university, following criticism that he failed to contact police when told of an abuse case involving Sandusky, a former assistant.

The Paternos’ suit is the third against the NCAA over the sanctions, which include a $60 million fine to be paid in five installments. Penn State’s football program was also stripped of 112 wins from 1998 through 2011 and barred from bowl games for four years, matching the longest postseason ban in the history of the NCAA, which oversees most college sports in the U.S.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, a Republican, sued the NCAA in January, arguing that the sanctions violated antitrust laws. Pennsylvania State Senator Jake Corman, also a Republican, sued seeking to direct funds from the penalties to state programs. Penn State, which agreed to the sanctions, isn’t a plaintiff in those complaints.

NCAA officials didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the latest lawsuit. David La Torre, a spokesman for Penn State, didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment on it.

Sandusky, 69, who spent 31 seasons as a defensive assistant under Paterno, was sentenced in October to at least 30 years in prison for sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period.

A July 2012 report commissioned by the university concluded that Paterno and three senior school officials, including Penn State President Graham Spanier, who was fired, hid critical facts surrounding Sandusky’s abuse in an attempt to avoid “bad publicity.”

In February, the Paterno family said the report was fundamentally flawed. The university’s board of trustees and the NCAA relied on the report, which was prepared by Louis Freeh, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, without appropriate review or analysis, the family said in a statement at the time.

Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and other experts hired by the family said they determined in a review of evidence that Paterno didn’t attempt to hide any information or impede the probe into Sandusky.

Attorneys for the NCAA argued at a May 20 court hearing that the sanctions were necessary and the response extraordinary because of the horrifying nature of the crime. The NCAA attorneys asked a federal judge to dismiss Corbett’s suit, arguing the governor lacked standing to bring the case.