Claim: Joe Paterno was told of child abuse in 1976
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(CNN)Former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was told that his assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky was sexually abusing a child as early as 1976, according to a claim by an insurance company.
This date is 18 years before what had been thought as the earliest known incident of abuse by Sandusky. The allegation was revealed in a single line of a court document filed Wednesday.
Convicted pedophile Sandusky was found guilty in 2012 of sexually abusing 10 boys during the 1990s and 2000s. He was employed by Penn State for 32 years. He had used a charity he founded and access to the college football team to entice and abuse kids. Sandusky is serving a prison sentence between 30 to 60 years.
The allegation that Paterno and assistant football coaches were aware that Sandusky was molesting children back in the 1970s and throughout the 1980s surfaced in a lawsuit brought by Penn State University against its former insurer, Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association (PMA).
The lawsuit, filed in late 2013, seeks to determine whether Penn State or its PMA insurance policy is liable for paying victims who were abused by Sandusky. At least 30 men were involved in a civil settlement with Penn State, and the number of victims could be even higher.