Definitely verified by a friend who has many friends in and around the program (or at least he did during the era in question). Which begets another question...why didn't anyone act on it even before the McQueary incident?
Too busy tittering at it, I guess.
Well, if your friend is accurate - and his take seems to be consistent with persistent rumors - then all of Penn State and State College should share in the blame. This would be tantamount to an entire community looking the other way on a horrible set of crimes to protect the reputation of the football program.
Irony is, had they acted swiftly and properly and not worried about the PR - they would have gotten a lot of good PR and prevented other awful incidences from taking place.
Now Penn State will suffer from this for probably decades.