– The Associated Press

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – A psychologist who looked into a 1998 allegation against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky told police at the time that his behavior fit the profile of a likely pedophile, NBC News reported Saturday.

Yet Sandusky was never criminally charged, nor placed on a state registry of suspected child abusers, and prosecutors say he continued assaulting boys for more than a decade until his arrest in November.

NBC obtained a copy of the campus police department’s investigatory report on an encounter in which Sandusky was accused of having inappropriate contact with an 11-year-old boy with whom he had showered naked on the Penn State campus.

The police file includes the report of State College psychologist Alycia Chambers, who interviewed and provided counseling to the boy.

“My consultants agree that the incidents meet all of our definitions, based on experience and education, of a likely pedophile’s pattern of building trust and gradual introduction of physical touch, within a context of a ‘loving,’ ‘special’ relationship,” Chambers wrote.

A second psychologist, however, concluded that Sandusky had neither assaulted the boy nor fit the profile of a pedophile.

Centre County prosecutors ultimately decided not to charge Sandusky, and the case was closed until a statewide grand jury accused the retired defensive coordinator of abusing the boy and nine others over a 15-year period. Sandusky, who faces more than 50 counts of child sex abuse, has pleaded innocent and awaits trial.

Chambers’ warning to authorities raises new questions about the university’s failure to stop Sandusky.

In 2002, four years after the 1998 investigation, prosecutors say then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary caught Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in the football showers. McQueary reported what he saw to coach Joe Paterno, who, in turn, reported the allegation to university officials. But no police investigation was ever done.

The 1998 allegation was the first known complaint made to authorities about Sandusky. A woman called the Penn State police department, saying she was troubled after her 11-year-old son told her he had showered naked with Sandusky on campus.

Prosecutors say Sandusky lathered up the boy, bear-hugged him naked from behind, and picked him up and put his head under the shower. Detectives say that later, with police secretly listening in, Sandusky told the boy’s mother the joint shower had been a mistake, and blurted: “I wish I were dead.”

The woman’s complaint triggered a separate review by state Department of Public Welfare, which found no indication of abuse by Sandusky.

But state welfare department investigator Jerry Lauro said in December that he didn’t have access to the criminal investigative file. On Wednesday, he told The Patriot-News of Harrisburg that he never would have closed the case had he seen the reports from Chambers and the second psychologist, John Seasock.

“The course of history could have been changed,” Lauro told the newspaper, which first reported the existence of the twin psychological reports.

“The conclusions (Chambers) had drawn in her report were pretty damaging,” Lauro told the paper. “I would have made a different decision. … It’s unbelievable, and it gets my blood pressure going when I think about it.”

Sandusky’s attorney, Joseph Amendola, said Saturday that the 1998 report was based on just one psychologist’s opinion. Amendola questioned the timing of the report and suggested it was the result of legal maneuvering by the prosecution.