Former Penn State legend Joe Paterno. (Wikimedia Commons)

Former Penn State university football coach Jerry Sandusky, convicted and sentenced to more than 30 years in prison for sexually abusing boys, continued to defend himself in a jailhouse interview released partially Monday, according to USA Today.

Sandusky did an interview with a filmmaker who's doing a project reportedly called "Framing Paterno." The filmmaker, John Ziegler, said he wants to make a movie that will give former head coach Joe Paterno, who died shortly after being fired from the university, his "day in court."

Sandusky told Ziegler that he wasn't aware of Paterno's knowledge of the abuse allegations brought against him.

He said that the testimony of assistant coach Michael McQueary changed a lot of the perception about Paterno's role in the potential cover-up of Sandusky's crimes. McQueary testified that he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a boy in a locker room in 2001, and that he informed Paterno, who told officials, who apparently never reported it to the police.

Sandusky maintained in the interview his defense that he had only been "fooling around" with the boy, and that he did nothing wrong as a coach at Penn State, where he ran youth camps for many years.

Penn State released a statement condemning Sandusky's remarks, saying they "continue to open wounds for his victims, and the victims of child sexual abuse everywhere." The university claimed to be training 11,000 employees to detect scenarios of sexual abuse.

The Paterno family's lawyer released a statement on the family's behalf also condemning Sandusky. "Releasing a recording at this time," the lawyer said, "nearly a year after he was found guilty on 45 counts, is transparently self-serving and yet another insult to the victims and anyone who cares about the truth in this tragic story."

The lawyer also said that the family wants it made clear that they don't want Ziegler's film to speak as a defense of Joe Paterno. "[T]hey believe that any attempt to use this recording as a defense of Joe Paterno is misguided and inappropriate."

Read more of Neon Tommy's coverage of Sandusky here.

Reach Executive Producer Michael Juliani here.