former Penn. State Coach Sandusky charged in child sex case

[Lady Cop]

(CNN) -- Jury selection in the trial of Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach charged with child rape, is scheduled to start Tuesday in Pennsylvania.

A judge last week denied his attorneys' latest bid for a delay, allowing the case to move forward.

Sandusky, 68, has been under house arrest since being charged with sexually abusing 10 young boys over a 14-year period. Prosecutors allege he met some of his accusers through Second Mile, a charity he created for underprivileged children.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The allegations against Sandusky led to the firing of iconic Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno only months before he died of complications from lung cancer.

Several of the people whom prosecutors accuse Sandusky of abusing asked a judge to protect their identities at trial.

However, Judge John Cleland on Monday ruled the alleged victims' identities may not be concealed during the trial, although they will be protected through the jury selection process.

"Courts are not customarily in the business of withholding information," Cleland's ruling said. "Secrecy is thought to be inconsistent with the openness required to assure the public that the law is being administered fairly and applied faithfully."

But, the judge noted, "It is also be to hoped that various news organizations that will report on the trial will use what has become their professional custom to protect the privacy of alleged victims."

[Kip]

Sandusky wrote "creepy" love letters to victim #4

Jerry Sandusky allegedly wrote "creepy" love letters to one of his victims, and they will be read in testimony once the child sex abuse trial into the former Penn State assistant football coach begins Monday, ABC News reported, citing sources close to the case.

The love letters were allegedly written to "Victim 4," one of eight accusers set to testify against the 68-year-old.

Victim 4 is set to be the first witness to testify and is also expected to show gifts that Sandusky allegedly gave him, including a set of golf clubs.

The letters are allegedly handwritten by Sandusky and one of them entails a story written in the third person.

Victim 4, now 28, met the coach through Sandusky's charity, the Second Mile.

Ben Andreozzi, the attorney for Victim 4, would not talk about the letters, but did say, "They have evidence to support his allegations, and there's other evidence that has not been released to the public yet that I think will really resonate with the jury...."

[Lady Cop]

opening statements monday.

The judge overseeing former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse case denied on Friday defense motions to dismiss the charges in the case.

Sandusky is charged with more than 50 counts of sexual misconduct involving young boys. His lawyers had sought to have the charges dismissed, arguing some were too vague and that there is insufficient evidence on others.

The ruling comes two days after prosecutors and defense attorneys settled on a jury of five men and seven women to hear the case against Sandusky, who has been under house arrest since he was charged with sexually abusing 10 boys, some of whom he met through the charity he created for underprivileged children.

[ScientistsCanvas]

Trial started this morning.
msnbc

The jury's composition reflects the area's strong connection to Penn State, which dominates life and culture in the nearby city of State College. It includes a Penn State senior, a retired professor and a woman who's been a football season ticket holder since the 1970s. The woman's husband also works for the medical group where the father of a key witness, Mike McQueary, previously worked.

Is this normal? I understand the Penn State Football influence is vast, but seems it would make it difficult for a "fair" trial.

[Duchess]

Is this normal? I understand the Penn State Football influence is vast, but seems it would make it difficult for a "fair" trial.

His attorney/s worked hard to keep the trial right there & most, if not all of the jurors are affiliated with Penn State. It blew my mind when I heard that and I'm not the only one.

This isn't verbatim but one of the jurors with two young boys was asked a question (I don't know what) but her response was that she understands that young boys make things up, embellish the truth.

Crazy, huh.

[Jimbone]

I don't think it matters where the trial is held... he's going down for this. The damage to Penn State is already done, so finding this guy guilty isn't go to make it worse. quite frankly.

As long as there are no Anthony jurors visiting from Florida, he'll gets what's coming to him. Then he can sleep naked with men all he wants in prison.

[Lady Cop]

AP

BELLEFONTE, Pa. – The lead prosecutor called Jerry Sandusky a serial predator in opening statements Monday, while a defense lawyer said the young men accusing the former Penn State assistant football coach of sexual abuse had a financial interest in the outcome.

Senior Deputy Attorney General Joseph McGettigan III opened Sandusky's highly anticipated trial Monday by telling jurors that the 68-year-old retired coach was a pedophile who took advantage of fatherless children or those with unstable home lives and sexually abused them for years.

McGettigan, apologizing in advance for what he said would be disturbing and graphic testimony, said he would prove that the abuse included oral and anal sex involving boys Sandusky met through a children's charity and that it took place "not over days, not over weeks, not even over months, but in some cases over years."

Sandusky's lawyer, Joe Amendola, said the young men who would take the stand are accusers, not victims. He said jurors may find it odd that Sandusky acknowledged showering with children, but that it was innocuous, and part of Sandusky's upbringing.

"In Jerry's culture, growing up in his generation, where he grew up, he's going to tell you it was routine for individuals to get showers together," Amendola said. "I suspect for those of you who might have been in athletics, it's routine."



ScientistsCanvas:
Is this normal? I understand the Penn State Football influence is vast, but seems it would make it difficult for a "fair" trial.


me:
his lawyers had strikes in voir dire. and it IS a jury of his peers. which is the Constitutional guarantee.

[Lady Cop]

The ex-Penn State assistant football coach may take the stand at his child rape trial, his lawyer suggests. Court documents say Sandusky suffers from a personality disorder that may explain his behaviors.


yeah, it's called pedophilia!


Bellefonte, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky routinely tried to force a then 14-year-old to perform oral sex on him while the two showered together on the school's campus and elsewhere, the alleged victim testified Monday.

"It would have to be 40 times, at least," the now 28-year-old man said.

[Lady Cop]

BELLEFONTE, Pa. – Former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary told jurors in Jerry Sandusky's sex abuse trial Tuesday that he saw his ex-colleague with a prepubescent boy in an on-campus shower and that he that he heard "skin-on-skin smacking sound."

His account of the night differed little from his appearance in December at a preliminary hearing for Penn State administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz. The one difference: He said the shower encounter took place in 2001 instead of 2002.

But the effect of what he saw, and heard, was unchanged, he said, responding to questions from Senior Deputy Attorney General Joseph McGettigan.

McQueary told the jury that he was at home, in bed, watching the film "Rudy," when he decided to go to the football team building. He said he walked into the support staff locker room to put away a pair of new sneakers and, as he opened the door, he heard the noise.

"Very much skin-on-skin smacking sound," he said. "I immediately became alert and was kind of embarrassed that I was walking in on something."

He said that he turned and glanced over his right shoulder at a mirror that had a 45-dgree angle and saw Sandusky "standing behind a boy who was propped up against a wall." He estimated the boy to be 10 to 12 years old.

He said that the "boy's hands (were) up on the wall. The glance would have taken only one or two seconds. I immediately turned back to my locker to make sure I saw what I saw."

McQueary said he looked directly into the shower and saw Sandusky "standing right up against the back of a young boy" with his arms around his midsection -- "the closest proximity that I think you can be in."

When asked what he saw, McQueary said "the defendant's midsection was moving" subtly.

McQueary said he tried to think and then put his shoes in his locker and slammed it shut, hard.

"I made the loud noise in an attempt to say `Someone's here! Break it up!"' McQueary said, adding that he stepped closer to the opening of the shower room and saw they were separated and facing him directly.

"We looked directly in each other's eyes and at that time I left the locker room," and went upstairs to his office, he said.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/12/tee...z1xbwxQZTL

[Duchess]

He saw a little kid being sexually abused & did nothing. What a fuckin' tool.

[Jimbone]

Mike McQueary... forever to be known as the coward who saw a 10-12 year old boy being raped in the ass, and doing nothing to stop it.

Who knows, perhaps years earlier McQueery (sic) enjoyed some of Sandusky's games too and saw it as harmless fun?

When that boy looked you in the eye Mike, he was crying for help you ignorant fuck. Imagine his horror when you turned around and walked away. Die in a fire.

[Midwest Spy]

Mike McQueary... forever to be known as the coward who saw a 10-12 year old boy being raped in the ass, and doing nothing to stop it.

Who knows, perhaps years earlier McQueery (sic) enjoyed some of Sandusky's games too and saw it as harmless fun?

When that boy looked you in the eye Mike, he was crying for help you ignorant fuck. Imagine his horror when you turned around and walked away. Die in a fire.

Agree with most of your sentiment.

He absolutely should have called the police, no question about it.

He did, however, let his boss (Joe Pa) know.

Ratting out someone on the staff would most likely have meant losing his job. IMO, it fell in Paterno's lap, and he swept in under the rug.

Either way, Sandusky is a creepy looking, evil bastard that should be put down like a rabid dog.

[Cheyne]

Another report of testimony.

BELLEFONTE, Pa. – The sobs from the witness stand were loud and prolonged, the cracking voice of Victim No. 1 in the Jerry Sandusky child sexual molestation trial gasping for breath as he detailed repeated acts of oral sex with the former Penn State defensive coordinator.

Now 18, the witness sat with his hands clasped in his lap, leaned into a microphone and slowly, painfully and purposefully delivered his disturbing memories of being an 11-, 12-year-old boy, alone with Sandusky on the waterbed in Sandusky's State College basement.

The sighs and sniffs echoed around a rapt Centre County Courtroom as jurors looked on, a couple noticeably disturbed. A few grimaced at the retelling and shook their heads.

Read entire article

This is victim #1, the one that started the ball rolling. He's only 18 and just graduated from high school.

I have always been a law abiding citizen. I have never been arrested or even had a traffic ticket. But I swear I would have a hard time not taking my 20 gauge and blowing Jerry Sandusky's head off if that was my son on the stand.

[Lady Cop]

that poor kid!!
as the mother of 3 sons. i'd also want to blow his fucking balls off an hour or two before i blew his brains out.

[Cheyne]

that poor kid!!
as the mother of 3 sons. i'd also want to blow his fucking balls off an hour or two before i blew his brains out.

Amen sister.

[Lady Cop]

lengthy, today's testimony.

Phila.com

INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

BELLEFONTE, Pa. - Moments after running into Jerry Sandusky and a young boy in a campus shower in 2000, a Penn State janitor emerged visibly shaken, one of his co-workers testified Wednesday afternoon.

"He looked at me and said, 'I just witnessed something that I'll never forget for the rest of my life," said Ronald Petrosky, recalling the words of former colleague Jim Calhoun. "That man that just left - Sandusky - I saw him licking on that boy's privates."

Petrosky was the sixth witness to take the stand Wednesday during the third day of testimony in the trial of the former Penn State assistant football coach now accused of 52 counts of sexual abuse. But he almost did not have a chance to tell his story.

Calhoun, who told his co-workers at the time that he witnessed Sandusky giving oral sex to an 11- to 13-year-old boy, now suffers from dementia and was not available to testify.

Prosecutors offered testimony from two of his co-workers at the time - Petrosky and another janitor Jay Witherite -- hoping to present the story of a boy identified in court documents as "Victim 8."

But Sandusky's defense pressed once again for Judge Calhoun prosecutors were relying solely on hearsay evidence to prove their case.

Cleland seemed skeptical at times of prosecutors' claims that Petrosky and Witherite were reliable because their testimony was based upon Calhoun's spur-of-the-moment utterances moments after witnessing the alleged scene. However, he ultimately let the janitors take the stand, leaving it up to jurors to weigh their accounts against the other evidence in the case.

Earlier Wednesday, prosecutors played the now infamous TV interview, in which the former Penn State football coach struggled to answer the question "Are you sexually attracted to young boys."

Taped days after his November 2011 arrest, the conversation with NBC's Bob Costas came at a time when questions over who knew what and when still swirled around Penn State and a nation waited to hear Sandusky's response to his accusers.

"Am I sexually attracted to young boys? Am I sexually attracted to young boys?" Sandusky repeated twice in the interview, as if mulling the question. "Sexually attracted? No, I enjoy young people. I enjoy to be around them. No, I'm not sexually attracted to young boys."

Throughout the playing of the tape, Sandusky sat in court Wednesday finger to his ear, head turned away from the projector.

Meanwhile, a 23-year-old man became the fifth witness to testify this week that Sandusky molested him in a locker room shower on campus.

Choking back tears, the man identified in court documents as Victim 5 described feeling pressured to strip down and shower with the Sandusky in 2001 while the two were working out at a campus facility.

The man, then 11, told jurors he cowered in a corner and watched in trepidation as a nude Sandusky crept closer and closer.

"I crept forward a little bit more as did he, and then I felt his body on my back," said the man, who has been identified in court documents as Victim 5. "I kept lurching forward, but I didn't have anywhere to go. I just felt his penis on my back."

Eventually, the man said, Sandusky reached around his waist and touched the boy's genitals and then placed the boy's hands on his own. The teenager bolted from the shower room, dried off and met Sandusky later at his car.

The elder man said nothing, Victim 5 testified.

"I thought he was upset with me," he said. "He didn't talk to me. No eye contact."

That followed earlier testimony from a man, now 27, who said he was 10 when Sandusky began touching his knee, his crotch and then putting his hand inside his pants, "touching my penis."

"I'm sure I did say, 'No,' or, 'Stop that,' but I don't remember for sure," the man said.

However, on cross-examination by defense counsel, the man conceded he never provided certain specific allegations to authorities until after he had hired an attorney. The defense has suggested that some alleged victims are seeking to get money, houses or cars or other riches by falsely accusing Sandusky in court.

For years in the mid- and late-1990s, the man testified, Sandusky took him to Penn State football games. He stayed at the Sandusky home. He said that Sandusky "had this habit of putting his hand on my leg and squeezing," almost to the point of pain.

In the passenger seat of Sandusky's car, the man said, he would scoot to the far side of the passenger seat, not wanting to be touched but also not wanting "to upset Mr. Sandusky in any way. I didn't want to make him angry."

Why not? Because, the man said, he enjoyed going to the football games, getting access he couldn't otherwise have had or afford. "Going to games was very, very special to me."

The man, known in court records as "Victim 7," said he never told anyone what was happening.

But to this day, he said, he's repulsed by chest hair - because it reminds him how Sandusky would "cuddle," pressing close to the boy in bed in the coach's home.

"It felt very uncomfortable to me, but I wasn't sure how to handle it," he said, recalling how he decided to "push it to the back of my mind."

The man spoke clearly, calmly and directly, frequently referring to the defendant as "Jerry."

In the car, at Sandusky's house, in a campus locker room - touching occurred in all those places, he said. He said that in 1995 when he was 11, and after tossing a football around at Penn State, Sandusky said they needed to go take a shower, even though they had not gotten sweaty.

"He pushed the issue. 'You're sweaty, I'm sweaty, we need to take a shower,'" he said. "I was extremely uncomfortable."

Both disrobed and got into the shower, where Sandusky washed the boy's hair and attempted the wash the boy's body, the man testified, relating his discomfort at the coach's behavior. After the shower, he said, Sandusky tried to dry him with a towel - the boy said he could dry himself.

He showered with Sandusky at least five more times, the man testified, and the same thing happened - "trying to soap me up, I would move away." One time, Sandusky grabbed the boy from behind in a bear hug, his front to the boy's back.

"I don't remember him saying anything. I just remember him sort of grunting. . . . I had cried out. I don't remember what I said, probably, 'Put me down' or something like that."

Still, he said, he didn't tell his parents, believing they would get mad and he would be cut off from going to football games.

There came a point, the man testified, that "the relationship with Jerry had kind of changed. . . . He had stopped calling me to go to games, he had stopped offering tickets and things. I thought I had done something wrong and was very, very upset by it."

His mother called the Sandusky home to ask if something was wrong - and Sandusky began giving the boy football tickets again, he testified.

From 1995 on, he got tickets from Sandusky, he said. But it was clear Sandusky had "favorites," and he was not among them.

Prosecutors showed the boy a series of photographs -- "a younger me," the man said, looking at a photo of himself in a soccer uniform when he was 12. In another, he identified himself in a group photo, where Sandusky stood at the center of eight boys, his arms casually draped over two of the youths' shoulders.

The man said that after initial conversations with the police, he hired an attorney, to "help me through this" and to maintain his privacy.

On cross-examination, defense counsel Joseph Amendola asked about the hiring of that attorney, whom he said represents at least one other alleged victim.

The man said in response to questions that he's never paid the attorney, whom he has seen about 10 or 15 times. They never discussed his court testimony, he said. He signed some sort of legal agreement with the attorney, but wasn't clear on what it was, he testified.

He conceded he never told prosecutors that Sandusky put his hand down his pants until after he had signed an agreement with the attorney. In his grand jury testimony, Amendola said, reading from a transcript, the man said Sandusky put his hands inside his pants, but "he never went the whole way down and grabbed anything."

He denied being touched or fondled to the grand jury. Until a couple months ago, after he had retained counsel, he never mentioned Sandusky hugging him in the shower. In fact, according to a transcript, he said he did not remember Sandusky pulling him close in the shower.

The man said that at that time, in 2011, he was trying to block memories of what occurred, and did not tell the whole story of events.

"Different things have brought back different memories. . . . I had everything negative blocked out. The grand jury testimony was when I was just staring to open that door, so to speak."

Earlier, a third young man swore in court this morning that he was sexually abused by Sandusky when he was a boy.

The 25-year-old man, described in court documents as "Victim 10," said he met Sandusky through the coach's Second Mile Charity, and later was invited to his home. He recalled being in the basement recreation area in 1998, when he was about 11:

"We were wrestling. The defendant pinned me to the ground, pulled my shorts down and began performing oral sex on me. I freaked out."

Sandusky stopped the sex after a few minutes and went upstairs, but later "told me that if I told anybody, I'd never see my family again."

Later, Sandusky apologized for saying that, and said "that he loved me," the witness testified.

The man described a troubled home life at the time, his father absent, and said he never told anyone about the abuse because he was frightened and embarrassed. He testified to having had trouble with drugs and alcohol, and to a criminal history - 23 months in state prison for robbery, time in jail for theft before that. Now he's doing better, married and expecting a baby, he said.

On cross examination, defense attorney Amendola asked what other contact might have occurred. While driving, the man said, Sandusky put his hand on his thigh. Other contact occurred too.

"Did you tell anybody up until you contacted the police in this situation that that happened?" Amendola said.

No, the witness said.

Another time, the man said under Amendola's questioning, Sandusky performed oral sex on him, in the basement, and the alleged victim reciprocated.

The man, who contacted authorities after Sandusky's initial arrest, spoke quietly and sadly on the stand. He conceded he went to the Second Mile camp in 1999, even after the abuse had begun.

The witness struggled to recall the dates and timing of events, but said Sandusky regularly took him to football games, basketball games, cookouts and Second Mile events. He couldn't remember the names of other children who were often present.

"I can't recall. I can't recall," he said several times in response to questions.

Before Victim 10 took the stand, the father of former Penn State assistant football coach Michael McQueary testified that his son, distraught and struggling to speak, phoned him from the campus in 2001 to say he had seen Jerry Sandusky in the locker room showers with a young boy - an incident that has come to symbolize the case.

The testimony from John McQueary largely corroborated what his son said on the witness stand on Tuesday.

In court this morning, Sandusky smiled as he chatted with members of the defense team before the trial resumed, but looked tired after two days of brutal testimony from two other young men who swore he victimized them as boys.

[Cheyne]

I was wondering if they would let Petrosky testify in this trial since he didn't actually witness the abuse. I am glad the judge let it in under an "excited utterance".

Interesting article on Amendola's defense strategy.

Amendola's possible strategy

I hope the jury realizes that these memories were suppressed by the victims, some since the mid '90's. Most people would be hard pressed to remember exact dates and times over 15 years ago, much less a child who was in fear.

Jerry followed the "book" on pedophilia. He was in a position to have access to young boys, he was in a powerful and protected position as a football coach, he showered them with gifts and attention, and he even had 2 separate "man caves" to bring the boys to (the Penn State locker room and his home basement). Hell, Sandusky was bold enough to take the kids to bowl games and sleep in hotel rooms with them.

[Lady Cop]

state will likely rest this afternoon.

don't know what the defense will put on, but they'd be insane to put him on the stand. it's almost NEVER a good idea.

[QueenBee]

I agree, LC..about there being no benefit to him going on the stand, but I remember hearing the other day that he was planning to. So unless there is a change in defense strategy we may see him.

The prosecution will have a field day with him. Can't wait to hear him backpeddling away from allegations.

[Lady Cop]

they ALWAYS claim their poor innocent client WANTED to take the stand, but they advised against it.
we'll see. i'd be shocked.