After twenty-one hours of deliberation the jury in the Jerry Sandusky trial found Sandusky guilty on forty-five of the remaining forty-eight counts against him. His sentencing could be over four hundred years. These guilty verdicts prove that the jury rejected the defense’s claim that the victims were lying to win money in a civil suit.

The biggest fear for the victims and their families was that Sandusky would be found innocent, according to ABC News.

Victim 1′s mother stated, “it was very hard on [my son]. Even after therapy, he doesn’t feel comfortable saying what happened to him to me.” Victim 1 was the first to come forward in this recent investigation of Sandusky. Another investigation began in 1998 but was later dropped.

The mother of Victim 1 said that her son has been seeking out counseling at the foundation “Let Go…Let Peace Come In.” According to the director of the foundation, Peter Pelullo, “what people don’t really understand is when we’re touched like that as a child… part of our brain just shuts down and we need mental help and care to connect those brain stems, which were completely burned out.”

Sandusky was found guilty of forty-five of forty-eight child molestation related charges. Originally he was charged with fifty-two but one was withdrawn by the prosecution and three were dismissed by the judge. The charges range over ten victims and fifteen years.

The jury seems to have been unconvinced by the testimony of Dottie Sandusky. She appeared as a loving and loyal wife but refused to admit that the abuse was going on.

Sandusky’s lawyers claim that they will try to appeal the verdict citing several different reasons as grounds. The defense lawyers tried to have themselves removed from the Sandusky case at one point and also claimed that they did not have enough time to prepare their case. Perhaps the only grounds that would be considered by the courts is a tape that was misleadingly edited by NBC; however, ABC News claims the video will most likely be called a harmless error.

Juror Joshua Harper stated after the trial, “I looked at him during the reading of the verdict, and the look on his face, no real emotion, just kind of accepting, you know, because he knew it was true.” After the trial the jurors heard that Matt Sandusky had come forward during their deliberations to say that he was also a victim of his adoptive father. Harper stated, “we were all basically told at the same time, we heard about it at the same time, and we were just looking at each other like we had suspected that but we had no evidence of it. It just solidified our decision.”

Now that Sandusky has been found guilty it is likely that Penn State, The Second Mile, and Sandusky will be sued by the victims and their families. During the case it was revealed that Head Coach Joe Paterno as well as Vice President Schultz at Penn State knew about Sandusky’s crimes. The only action Penn State took was to take away Sandusky’s keys to the locker room and to tell his foundation The Second Mile; no one called law enforcement.

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The Sandusky trial has heard the testimonies of several victims who met Sandusky through his charitable organization for at-risk youth, The Second Mile. Sandusky has been charged with fifty-two counts of sexual abuse over a ten year period and will serve five hundred years if he is found guilty. The victims, although identified by name in the trial, do not wish to have their identities revealed.

Victim 5 was only abused once by Sandusky in 1998. He was referred to The Second Mile to improve his spoken English. Sandusky invited the boy to some football games and then to work out with him. After working out for a short time, Sandusky suggested they take a shower. According to the victim, Sandusky “threw some soap at me and started lathering my shoulders. I crept forward a little bit more, as did he, and I felt his body on my back. I kept lurching forward but I didn’t have anywhere to go.”

Victim 6 met Sandusky in 1998 around the age of eleven. His interactions with Sandusky resulted in an investigation in 1998 but no charges were filed. According to the victim Sandusky “bear-hugged” him in the locker-room shower after practicing wrestling moves with the coach for about fifteen minutes. The victim testified “I felt uncomfortable with it, but it was Jerry Sandusky so I didn’t want to make him move.” When Sandusky started to soap him up he felt even more uncomfortable stating, “at that point, it just was escalating the uncomfortableness but I was just trying not to make him feel that I was feeling a bit awkward about it.” Shortly after the bear-hug the victim claims he blacked out. “[the bear hug] is the last thing I remember about being in the shower. It’s all black.”

Victim 6 maintained contact with Sandusky including texting him on Father’s day, borrowing his car, getting tickets to games, and going on a mission trip to Mexico. The Penn State police investigated Sandusky after the boy’s mother became suspicious; however, no files were charged and there was no further sexual contact reported.

Ronald Schreffler, a former detective for Penn State, said that he eavesdropped on conversations with Sandusky and the boy’s mother and heard the assistant coach tell her, “I wish I could ask for forgiveness. I know I will not get it from you. I wish I were dead.” Shortly thereafter Schreffler recommended to Sandusky that he should not shower with boys again; Sandusky agreed saying he had used “bad judgment.”

The defense claims that although Sandusky has acted somewhat unseemly and inappropriately, he is not a molester. Instead, the defense claims that all of the victims are lying to get money from the university and Sandusky. Sandusky’s defense originally attempted to dismiss the letters from Victim 4 as evidence. Now the defense is using the letters to explain that Sandusky is mentally ill, claiming that they will “explain that the words, tones, requests, and statements made in the letters are consistent with a person who suffers from a Histrionic Personality Disorder.”

The National Institute of Health states that people with Histrionic Personality Disorder “act in a very emotional and dramatic way that draws attention to themselves.”

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The Sandusky trial, which began June 11, has heard the testimony of eight victims. The trial ended June 14, earlier than expected, but with plenty of testimony and evidence presented by the prosecution. Jerry Sandusky is charged with fifty-two counts of sexual abuse over a ten year period. He will serve five hundred years if he is found guilty of all of them.

Although the victims are identified by name in the trial, none of them wished to be revealed in the public. The Toonari Post will only refer to the victims by numbers.

Victim 1, currently 18, met Sandusky through Sandusky’s charitable organization, The Second Mile, a charity for at-risk youth. Victim 1 claimed that he stayed in the basement at Sandusky’s house more than one hundred times. Sandusky would come down to the basement to say goodnight and began making contact with the boy by kissing him on the cheek or forehead. Sandusky’s contact eventually escalated to more explicitly sexual contact when Victim 1 testified that Sandusky “rub[bed] underneath my shorts” and “put his mouth on my privates.” The victim testified that Sandusky said, “’it’s your turn’” and then the victim added, “he made me put my mouth on his privates.”

Mike McQueary, the assistant coach of the Penn State Football team, testified that he saw Sandusky performing what he believed was anal sex with a boy in the team showers. The victim, known as Victim 2, has not been found by authorities, according to Fox News. The incident reportedly took place in February 2001, although McQueary originally believed it was 2002. McQueary told school officials about the incident but never actually used the phrase ‘anal sex’ because he was too “embarrassed.”

Victim 3 testifed that he slept over at Sandusky’s house over fifty times in a three year period (1998-2001). The boy met Sandusky when he was eleven years old. He stated that the coach would tickle him, blow on his stomach, kiss his shoulder, and would sometimes touch his penis. He testified that at one point Sandusky “pinned me to the floor, pulled down my gym shorts, and started to perform oral sex on me.” Victim 3 also stated that he showered with Sandusky in the Penn State University showers and that Sandusky would soap him up and bear-hug him from behind and from the front. After the victim was put into foster care, he stopped hearing from Sandusky.

Victim 4, who is now 28, -like most of Sandusky’s victims – also met Sandusky through The Second Mile. Victim 4 stated that he had no parental supervision before Sandusky entered his life. This is similar to the situations of the other victims according to statements they made about foster care and absent fathers. Victim 4 claimed that he regularly gave Sandusky oral sex in the showers stating, “it would have to be forty times, at least.” Sandusky also tried to penetrate him in the shower and would caress him and kiss his thighs. The victim also claimed that Sandusky would buy him cigarettes and drove him to buy marijuana. “He treated me like a son in front of other people. Outside of that, he’s treating me like a girlfriend.”

Victim 4 claims that the abuse began at the age of fourteen and occurred in the athletic building at Penn State, Toftrees Golf Resort and Hotels, and trips to Florida and Texas for football games. Sandusky wrote letters to Victim 4. One states: “I know that I have made my share of mistakes…My wish is that you care and have love in your heart. Love never ends.”

The star linebacker for Penn State, Arrington, knew Victim 4 well and originally denied the allegations against Sandusky. However, after hearing the details of the trial Arrington wrote an apology in the Washington Post stating, “I hate everything that has happened, and now I must admit I feel even worse, knowing what allegedly was happening so close to me, and that I was unaware…All I can do is hope that Victim 4 finds this entry and can see that I’m offering my sincerest apologies. I am so sorry this happened.”

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The jury selection began 5 June 2012 for the trial of ex-assistant football coach at Pennsylvania State University, Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky, age 68, is charged with fifty-two counts of sexual abuse of ten boys over a fifteen year period. Sandusky has admitted to showering with some of the young boys but has denied allegations of sexual abuse.

Sandusky was arrested in November of 2010, which threw the Penn State community into chaos. Riots began after Sandusky, Head Coach Paterno, and president of the university, Graham Spanier, were fired. Paterno and Spanier were both fired due to their attempts to try cover up the allegations. Riots broke out in protest of the firing of the head coach, as Penn State has a history of dedicated and proud fans.

Mike McQueary, another Penn State assistant coach who is currently on leave from the team, claims that he saw Sandusky naked in a team shower with a young boy in 2002. McQueary reportedly told head coach Paterno and athletic direct Tim Curley but no one told the police. Paterno died of lung cancer in January 2012, but Curley has since been charged with perjury and failing to report a crime along with senior vice president of finance and business at Penn State Gary Schultz.

The judge has denied appeals by the defense to delay the trial but he also required that the trial remain in the Penn State area, making it difficult to find jurors who are not connected to the Penn State football team or to Sandusky’s charity, Second Mile. One middle-aged woman who has been selected as a juror was a season ticket holder to the Penn State football team; some wonder how this will color her perceptions of the case.

The judge has also declared that Twitter and email reporting from the courtroom will not be allowed. Additionally, the judge has rejected allowing the ten boys to use pseudonyms meaning that they must use their real names at trial. One lawyer for one of the victims claimed, “it’s almost as if [the victim is] being branded with a scarlet letter.” However the judge claimed, “secrecy is thought to be inconsistent with the openness required to assure the public that the law is being administered fairly and applied faithfully.”

Since Sandusky’s arrest in November even more victims have come forward. Many of these victims met Sandusky through his Second Mile Foundation – created in 1977 – a charity for at-risk children.

According to a recently released report, in 1998 a psychologist, Alycia Chambers, told police that Sandusky was likely a pedophile. Chambers was involved in the investigation of a case in 1998 when a mother alleged that Sandusky had showered with her son. No arrests were made at the time although the mother did confront Sandusky who reportedly stated, “I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead.”

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