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 Originally he was charged with fifty-two but one was withdrawn by the prosecution and three were dismissed by the judge.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.

Image Courtesy of   marsmet551

The article Sandusky Found Guilty, Defense Plans Appeal appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

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.”

Image Courtesy of  Richard Paul Kane / Shutterstock.com

The article Sandusky Trial: Defense Claims All of the Victims are Lying appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

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.”

Image Courtesy of  Richard Paul Kane / Shutterstock.com

The article Sandusky Trial: Victims’ Heart-Wrenching Testimonies appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Throughout this entire scandal from the outset up until the recent firing of Penn State football head coach Joe Paterno, Paterno has done nothing aside from showing the arrogance, stubbornness, and selfishness that most people thought they’d never see from the beloved man who Penn State fans call “JoePa.”

Just as he failed to act 10 years ago when information was brought to him in regards to the atrocities that Jerry Sandusky was committing in the Penn State football complex, he has again failed to help the situation again.

As more and more people read over the pages of grand jury testimony and absorb and dissect the information, Paterno managed to take the spotlight away from the victims, the children who endured the abuse and have since been dealing with it, and put it on himself and the storied football program.

Failing to really comment, other than saying he was “absolutely devastated” by the case and that his heart went out to the victims, Paterno has made this about the school and football, continuing to do things his way much like he has done for the past 46 years as a larger than life football coach.

While Sandusky is the alleged criminal here, and will be punished by law, if found guilty of the 40 counts of felony sex abuse against minors, Paterno is and should be held to a much higher standard though “legally” he did nothing wrong.

No matter how you look at it, there is no defense for a man, or any of the people who were in positions of power, that had the chance to step in and stop Sandusky and turned a blind eye.

When Mike McQueary told Paterno of the incident in which he witnessed Sandusky performing anal sex in a shower on a 10 year old boy, all he did was pass the information on to next person up the chain.

While this is legally all he had to do, we are talking about Joe Paterno, the face of Penn State football for over half a century. The man who has a library named after him and has enough clout and power to do virtually anything he wants in Happy Valley.

He says he was unaware of the details of the situation recalling that McQueary “vaguely’ referenced “fondling” or “touching” by Sandusky and the boy and not fully understanding that McQueary saw a rape being committed, but why didn’t he follow up? Why would he just pass the information up the line about something that happened in the Penn State football complex involving his defensive coordinator and heir to be?

How can a man who has been known as a great man of character and shaper of young people just never give a second thought to an allegation such as this? He didn’t even question the fact that a grown man and a small child were alone in a shower together, he just went on with his business preparing for the next game.

He was too worried about his own reputation, the reputation of the school, and the school’s football team. Instead of being the man of character he was viewed as and taking responsibility he simply ran away from it much like Mike McQueary ran away from the scene that night to call his father instead of stepping in to stop Sandusky or calling the police.

Apparently to Joe Paterno, Penn State and the Paterno name were more important the lives of children who are now forever scarred and will now be known as Victim 1 and Victim 2. According to the testimony at least four eyewitnesses saw Sandusky committing inappropriate acts with children and yet Paterno knew nothing about it.

He knew nothing when Sandusky, a promising coach, retired in the prime of his career, but was kept as a consultant. He knew nothing when Sandusky was told he couldn’t bring children with him to the campus.

In spite of all this information, Joe Paterno still had the chance to take the moral high ground in the eyes of the media and the country by admitting his enormous failure and resigning from his position as head coach. He chose to do neither, but instead announced his plan to retire, at the end of the season.

That was another slap in the face of the victims and their families and showed that he’s bigger than the university and everyone involved with it and will do things on his terms. Just as he did ten years ago he planned to just pay no attention to everything going on and prepare for the next game like it was any other week.

Paterno has said that if it’s all true than Sandusky fooled everyone, but that can’t be true because Paterno was told face to face in 2002 point blank by someone who witnessed it and he stood idly by too worried about what would happen to the program and his legacy.

While nothing can be taken away from his successful career as a coach and what he has done for the university, what was once a great legacy of the man who was the face of Nittany Lion football for so long will now be remembered as a stubborn, selfish old man who was more worried about his own life than saving the lives of children who never got a chance to live theirs.

The article Joe Paterno’s Arrogance Will Damage His Legacy appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.