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Victim 9 describes screaming in Sandusky basement
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The prosecutor in the Sandusky case, Joseph E. McGettigan III, center, outside the Centre County Courthouse. -
The Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, where the Jerry Sandusky trial is ongoing. -
Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky arrives for the fourth day of his trial at the Centre County Courthouse. -
Attorney for Jerry Sandusky, Joe Amendola smiles as he walks into the courthouse for the fourth day of Sandusky's trial at the Centre County Courthouse Thursday. -
Judge John Cleland and his wife Julie arrive for the fourth day of the Sandusky trial. -
Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and his attorney Joe Amendola arrive for the fourth day of Sandusky's trial.
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BELLEFONTE, Pa. -- The man known as Victim 9, the last of the Sandusky accusers to take the stand, testified today about his experiences with the defendant.
Mr. Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant football coach, is charged with sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years. His trial is before McKean County Senior Judge John Cleland in the Centre County Courthouse.
The prosecution asked alleged Victim 9, now 18, to point at the man who molested him. He pointed at Mr. Sandusky but looked away. "I don't want to look at him."
PG VIDEOVictim 9 had earlier told the grand jury that he once screamed so Mr. Sandusky's wife, Dottie, could hear. He said today during testimony that she didn't hear because the Sandusky basement is soundproof.
He said he was anally raped several times by Mr. Sandusky.
"What was I going to do? Look at him, he's a big guy, way bigger than me."
He continued to go to football games with Mr. Sandusky.
When asked why he didn't report the sexual abuse, he said, "He's an important guy. Everybody knows him. He's a football coach. Nobody's going to believe kids."
On cross-examination, Mr. Amendola asked him if he ever had to seek medical attention after the alleged sexual encounters; he said no.
An investigator with the state attorney general's office testified earlier this afternoon, walking the jury through a number of documents that the prosecution used to bolster its case against Jerry Sandusky.
Anthony Sassano said he found lists of Second Mile participants in both the defendant's home and in about 20 boxes recovered from his abandoned office in the old East Area football building on campus. The Second Mile is a charity founded by Mr. Sandusky.
On three of the lists, the names of several of the boys who have testified in the trial are included and marked with asterisks by them.
Mr. Sassano also said that he found a number of photographs at Mr. Sandusky's home of alleged Victim 1.
The letters that were shown to the jury earlier during the trial were found among the boxes at the former coach's old office.
The prosecution asked Mr. Sassano to read one in its entirety that Mr. Sandusky wrote in the third person to Victim 4.
In it, he talked about how good their relationship once was, and how the boy had changed, that "a dark cloud" had come into his life.
"There is fear that it has reached his insides, killing his feelings. Jer may not be worthy, but he needs a best friend. He's proud, too proud to beg for a friend, extended family member."
The defense spent only five minutes on cross examination of the agent.
The prosecution said earlier that it expects to wrap up by day's end.
Testifying this morning was Victim 3, now 25 years old.
He met Mr. Sandusky through The Second Mile when he was in fifth grade, in 1998.
He testified that he stayed at Mr. Sandusky's home at least 50 times over a three-year period. He went to a handful of football games with him.
"He was like a father to me," he said. He said when he would sleep over at the house Mr. Sandusky would ask why he slept in all his clothes, and convince him to strip to his underwear. In a pattern repeated by prior witnesses, he said Mr. Sandusky would tickle him, jump into the waterbed with him, and rub and blow on his stomach.
He said that Mr. Sandusky touched his penis but said there was never oral sex.
The prosecutor, Joseph McGettigan III, asked why he kept going over to the Sandusky home or why he didn't tell Mr. Sandusky to to stop the behavior at bedtime.
"I was enjoying the things I was getting too much," he replied. "It made me feel like I was part of something, a family."
Mr. McGettigan asked,"Did you like him?"
"I loved him. I was part of a family," the witness replied.
He said that around 2001 he was put into foster care and lived in group homes. He said he was mad at Mr. Sandusky because he never came to check on him or find out where he was.
"I got sent away, and that was it. I prayed he would call me and find a way to get me out of there."
On cross-examination, he said that he has an attorney only because two attorneys approached him and said they were representing another victim.
Earlier this morning, the man known as Victim No. 6 testified that he continued his relationship with Mr. Sandusky until the summer of 2010, even after his mother complained to police in 1998 that the man had inappropriately showered with her son when he was just 11 years old.
It wasn't until police came to interview him in January 2011 that his perception toward the well-known former Penn State coach changed.
"As I started to go over it in my mind, I quickly realized. My perceptions changed. Thinking of it as an adult vs. as an 11-year-old.
"What happened was inappropriate."
On cross-examination, defense attorney Joe Amendola asked, "Did your change in perception about what happened in the shower have anything to do with hiring an attorney and thinking there might be some financial gain for you?"
"Zero," the now 25-year-old man answered.
The boy met Mr. Sandusky in 1998 at a Second Mile picnic and said the first time they did any activity together, the coach took him to work out at Penn State. After 15 minutes, he said the defendant took him to shower.
During the shower, he said Mr. Sandusky joked around with him, put him in a bear hug and said he was going to "squeeze his guts out."
The next witness was former Penn State police detective Ronald Schreffler, who said the boy's mother called him with concerns about the shower.
"My mind said this just feels weird," the boy told police in an interview the day after the shower.
During his investigation, Detective Schreffler listened in on a conversation between the defendant and the boy's mother, in which Mr. Sandusky said, "I wish I could ask for forgiveness. I know I cannot get it from you. I wish I was dead."
Mr. Schreffler said that then-district attorney Ray Gricar did not believe there was enough evidence to press charges.
First Published June 14, 2012 9:43 am
