Associated Press
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ó Ex-Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was jailed Wednesday after new child sex abuse charges were filed against him based on the claims of new two accusers, including one who says he screamed in vain for help while Sandusky attacked him in a basement bedroom.
The latest accusers are the ninth and 10th alleged victims described in grand jury reports that claim Sandusky befriended and then molested boys he met through his Second Mile charity for troubled youth. A grand jury document released Wednesday echoed an earlier report, saying Sandusky gave the boys gifts while also making advances on them.
One of the new accusers said Sandusky kept him in a basement bedroom during overnight visits to Sandusky’s home, forced him to perform oral sex and attempted on at least 16 occasions to anally penetrate him, sometimes successfully.
“The victim testified that on at least one occasion he screamed for help, knowing that Sandusky’s wife was upstairs, but no one ever came to help him,” the grand jury report said.
Sandusky now faces criminal accusations from 10 young men and more than 50 charges stemming from alleged assaults over 15 years on boys in his home, on Penn State property and elsewhere. The scandal has provoked strong criticism that Penn State officials didn’t do enough to stop the alleged assaults. The scandal prompted the ouster of Hall of Fame football coach Joe Paterno and the school’s longtime president, Graham Spanier.
Sandusky, 67, has said repeatedly that he is innocent and has vowed to fight the case. In interviews with NBC and The New York Times, he said he showered and horsed around with boys but never sexually abused them. Lawyer Joseph Amendola said Wednesday that he had not yet read the latest grand jury report but had no reason to doubt Sandusky’s claims of innocence.
Sandusky was wide-eyed and quiet during the arraignment in a cramped district magistrate’s office outside the small town of Bellefonte. He could not immediately pay $250,000 cash bail and was driven to Centre County jail by agents from the state attorney general’s office.
He had been arrested at his home, handcuffed behind his back and driven to court wearing a blue and white Penn State wrestling jacket and matching sweat pants.
After the hearing, Sandusky avoided eye contact and did not speak to about two dozen reporters and photographers waiting before authorities placed him in the back of a silver sedan that would shuttle him to jail.
The new alleged victims, who contacted officials after Sandusky’s initial arrest on Nov. 5, told the grand jury they met Sandusky through the charity he founded in 1977.
“I took it at first he was just a nice guy, like he went to church every weekend, his kids would come over every once in a while and stuff. And after a while, like, he got used to me and stuff and started getting further and further, wanting ó to touchy feely,” the ninth accuser, who is now 18, told the grand jury.
He said he was 11 or 12 when he first met Sandusky in 2004 and Sandusky took him to Penn State football games and gave him gifts and money, and sexually assaulted him over a period of years, according to the grand jury report.
The 10th accuser told the grand jury he was referred by a counselor to The Second Mile in 1997, when he was 10 and experiencing problems at home.