Chicago Tribune

June 6, 2012

BELLEFONTE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Jury selection ended on Wednesday in the child sex abuse trial of former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, setting the stage for arguments to begin next week in a case that rocked college athletics.

The seven women and five men on the jury will consider the charges against Sandusky - 52 counts of molesting 10 boys over a 15-year period. He has pleaded not guilty and faces more than 500 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

Prosecutors have accused Sandusky, 68, of meeting the boys through a charity he founded, the Second Mile, and have claimed that some of the assaults occurred at Penn State facilities.

"The trial in this case will start on Monday morning. We anticipate that it will take at most three weeks and be done by the last day of June," Judge John Cleland told jurors, according to a pool report by journalists covering the selection process.

By Chris Rosenblum, Anne Danahy and Mike Dawson — Centre Daily Times

May 20, 2012

Beth Docherty was in the ninth grade when her music teacher began sexually assaulting her.Three years before, the grooming had begun at the Pittsburgh area school. Her teacher, a family friend, eventually raped her.

"He was my idol," Docherty said.

More than a year later, she went to a Girl Scout leader, who called a crisis hotline and helped her tell her parents.

Then came her second assault.

Five other people came forward after she pressed charges, and Docherty found herself the first to testify at the teacher's trial.

For several hours on the stand she endured lawyers battering her integrity and character."It was horrific," she said. She was prepared for the defense to ask intimate questions. She just couldn't imagine being picked apart.

"I wasn't prepared for them trying to trick you," she said. "They would try to twist your words around."

Advocates and lawyers say Docherty's experience is common in sexual assault and abuse cases. They frequently see a double victimization: accusers put on trial themselves, their past and credibility attacked, to cast doubt on their testimony and sway juries.

In many cases, children may face the additional trauma of having to recall painful moments with defendants sitting nearby, causing stories to unravel.

The plight of alleged victims in the courtroom will take center stage next month, when the child sex abuse trial is scheduled to begin for ex-Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. He is accused of molesting and assaulting 10 boys over a 12-year span.

His attorney, Joe Amendola, has requested school records, psychological evaluations and other personal information about the accusers, suggesting a defense strategy of discrediting them. A gag order on the case prevents Amendola from commenting.

"It's very hurtful to someone who has been the victim of sexual abuse as a child to be embarrassed and humiliated," said Richard Serbin, a Blair County civil attorney who has represented more than 100 victims of sexual abuse, including a 1994 case involving a Catholic priest. He spoke about the issue generally, and not in reference to the Sandusky case.

"Many victims spend years trying to overcome the hurt that has been caused to them," Serbin said. "And then when they seek justice, oftentimes they're surprised some of the techniques they're subjected to are allowed."

Badgering may make legal sense, according to one lawyer, but advocates say it skews trials in favor of defendants, especially after investigations with multiple interviews. Those can cause varying accounts — a prime opening for defense attorneys to exploit.

Clouding matters, Pennsylvania prosecutors can't have experts testify about how abuse victims respond.

"In many ways, the scales of justice are not as balanced as they could be because we're not educating the jury pool about the dynamics of sexual abuse," said Cathleen Palm, a child abuse survivor with Protect our Children Committee, a Pennsylvania advocacy group.

In the hot seat

Docherty still remembers the attorney's questions.

As she sat on the witness stand, they snapped at her like punches: "How could you have gotten good grades in school if this man was brutally raping you?"

"I knew what happened. I lived through it," Docherty said. "If he tried to twist my words around, I would correct him."

Sandusky federal investigation may have different focus

From Sara Ganim, for CNN
Fri March 2, 2012

(CNN) -- It's fairly clear the federal investigation into Penn State University won't be a duplication of the grand jury probe that led to charges of more than 50 counts of child sex abuse against Jerry Sandusky.

Instead, federal authorities seem to be stepping into areas where the state attorney general's office hasn't gone.

This time, they seem to be exploring the possibility of a cover-up at Penn State, as well as possible bribes, fraud, or misuse of federal money, according to three former federal prosecutors asked to independently review the subpoena Penn State received February 2.

And on the case is one of the most experienced and respected assistant U.S. attorneys in the region, Gordon Zubrod.

The subpoena asks for:

-- payments made by university board members to third parties.

-- records of complaints, interviews or out-of-court settlements regarding Sandusky, a former coach at the university.

-- computer hard drives.

-- correspondence with Sandusky's children's charity, The Second Mile.

By SARA GANIM, The Patriot-News 
Friday, March 02, 2012

Jerry Sandusky, along with his attorney Joe Amendola, enters the Centre County courthouse for a hearing on several issues, including two requests: one, from the prosecution, for an out-of-county jury; the other, from the defense, for loosened bail conditions for Sandusky. JOE HERMITT, The Patriot-News

It's fairly clear the federal investigation into Penn State University won't be a duplication of the grand jury probe that led to more than 50 counts of child sex abuse charges against Jerry Sandusky.

Instead, federal authorities seem to be stepping into areas where the state attorney general's office hasn't gone.

This time, they seem to be exploring the possibility of a cover-up at Penn State, as well as possible bribes, fraud, or misuse of federal money, according to three former federal prosecutors who were asked by The Patriot-News to independently review the subpoena Penn State received Feb. 2.

By SARA GANIM, The Patriot-News 
Friday, March 02, 2012

Federal investigators are looking at trails of money from Penn State and its board of trustees, computer hard drives of top officials and complaints that the university might have received about Jerry Sandusky or his charity, The Second Mile.

The information was released by Penn State on Friday after news that it had been subpoenaed by the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

The subpoena seems to indicate that the feds are conducting an investigation simultaneously with the one by a state grand jury, which led to more than 50 counts of child sex abuse charges against Jerry Sandusky and perjury charges against two top Penn State officials.

It also seems to show that The Second Mile could be under investigation, too.

By Crimesider Staff. Daily Blotter
March 1, 2012

(CBS/AP) HARRISBURG, Pa. - On Wednesday, the judge in Jerry Sandusky's child sex abuse case rejected a defense attorney's request for a two-month delay. He also indicated he was reluctant to push back the May 14 start of jury selection.

Judge John Cleland's memo and order said a postponement should only be a last resort and would require concrete justification.

"Absent extraordinary circumstances presented by either the commonwealth or the defendant, postponement of the trial date will only be considered if required by the demands of selecting a jury and providing for their care, conflicting demands on courtroom space, or similar logistical complications," Cleland said.

REUTERS
February 25, 2012

(Reuters) - Federal authorities have joined the investigation into the Penn State sex abuse scandal and have requested information involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky as well as other top school officials involved in the case, according to local media.

Penn State received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania for records involving Sandusky, former university president Graham Spanier , former athletic director Tim Curley and former finance official Gary Schultz , a university spokeswoman told The Harrisburg Patriot-News .

Sandusky is charged with 52 counts of abuse stemming from allegations that he molested 10 boys over a 15-year period.

Schultz was charged with perjury over his testimony to a grand jury about why he failed to act after he heard an accusation of abuse by Sandusky. He and Curley also were charged with failing to report the alleged crime to police.

She's Sara Ganim and she's just 24. In a Glamour exclusive, she tells how she broke the story of Penn State's sex-abuse scandal and changed college sports forever.

by Liz Brody, Glamour

"Anything else going on?" Sara Ganim asked her source late one night in 2009. As the crime reporter for a small newspaper in State College, Pennsylvania, it was a question she always ended with. And this evening, to Ganim's surprise, the source replied, "Well, actually, a boy just came forward to the police and alleged sex crimes against Jerry Sandusky."

Jerry Sandusky. Like everyone in town, Ganim knew his name: He was the retired assistant coach of Penn State University's championship-winning football team. Ganim wrote Sandusky on a sticky note and, though she didn't know it at the time, had her first lead in breaking one of last year's most explosive news stories—the Penn State sexual-abuse scandal.

Let's stop right here to say she was only 22 at the time.

Ganim, a Penn State grad and a football fan herself, knew her way around the university's online message boards. There she quickly found gossip about Sandusky getting too friendly with young boys. So she started asking around. "I'd say, 'Hey, have you heard anything strange about Jerry Sandusky?'" And though people knew about the rumors, Ganim says, "almost no one believed they were true."

By Ann O'Neill, CNN 
Sun January 29, 2012

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Sitting in a Pennsylvania courtroom last month, listening to how allegations of child molestation were handled by one of the nation's top college football programs, observers might have thought back on that old party game, Telephone.

Remember how the game works? A story gets passed down the line, told and retold until the tale that reaches the end bears little resemblance to the original.

In this case, the story began with an assistant coach at Penn State, Mike McQueary, who testified that nearly 10 years ago he walked in on former coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in the football team's locker room showers. McQueary, who was a graduate student at the time, said he had no doubt that he witnessed "severe sexual acts" that were wrong and "over the lines."

Yet, as a transcript shows, each time McQueary's story was told it became less specific, until others at the end of the line reacted as if what he had seen was no big deal.

by Buzz Bissinger The Daily Beast, philly.com
Jan 22, 2012

We shouldn't forget the former Penn State football coach's highlights, but his willful inaction on Sandusky cannot be dismissed as an incidental lapse—and his death shouldn't make him a victim, says Buzz Bissinger.

Joe Paterno's death Sunday morning from complications of cancer at the age of 85 is no more or less tragic than any other death. All dying is sorrow. People should remember Paterno any way they choose, with prayers or love or tears—or yes, continued anger.

But the former Penn State football coach should not be turned into a martyr. He should not be made into a victim because of the circumstances of his dismissal by the university board of trustees on Nov. 9. He should be remembered for what he did do, his success as a football coach on the field in which he won 409 games, the most in history; his far more impressive record off the field, in which, according to a recent study, 80 percent of his players graduated within six years; his multimillion-dollar donation to the Penn State library system; his undying love for the school.

But he must be remembered for what he did not do, which wasn't losing to Ohio State or Michigan or Wisconsin, but the willful inaction that by all accounts helped to aid and abet an alleged sexual predator named Jerry Sandusky, who once had been his defensive coach.

It is how I will remember him the most. Maybe it is because the scandal unfolded so soon before his death. Or maybe because it was such a failure of responsibility.