PAGE 20
MONDAY, JUNE 18, 2012
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COURT
Sandusky trial moving along quickly
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky leaves the Centre County Courthouse after the first day of his trial in Bellefonte, Pa. He is accused of 52 counts of child sexual abuse involving 10 boys over a period of 15 years.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sandusky himself could take the stand in his own defense at his criminal trial, but it's not certain that will happen.
During his first remarks to jurors, his lawyer Joe Amendola suggested he might, though the jury has already heard an audio recording of a stilted television interview Sandusky conducted shortly after his November arrest, denying the allegations against him.
BELLEFONTE, Pa. — After a gripping, emotionally charged four days of testimony that saw eight men from 18 to 28 years old tell jurors that Jerry Sandusky sexually abused them as children, the former Penn State assistant football coach will soon get to tell his side of the story.
The defense has sought to create doubt in jurors' minds by showing how the stories of accusers have changed over time, and to paint Sandusky's interactions with children as misunderstood and part of a lifelong
effort to help, rather than victimize them.
"Jerry, in my opinion, loves kids so much that he does things none of us would ever do," Armendola said at the start of trial.
The first four days of testimony may have already cast the die if jurors have made up their minds about the credibility of the eight accusers, young men ages 18 to 28, six without a father in their lives, three who have never known their fathers.
In a large and crowded courtroom, with a crush of national media watching their every word, the accusers counted in detail their experiences with the 68-year-old Sandusky, allegations that include severe sexual attacks of children too scared and too small to escape or fight back.
Their testimony is the heart of the case the government has been trying to prove, in the words of lead prosecutor Joe McGettigan, that Sandusky has been a predatory pedophile.
The accusers said he plied them as children with gifts, dazzled them with
the prestige of Penn State's vaunted football program and then scaled up physical contact from a hand on the knee or a fatherly kiss to fondling, repeated oral sex and in some cases violent anal rape.
During cross-examination, Amendola pressed the accusers' memories for their detailed involvement with the kids' charity Sandusky founded, arrests or drug problems, contacts they have had with Sandusky in the years since the alleged abuse ended and the terms of representation deals with civil lawyers.
At least six said they told incorrect or incomplete stories in early contacts with police, and three testified that some of the details only came back to them in recent years.
Jurors appear to be paying very close attention to the trial, which in its first week moved along more quickly than many observers have predicted. The rapid pace has left the prosecution close to wrapping up its case in chief, something that could happen as early as Monday.
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