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Sandusky Trial: Prosecution Exhausts Witness List with Graphic Testimony from Victim 9

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(EDITOR’S NOTE: This article contains extremely graphic content)

Updated at 4:21 p.m.

BELLEFONTE – Alleged Victim 9 testified in the final hour of the prosecution’s case Thursday afternoon, rounding out the list of Jerry Sandusky’s alleged victims set to take the stand.

The prosecution’s has not officially rested its case, but Judge Cleland recessed court until Monday, when the defense will begin with its witnesses.

“Something could still come up,” Sandusky lawyer Joe Amendola said.

A time has not yet been determined.

Victim 9 spoke quietly, his voice dropping off when prosecutor Joseph McGettigan asked him to describe what happened in Sandusky’s basement.

No one heard the boy scream.

If anyone had, no one came to his rescue.

Now 18 years old, Victim 9 painted a graphic picture of the abuse he endured.

“He put his penis in my butt,” Victim 9 said. “He came in, I sucked his penis. Then he got real aggressive and then he forced me into it.”

Sometimes he would scream, sometimes he would tell Sandusky to get off of him, but “there was no fighting against it,” Victim 9 said.

As a boy, he bled, but never sought any medical treatment.

He couldn’t provide a definite number, but Victim 9 said he was forced to give Sandusky oral sex dozens of times.

Physical contact started similarly to the way other victims testified – with backrubs, bear hugs and kisses.

Victim 9 said he told his mother Sandusky was just “touchy-feely.” She wanted him to go, he said, because in her mind, Sandusky was a positive role model for a son who had no relationship with his biological father.

He never told her what else was going on. After all, Victim 9 said, Sandusky regularly told him he loved him and that he wanted only the best for him.

“How are you supposed to tell your mom something like that?” Victim 9 said.

Weekends of abuse ensued, Victim 9 said. As he got older, he said he started being “bad” as a reaction to his abuse, which he couldn’t tell anyone about.

“I stopped listening to my mom. I stopped going there. Bad things were happening there,” Victim 9 said.

He was 16 when he stopped going to Sandusky’s house, he said.

Amendola, used the man’s age in an attempt to depreciate the testimony. He asked why Sandusky hadn’t lost interest in him as he got older and hit puberty.

Victim 9 said he had no idea.

Sandusky, 68, faces 52 counts in a child sexual abuse case. He is alleged to have abused 10 boys over a 15-year period. 

He maintains his innocence.

Court recessed for the day at 4:15 p.m.

Updated at 3:05 p.m.

BELLEFONTE – Judge Cleland confirmed the Commonwealth will complete presenting its case in the Jerry Sandusky trial this afternoon. Alleged Victim 9 will testify after recess.

An anonymous email tipped Agent Anthony Sassano to seek out Mike McQueary for an interview about what he saw Jerry Sandusky doing in 2001.

In 2008, the Office of the Attorney General in Pennsylvania was handed a case then-Centre County District Attorney Michael Madiera could not prosecute because of a conflict of interest.

Alleged Victim 1 had already come forward. The Commonwealth had to find the rest of the young men who may have been abused.

Sassano testified Thursday investigators were able to locate the boys – most who were men by 2008 – through lists provided by The Second Mile, photos seized from the Sandusky home after a search warrant was executed and by combing through Penn State Police records, which led them to interview university janitorial staff.

The lists of names provided by The Second Mile led investigators to conduct several interviews within a certain geographical range of the state, Sassano said. Some interviews produced no results while others led to the discovery of more alleged victims.

Investigators also used Sandusky’s autobiography, “Touched,” for photographic evidence of boys who may have been abused, Sassano said.

Next up was the task of verifying McQueary’s story.

McQueary said he watched the film Rudy before heading to the Lasch Football Building, where he allegedly saw Sandusky sodomizing a prepubescent boy. Sassano said he bought 20 TV Guide magazines from 2001 and in one, found Rudy scheduled for 8:05 on February 9, 2001.

It lasted two hours and 40 minutes. McQueary said he got to the Lasch Building sometime after 9:30 p.m. that night.

McQueary also said when he called Joe Paterno, the then-Penn State football coach thought the then-graduate student was phishing for a job. McQueary provided investigators with documents proving two positions were available in the spring semester of 2001, Sassano said.

Court recessed at 3 p.m.

Updated at 12:29 p.m.

BELLEFONTE – The timeline for the Jerry Sandusky trial was further expedited when Judge Cleland announced the Commonwealth could wrap up its case this afternoon.

Details are still to be shared, but court could recess from Thursday afternoon through 9 a.m. Monday, when the defense will present its case.

Alleged Victim 3 testified Thursday morning, rounding out the number of victims who have testified to seven.

Alleged Victim 9 will be the last victim to testify.

Victim 3 testified Thursday and said when he was a child, he didn’t know what was happening to him, only that it shouldn’t have come from an old man.

A young man who never knew his father and enlisted in the Army National Guard right out of foster care, Victim 3 said he was enraged at Sandusky – not only for the abuse he inflicted, but because Victim 3 felt abandoned by Sandusky years ago.

Victim 3 said he was troubled as a child and didn’t have a happy home life with his mother and brother. Sandusky, whom he met through The Second Mile, told Victim 3 he was “part of an extended family and loved unconditionally.”

Victim 3 suffered at the expense of Sandusky’s love, he said. He spent nights in the basement that quickly became uncomfortable when Sandusky would sit on the edge of the bed, then move closer to massage his shoulders.

“He would come in and he would have his shirt off. I would be in all my clothes,” Victim 3 said. “He would ask me why I would want to sleep with all of my clothes on, so I’d strip down to my underwear and maybe a tshirt.”

Sandusky would lift up the shirt of Victim 3 and blow on or kiss his stomach or rub his pelvis area – the same actions other victims described – but he never said he was uncomfortable because he was afraid of angering Sandusky.

“At times, he would touch my penis,” Victim 3 said. Sandusky would rub Victim 3’s private parts, rubbing on and grabbing him until Victim 3 became erect.

“I would roll over and try to get away from him. I knew I wasn’t supposed to have (an erection) from a man.”

There were also showers in the Lasch Football Building locker room that made Victim 3 uncomfortable. He usually tried to shower as far away as he could from Sandusky, but it was to no avail.

“He would make me feel bad about it, and he made me move closer to him,” Victim 3 said.

“He would wash my shoulders, my butt, my back. He would pick me up and bear hug me – he would give me a real big hug in the air, both with my back to him and with my front to him,” Victim 3 said.

Both were naked in the shower.

Similar to the other victims’ testimonies, Victim 3 said he was so afraid of losing the things – the gifts, the football tickets, the sense of belonging somewhere – that he never said anything against Sandusky.

Sent to two different group homes and eventually enrolled in foster care, Victim 3 said he felt abandoned when he never heard from Sandusky after that.

“I’m mad, I’m enraged, I’m hurt … he could just forget about me like I was nothing after I was sent away,” he said.

“I prayed he would call me and maybe find a way to get me out of there.”

Police found Victim 3 through an investigation and, such as other victims testified, he did not want to talk about his history with Sandusky, even years later.

Victim 3 spent years trying to suppress his memories of abuse, even after leaving foster care, enlisting in the Army National Guard and serving a year in Iraq.

Court recessed for an extended lunch around 11:30 a.m.

Earlier, at 10:42 a.m.

BELLEFONTE — Detective Ronald Shreffler, the officer who set up a sting in the home of Alleged Victim 6 in 1998, testified on Thursday that he told Jerry Sandusky to never again shower with young boys.

Sandusky told the detective, who was then sitting in his Lasch Football Building office, he had used bad judgment and wouldn’t do it again, Shreffler said.

During cross-examination, Sandusky’s lawyer, Joe Amendola, had Schreffler read the transcript of his original interview with Victim 6.

At age 11, Victim 6 told the detective he was never touched inappropriately by Sandusky and was never asked to reciprocate.

According to the transcript, Victim 6 told police Sandusky kissed him once or twice on the head, “like you would kiss your child.”

When he came home with wet hair after being alone with Sandusky in 1998, the mother of Victim 6 contacted police. Two officers, Schreffler and Detective Ralph Ralston, hid in the bedroom and the bathroom to listen in on the mother’s conversation with Sandusky, whom she had invited into her home to talk.

She confronted him about the shower, and said since that time her son’s demeanor soured and he had trouble sleeping.

Schreffler said Sandusky’s once upbeat mood changed in that moment.

“I wish I could ask forgiveness,” Sandusky said, according to Schreffler. “I know I will not get it from you. I wish I were dead.”

Schreffler said he spoke with then-Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar and Assistant District Attorney Karen Arnold, but not charges were filed.

The transcript, read out loud by attorneys in court, revealed that what Victim 6 told police 14 years ago aligned with his testimony in court Thursday.

During his testimony, Victim 6 said he “blacked out” after being lifted up in the shower by Sandusky, who wanted to get the shampoo out of the boy’s hair.

They two had gone into the shower after only 15 minutes of working out, Victim 6 said, which he recalled because he wasn’t sweaty.

He said he originally chose a shower farther away from Sandusky, but moved closer upon request. It made him uncomfortable, but Victim 6 said repeatedly he never wanted to do anything to upset Sandusky.

Sandusky told the boy he was “the Tickle Monster,” and gave him bear hugs. They were both naked.

He said he can’t recall anything from the time Sandusky picked him up until he was back home.

There, he told his mother, “In case you’re wondering why my hair is wet, it’s because we took a shower,” before running past her and into their home.

Victim 6 said he never showered with or was alone with Sandusky again. His mother did not approve of his continued communication with Sandusky – he got his football tickets from Sandusky and even met him for dinner in 2011—but she did not do anything to stop him.

Victim 6 said he had for so long suppressed the memory of his shower with Sandusky that only once he was forced to remember it for police interviews and grand jury testimony did his attitude toward the former Penn State football assistant coach change.

“I quickly realized thinking about it as an adult as opposed to an 11-year-old that it was inappropriate what happened to me,” Victim 6 said. “I feel violated, I’ve been on a lot of emotional roller coasters since then.”

Victim 6 did not have a father at home growing up.

Court was recessed around 10:30 a.m. for the first time Thursday.