Three Years Later, Impact of Sandusky Scandal Still Being Felt

Three years ago, on Nov. 5, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was charged with sexually molesting eight young boys over the previous 15 years.

What happened next would dramatically alter the landscape of Happy Valley for years to come. 

The scandal quickly engulfed Penn State and rapidly grew into a national media frenzy, leaving many of the university’s top officials with tainted or destroyed reputations.

Days after the indictment, longtime head football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier were dismissed from their positions. University students rallied around Paterno, prompting outrage and over his firing only months before his death from cancer.

Spanier – along with former Penn State administrators Tim Curley and Gary Shultz – are charged with perjury and conspiracy for their alleged involvement in the cover up of Sandusky’s crimes. All three men await trial in Dauphin County Court. 

The Second Mile, a charity founded by Sandusky to help disadvantaged youth, was ultimately gutted by the scandal and has ceased operations. Prosecutors claim Sandusky used the charity to groom his victims.

Penn State’s reputation also suffered tremendous blows, with the university-sanctioned investigation by Louis Freeh concluding that university administrators repeatedly concealed Sandusky’s crimes from the public.

Penn State was subjected to heavy sanctions from the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Though many sanctions have since been lifted, the NCAA still is still embroiled in two lawsuits with state government officials, over where to spend the $60 million fine the NCAA imposed on Penn State.

A convoluted whirlwind of additional lawsuits also grew out of the scandal. The NCAA is fighting claims of defamation from former assistant football coaches Jay Paterno and William Kenney, as well as claims that it decreased the value of the Paterno estate and tarnished Joe Paterno’s reputation.

Spanier is also involved in a lawsuit with Freeh over the allegedly defamatory findings of the Freeh report, but this case has been complicated by Spanier’s ongoing criminal case.

Joseph McGettigan, the state prosecutor who helped put Sandusky behind bars, says that for all of the negative consequences of the Sandusky case, it’s important not to overlook the good.

“A predator has been held accountable and is being punished for his crimes,” McGettigan says. “I view that as a positive outcome, and I hope it has benefited the lives of the victims.”

In 2012, Jerry Sandusky was convicted of 48 counts of child abuse and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in state prison, thanks in large part to the efforts of McGettigan and fellow prosecutor Frank Fina. 

McGettigan, however, downplays his importance to the outcome of the case. He calls Fina the main force behind the case, while he was just “the guy who said stuff in court.” 

“The real credit for the outcome of the case goes to the victims, who were very steadfast, truthful and forthright in their willingness to testify in open court,” McGettigan says. “The victims deserve all the credit in the world for their strength in going through a very difficult public process.” 

More than anything else – including the long hours and the pretrial legal maneuvering – the most difficult thing for McGettigan was what he had to ask of Sandusky’s victims.

Sandusky was convicted of assaulting 10 young boys, eight of whom testified against him at the trial. They shared similar stories of Sandusky showering them with attention and lavish gifts before ultimately coercing them into sexual acts.

By asking the victims to testify, McGettigan realized he was asking them to live through these horrible experiences once again. He recognized the difficulty of reliving their victimization in open court – especially in a case as highly publicized as Sandusky’s – but he helped them believe in the value of their courage. 

“You have to believe that you’re doing the right thing for the victims, and you have to make them aware that you want to obtain justice for them,” McGettigan says. “If they’re not confident or feel that it’s difficult for them to proceed, you have to help them feel this is the right thing for them to do. 

This was complicated by the attention the case received in the national media. McGettigan says that when Fina first called him, asking him to help prosecute Sandusky he “had no idea how much notoriety” the case would garner. 

It was only at one of the first pretrial meetings swarmed by camera crews and news vans that he realized what he was in for.

Having worked high-profile cases before, McGettigan wasn’t too concerned about working on a highly publicized trlal, but he says the attention was difficult for the victims.

While some – like Aaron Fisher, who wrote a book about his ordeal – revealed their identities publicly, other understandably chose to remain anonymous. McGettigan says reporters tried to learn the names of the victims, seeking interviews.

“When you have all these people pulling the victims in different directions, it can be very difficult for them,” McGettigan says.

Despite the many 18 hour days and “thousands and thousands of hours” that went into the process, McGettigan is glad to have helped serve justice on behalf of Sandusky’s victims.

Child abuse prevention advocates in State College are quick to point out that the scandal’s impact is also being felt in more positive ways as well.

Andrea Boyles, CEO of the Centre County Youth Services Bureau, says representatives from various abuse prevention and advocacy agencies in Centre County met once the scandal broke to “take a good hard look” at what they could be doing better.

“We have learned that we needed to do a better job of educating adults about prevention,” Boyles says. “We’d been doing a lot of education for kids, but we realized we were expecting kids to protect themselves when we need to protect them.”

Boyles says the scandal has helped lead to increased education and programming for adults on preventing child abuse, as well as the creation of the new Children’s Advocacy Center of Centre County. Numerous bills have also been passed by the state legislature, expanding the definition of child abuse and requiring increased reporting of suspected abuse.

“Parents in particular have also started to more closely scrutinize the relationships their kids have with adults,” Boyles says.

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