Testimony set to resume in Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse trial, more accuser testimony likely | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Testimony set to resume in Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse trial, more accuser testimony likely

BELLEFONTE, Pa. - Jurors in Jerry Sandusky's child sex-abuse trial are likely to hear more graphic testimony Wednesday, following two days of accounts of alleged sex assaults involving the former Penn State assistant football coach and boys he met through his charity.

Two of Sandusky's alleged victims have already testified and a former assistant coach, Mike McQueary, described seeing Sandusky sexually assault a boy in a Penn State shower.

McQueary's father, John, appeared likely to be among those taking the stand soon. Before the start of Wednesday's proceedings, he entered the courthouse through a canopied door used by witnesses.

On Tuesday, Mike McQueary recounted a 2001 encounter in which he saw Sandusky and a young boy in a position that he believes meant Sandusky was sodomizing the child.

In a voice alternating between calm and forcefulness, McQueary said he walked into a university athletics locker room more than a decade ago to the sound of a "skin-on-skin smacking sound." In a mirror, he said, he could see into the showers and saw Sandusky standing behind a boy who was "propped up against a wall."

The identity of the boy who was said to have been in the showers remains a mystery to prosecutors.

Earlier Tuesday, the teen identified by prosecutors as "Victim 1" struggled to retain his composure while recounting the humiliation and fear that accompanied alleged abuse at Sandusky's hands.

The boy, now 18 and a recent high school graduate, said sleepovers in a bedroom in the basement of Sandusky's State College home escalated into kissing, fondling and oral sex. Eventually, he testified, Sandusky said it was his turn to reciprocate the act of his alleged molester. He said he could not resist.

"I don't know how to explain it, I froze," he said. "My mind is telling me to move but I couldn't do it, I couldn't move."

Sandusky, 68, is on trial on charges he molested 10 boys over a 15-year period — allegations he has denied. Authorities say he abused them in hotels, at his home and inside the football team's headquarters.

Sandusky's attorneys have suggested his accusers have financial motivations for coming forward and questioned why Victim 1's initial accounts omitted some allegations he made later.

The teen said he changed his story repeatedly out of shame and fear, and when he finally did confide to a school guidance counsellor, he was told by an unidentified school official or officials that Sandusky "has a heart of gold, and he wouldn't do something like that."

"So they didn't believe me," the teenager said.

The teen's account of abuse was later referred to county social workers and eventually spawned the grand jury investigation that led to the charges.

News from © The Associated Press, 2012
The Associated Press

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