Sandusky accused by adopted son

[kpete]

Source: ESPN

Sandusky accused by adopted son
Updated: June 21, 2012, 5:11 PM ET
ESPN.com news services


Matt Sandusky, the adopted son of Jerry Sandusky, acknowledged Thursday through his lawyers that he was sexually abused by the former Penn State assistant football coach.

The stunning news came on the same day that a jury began deliberating in Jerry Sandusky's highly controversial child sexual abuse trial.

Matt Sandusky said he met with prosecutors this week and was prepared to testify in the trial.

"Matt Sandusky, one of Jerry Sandusky's adopted children, asked us to confirm with you the accuracy of this morning's news reports indicating that he was prepared to testify truthfully as a Commonwealth witness," attorneys Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici said in a statement. " During the trial, Matt Sandusky contacted us and requested our advice and assistance in arranging a meeting with prosecutors to disclose for the first time in this case that he is a victim of Jerry Sandusky's abuse."

Matt Sandusky, 33, lived with Jerry and Dottie Sandusky as a foster child before being adopted by the family as an adult, according to The Patriot-News. He had previously denied being abused by his adopted father.

Read more: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8082083/penn-state-nittany-lions-jerry-sandusky-accused-sexual-abuse-adopted-son

[OKNancy]

1. Yup, I read that is why Sandusky didn't testify

The prosecution would have put the son on the stand if he did.

[zentrum]

34. Still makes no sense to me.

Why not bring the son in to mop up--rebut--any false impressions left by Dottie?

Her testimony still makes me nervous in terms of this company town jury.

[slackmaster]

53. IMO Dottie was not a credible witness. If I were a juror, I'd disregard every word she said.

Jurors have the right to do just that, and I have personally done so.

A defendant's parent, sibling, or spouse is often a co-dependent in the defendant's mental illness. You can toss out their testimony as hopelessly biased without having to regard it as intentionally misleading. You just act as if you never heard it.

[monmouth]

2. The jury does not know this though, right? The judge keeps dropping charges, 4-5 of them

as of today. This is a mess alright.

[elleng]

3. Right, jury doesn't know.

PLENTY of charges remain, imo.

[slackmaster]

55. It doesn't matter

They have enough charges to easily put Sandusky away for life, and any charges that were dropped can be revived in the unlikely (IMO) event he's not convicted.

[elleng]

4. Poor guy/kid.

[zentrum]

5. There must be more problems

...than helps in his testimony, however. I've been waiting and waiting to hear from one of the adopted sons---and there's a story about Matt that's been on line for a long time--but where has he been?

The prosecutors must have talked to him earlier--no? The fact that no children were called for either prosecution or defense means their stories just muddy the waters for both sides, in different ways.

This is very confusing timing. Does any lawyer on DU understand why he wasn't brought forward earlier but is being presented now?

[WinkyDink]

8. He said he would testify if Sandusky was going to. You can't compel a person to be a plaintiff.

[jade3000]

15. Yet another reason why the defense didn't put Sandusky on the stand

Given his performance in the Bob Costas interview, the defense would've been crazy to put Sandusky on the stand. Now you just pointed out another reason why he wasn't put on the stand. This is a mess.

[tabasco]

24. Yes, you can. n/t

[zentrum]

26. Actually I think you can

....compel them to testify. But the prosecution probably didn't want to call him if he was reluctant because he wouldn't have been a strong witness.

You're only a plaintiff in a civil suit I think--where you can't be compelled to sue.

But the state can mount a criminal case any time they think the law has been broken, even of the victim is not willing to prosecute. It makes for a lousy prosecution in that case--but the state is allowed, by law, to do it. That's my understanding. The only "plaintiff", so to speak, is we the people as represented by the state, in a criminal case.

[yardwork]

28. Maybe he wasn't willing to step forward until now.

Imagine how difficult it would be to acknowledge that your adoptive father sexually abused you. And be prepared to testify about it in open court. I mean, this is this young man's family.

[FedUpWithIt All]

49. I read the theory that they are later going to serve a new indictment

regarding the abuse of Matt Sandusky

[aquart]

6. You stunned? I ain't stunned.

First thing I thought when I heard about all those adopted kids.

It is very wrong of me to imagine hitting Mrs. Sandusky with a brick.

[emilyg]

20. I'll supply the brick.

[montanacowboy]

7. So if the pervert walks

can new charges be brought with the adopted son's testimony?

I just don't understand why the prosecution didn't use him in the trial, makes no sense to me.

[WinkyDink]

9. Of course. New accusers = New charges/cases/trials.

Matt didn't want to testify without Sandusky also testifying. That was his agreement. What was the prosecution then to do, have Matt as a hostile witness?

[pnwmom]

23. Statute of limitations may apply, as this man is 33. n/t

[zentrum]

27. They still could have brought him in

....as a corroborating witness and as someone to refute the character witness--Dottie.

[pnwmom]

42. My guess is that they didn't bring him in because they were afraid

the jury might not be able to understand why he allowed himself to be adopted by them as an adult, if he had been abused.

The defense would certainly be pushing that question.

(Personally, it isn't hard for ME to understand, but I'm not on that jury.)

[Stuart G]

10. I don't think the pervert will walk...

but I have been wrong before..

[fishwax]

13. the prosecution didn't use him in the trial because he hadn't yet told them his story

It was only during the trial (which, apparently, Matt was visibly shaken by) that he decided to get legal representation and have his lawyers contact the prosecution to share his story. He was prepared to testify (and they were planning on calling him) as a rebuttal witness if JS had testified in his own defense.

[zentrum]

30. But I still don't really get it

Since Dottie testified and some hired gun shrinks testified on Sandusky's behalf--why not bring in Matt to rebut her? Why allow any doubt to exist in any juror's mind?

I rarely find prosecution attorneys to be as strong as defense attorneys who always seem like better fighters to me.

[rhett o rick]

11. The question is did Mrs. Sandusky know. If she did she should be prosecuted as well.

Men that do this are horrible, but so are the woman that stand by and let it happen.

[nolabear]

12. Was I correct in thinking she described the children as manipulative and conniving?

I wasn't clear whether she was saying the adults were that way or that they were that way when they were in her house as children. If it's the latter, let me tell you that is a HUGE red flag, not that she knew anything but that she might, in denial, give attributes to the children that they can't possibly have--not in the way she would mean it in that context.

This entire thing is creepy, and my professional instincts trust creepy a whole lot.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

14. It is my understanding Mrs. S did describe the children - not the adults -

as clingy, conniving and demanding. She didn't say that of all of them, but she described one as conniving, the other one as demanding and another one as clingy.

As I posted yesterday, I don't know of a child who isn't at times conniving, clingy or demanding. For Mrs. S to speak with such contempt for kids highlights deeper issues, in my opinion. As I mentioned yesterday, it is the kind of petty language one would use when talking about a partner's ex lovers or spouses. In simple words, petty words of jealousy.

[jade3000]

16. Very disturbing

I haven't checked out the reporting on her testimony yet, but it sounds disturbing based on what you say.

Some of the most powerful testimony was from mother of the one of the victims who said that she basically forced her child to back to Sandusky because she had no idea at the time that he was abusive -- extremely heart-wrenching.

[rhett o rick]

18. Even if children are outright provocative that is no excuse for an ADULT to know right

from wrong. I believe that Ms. Sandusky knew and stood by and did nothing. In my book that's very close to being as bad the crime. She enabled him, and maybe even, by no action, encouraged him.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

21. 100000% right Rhett

I'm sure if one were to probe into the intimate details of Mr. and Mrs. S's relationship, it would be rather evident. It's hard to have a fulfilling marital sexual relationship with someone who is wired to be sexually attracted to pre-pubescents - you can't hide that or excuse that in any way.

[yardwork]

31. I thought the same thing. Creepy petty words of jealousy. I'm a lay person but that's how it hit me.

[pnwmom]

41. The problem is, most of these children were in very dysfunctional home situations,

which is why they were involved in The Second Mile in the first place. So individual children might be described as conniving, demanding, clinging, or whatever. (More than the average child.) Behaviors like that often develop as survival strategies.

Mr. Sandusky appears to have taken advantage of their vulnerable home situations, while Mrs. Sandusky reacted negatively to their behaviors and uses that as a reason to discount what they're saying.

I'm guessing (just my impression) that she didn't consciously know what was going on -- but she found the children and her husband's involvement with them annoying and over the top. And it's just too painful and she's too old and dug in to acknowledge now what a monster her husband appears to be.

[Volaris]

46. Well, if he was doing things with kids that he SHOULD HAVE been doing with his wife....

maybe she is/was a tad jealous...(I'm not saying ANYONE should consider her off the hook for her actions, but it may help in understanding her obviously very bad decision-making process...)

[southerncrone]

47. My impression of Dottie's description of kids is the same as yours.

Had a jealous tone somehow. She also said she didn't like having them around so much!
Their entire marriage could have been a sham/cover from the beginning. She has lead a privileged life as his wife all these yrs. They CLAIM they couldn't have kids of their own, but....is it a biological or mechanical problem? I'm sure we'll never know.
I think Jerry has more problems than pedophilia, he acts so inappropriately all the time. Smiling when he should be serious, he seems detached from the reality & consciousness of life. Seems simple-minded & childlike himself. Both he & Dottie seem to be delusional IMHO. Either they know the fix is in & he'll be acquitted, or they are not operating on all cylinders. I think they both live in a fairytale land.
Perhaps the adopted son came forward because he is afraid he won't be convicted. Then they can have another trial. Don't see HOW he could NOT be convicted the second time around w/son saying he was molested. The son is a sort of insurance policy of sorts. They said Dottie was weeping during closing arguments....bet this is why.

[zentrum]

33. Agreed.

And don't forget, defense lawyers can prepare witnesses in ways that the prosecution never can.

Those may be lawyer-fed words. The fact she she would ape them still means what you say.

She's a complete co-conspirator. She knows that saying "clingy" is meant to cast doubt on the phsysical interactions between Sandusky and the child.

[pnwmom]

39. I don't know what you mean by the term "complete co-conspirator" but Sandusky

is the only human alive who knows the full extent of his crimes, and the only human alive who carried them out.

If she had some knowledge, she is responsible to the extent of whatever that knowledge was, and whatever her participation or cover-up entailed -- but that isn't clear at all.

[IndyJones]

29. I don't believe she didn't know. That's my opinion. Obviously hasn't been proven, but that's

what I suspect.

[rhett o rick]

45. I agree. I think she knew. How could you not know as a spouse? She should be

prosecuted.

[truthisfreedom]

17. Ugh.

What a nightmare.

[rhett o rick]

19. To me the worse part.

Not that we have animals like Sandusky out there, we do and that is horrible. But many people, IMO, knew about him and his deeds or at least suspected, and did nothing to help these victims. These people need to be prosecuted.

[roody]

22. Animals are better than Sandusky.

[yardwork]

32. Agreed. That charity allowed him to continue to rape children for decades after they knew.

It's bad enough not to have prosecuted him all those years ago when witnesses saw the assaults. But to continue to allow him to use that charity to get access to all those troubled, lonely kids? Just unconscionable. I don't know how those people who ran that charity can sleep at night. Where was the board?

[rhett o rick]

52. It is not just the charity to blame, it's society.

I believe many knew that he was up to something. Why did it take years before someone said something? He held a position of power in society. If he was poor he would have been in jail years ago.

[yardwork]

54. No question about it, there are many ways in which our society failed here.

But there were specific individuals who failed to step up when they should have done so.

[rhett o rick]

60. I agree. I believe that the women that stay married to these animals

and keep quiet are culpable.

[yardwork]

61. No doubt in my mind that Mrs. Sandusky is culpable. No doubt.

[Posteritatis]

35. The extent to which so many were defending those people was/is astonishing. (nt)

[RainDog]

25. Was he the one whose ex-wife sought an injunction to keep the grandkids away?

this whole situation is such a tragedy.

I hope, but doubt, that this situation will give people pause when they give others the benefit of the doubt when they are attached to prestigious institutions.

You know - I wonder how this guy did not know his father was abusing other kids - I bet he knew, on one level, but also could not bring himself to confront his father because he wanted to hide his own abuse.

[shanti]

37. yes, he was the one with the ex-wife n/t

[riderinthestorm]

56. I'm guessing Matt told her of his own abuse which begs the question why she didn't tell prosecutors

[RainDog]

58. Not necessarily

If she was already estranged from him and then found out about the accusations - and he still wanted to take his kids there - she may have been responding to the other accusations.

I mean, if I had been in that situation, if my ex f-i-l was accused of pedophilia among kids who stayed at his house - I would, without a doubt, seek to keep my kids away from him - I would not care about "innocent until proven guilty" when it comes to allowing an alleged pedophile access to my children.

Even if I were still married to someone in a situation like that I wouldn't have my children around such a person - supervised or not.

[riderinthestorm]

59. Agreed. Either scenario is possible. Sandusky was so prominent in the community

and the daughter in law was familiar with the extent of his charitable work with kids, it just "feels" to me as though presumably she would have leaned towards giving him the benefit of the doubt. In casting my mind back on my own (now deceased) FIL, if he were charged with the same thing I know I wouldn't have believed it until real evidence was produced, he was LOVELY and I truly did love him. Of course he wasn't a pedo so there's that...

Either way, Sandusky has a creepy vibe to me even just seeing his pics online. Can't explain why but there it is. Obviously he rang the DIL's alarm bells (or she knew).

Regardless, she was very, very smart to keep Jerry Sandusky under a close eye when he was with her kids, now that Matt Sandusky's abuse is public.

[RainDog]

65. this post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002845897

has a quote from the d-i-l - I couldn't post the whole thing.

Apparently the son would throw up every time he talked to his father on the phone.

Most of us don't assume someone is a pedophile - so Matt may have given her a reason and she let it go - the conservations were very private.

Once the charges were made - I'm betting she figured out why that happened.

[shanti]

36. oh man, i called this one!

bet he's not the only one either. sandusky has FOUR adopted sons!

[RainDog]

38. that was my immediate thought, too

maybe now that he's come forward, others will too.

no matter what the jury verdict, I have the feeling Jerry Sandusky is not long for this world.

[zentrum]

40. FIVE adopted sons

And one daughter.

[shanti]

66. you're right

i should have said four MORE adopted sons....and the daughter.

[zentrum]

43. Breaking--from Yahoo's homepage

"Matt had become so convinced of his own abuse that he called prosecutors earlier this week and expressed a willingness to testify against his father. He'd started the trial on the defense witness list.

"This has been an extremely painful experience for Matt and he has asked us to convey his request that the media respect his privacy. There will be no further comment," his attorney said in a statement first reported by the Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot-News.

So why didn't special deputy attorney general Joseph E. McGettigan III call what would've been a blockbuster witness against his father, who faces 48 counts for abusing 10 boys over a 15 year period?

He couldn't. At least he couldn't without risking the defense being able to call for a continuance that may have delayed the trial for months and caused the reseating of a jury and the potential retrying of a case the state feels very strong about.
Matt Sandusky's revelations came too late."

Yahoo files it under Sports for some idiotic reason:
[link:http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--matt-sandusky-jerry-trial-allegations-child-abuse-foster-son-jury-deliberations-20120622.html|

[LynneSin]

44. Governor Tom Corbett's dirty hands are all over this mess

He was the AG when this mess was first reported and he lapsed on the case so he could run for governor.

[southerncrone]

48. I thought Ray Gricar was the AG then....interesting that there

were 2 AG's b/4 this current one, who didn't push this sooner. One moves on to higher office (perhaps BECAUSE he did nothing) & the other completely disappears!
My money goes on one of 2 possibilities of what happened to Gricar:
1) He was getting ready to prosecute Sandusky--he HAD to disappear for the sake of PSU's reputation & the possibility that other powerful individuals were also molesting these kids--there were reported rumors to that effect.

2) He knew this was too big & he disappeared himself to some tropical island, far, far away--may or may not have had help.

[Cosmocat]

50. Ray Gricar was the county district attorney, not the state attorney general

and this is indicative of people who never knew who the man was before thinking they now have broke the case.

He was half a decade removed from not pursuing charges on Sandusky in the isolated 98 incident. Meanwhile, he was less than a week removed from successfully prosecuting the biggest heroin ring in county history.

He dealt with murders, drug dealers, people involved with actual organized crime. But, people want to believe that eggheaded academics guilty of literally doing nothing, were going to conspire to have a DA hit and disappeared, and dismiss the countless people he investigated and prosecuted who live in a world where this kind of thing actually occurs.

I would also note, Gricar is gone, but this still came to light. Anyone with any brain has to realize that just killing a DA is not going to keep something like this from coming out. But, the same people who are not able to have that simple level of thought somehow conspired to trick at DA into another country, with his laptop, kill him in a public setting and disappear his body, with absolutely no trace or evidence or any kind of leak about it?

Fact is, Gricar's brother killed himself 9 years, almost to the day, by jumping into a river similar to the one Gricar disappeared in. The greatest likelyhood is that he killed himself, it is possible he somehow went off the grid, and IF someone did him in, there are literally hundreds of people much more likely to have the mindset and capacity to pull it off than Sanduksy or this would be conspiracy attached to this.

[southerncrone]

64. Thank you for the corrected info.

Heroin case certainly would seem more likely to have "hits" involved. Suicide does tend to run in families. We will probably never know the truth.

[Cosmocat]

67. Yeah

sorry for the tone - a little close to home.

Unfortunately, it does appear that there will never be a definitive answer to it.

[LynneSin]

51. Gricar was a local AG. Corbett was the PA state AG

Around 2008 this case landed on his desk but instead opted to pretty much ignore it so he could run for governor.

[polichick]

57. The predator adopted his prey...

Now the birth mother says she suspected something?! Where was she when the adoption went through?

[yardwork]

62. Probably on drugs and/or in jail. Sandusky targeted vulnerable kids.

[polichick]

63. What a horrible case this is turning out to be!