The latest witness in the Sandusky trial, now aged 18 years, held his head down and kept answering timidly as the lawyers questioned him. The witness recalled how Sandusky forced him to have anal sex “a few times” in the basement of Sandusky’s house. Sometimes he would scream in pain but no one ever responded. He told the court, “no one can hear you down there” he bled from the attacks, but his mother never noticed it.
Like most of Sandusky’s victims, the boy (now man at 18 though he lost his childhood much earlier) had a broken home. When he met Sandusky first, he was living in a trailer with his mother. The mother worked in a bar and the father was rarely present. Later he lived in a foster home.
Sandusky’s lawyers put the victim on trial and flogged him with barbed questions. He quietly said that he did not tell anyone about the abuse because there was no one but his mother, saying “How can you tell your mom about it?” The witness said that every time he had to stay overnight with Sandusky he had to perform oral sex and slept on a water bed in the basement. Sandusky’s lawyers tried to pin him down and asked why he did not resist – he said, “What was I going to do? He’s a big guy, way bigger than me.”
Sandusky set up the Second Mile charity for needy boys in 1977, through which he met most of his alleged victims who came from broken homes and had little protection. He faces 52 counts of sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period.
When the prosecutor asked the witness to identify Sandusky, the victim turned his head and pointed a finger at the suave white-haired ex-coach dressed in a dark sport coat and slacks. The victim said “I don’t want to look at him.”
Sandusky’s attorney, Joe Amendola flayed another witness when he described Sandusky bear-hugging him from behind in the shower, and said that Sandusky had grabbed him from the back and said “I’m going to squeeze your guts out.” “That’s the last thing I remember about being in the shower. It’s all black” said the man identified as Victim 6. Amandola asked the victim who admitted having contact with Sandusky after the incident, “Did the change in your attitude have anything to do with hiring an attorney and thinking that there might be some financial gain for you?”
“Zero,” answered Victim 6.
Ronald Schreffler, a former Penn State campus detective who investigated one of the incidents also testified. If convicted, Sandusky can face a sentence of up to 500 years in prison.