Mothers of two of Jerry Sandusky's alleged victims lash out at Penn State officials' handling of scandal
He was the last victim, that we know of, to come forward.
But in many ways, he was the first.
He was one of the first with enough courage to say something. To stick around for three years while police and a grand jury talked to dozens of people and combed through thousands of documents.
To hang on emotionally.
To take a stand against a Goliath. A legend. A man that some saw as a god.
He was the first to be believed. Authorities even call him Victim One.
The mother of the Clinton County boy is telling her family story. It’s a story that launched a three-year grand jury investigation that resulted in sexual assault charges against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, allegedly involving eight boys.
“I’m very proud of him,” the mother said of her son, on the brink of adulthood and at the heart of what some are calling the biggest scandal in college sports.
“He’s a brave kid,” she said. “And his major concern in the whole thing was for anybody else. That was his big thing. He said, ‘I just don’t want this to happen to anybody else.’”
And now he knows that he’s not alone.
Ten years before he came forward, another child, now 24, had also spoken up. He wasn’t believed. Allegations he made against Sandusky about touching during a shared shower at Penn State in 1998 never resulted in charges.
Sandusky, through his attorney, denies all the charges. Attorney Joe Amendola, said Sandusky attributes the allegations to troubled kids who are acting out.
“I’m so upset,” said the mom of the 24-year-old, who authorities are calling Victim Six. “My son is extremely distraught, and now to see how we were betrayed, words cannot tell you. To see that Graham Spanier is putting his unconditional support behind Curley and Shultz when he should be putting his support behind the victims, it just makes them victims all over again.”
She’s talking about the perjury and failure-to-report charges filed against former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and resigned Vice President of Business and Finance Gary Schultz.
Prosecutors allege the administrators ignored a 2002 report from a graduate assistant — identified by sources as Mike McQueary — that he saw Sandusky having sex with a young boy in a shower.
McQueary, now an assistant coach for the Nittany Lions football team, went to his father first, then to coach Joe Paterno.
“I don’t even have words to talk about the betrayal that I feel,” said the mom of Victim Six. “[McQueary] was a grown man, and he saw a boy being sodomized ... He ran and called his daddy?”
As media from around the country descended on Happy Valley on Monday to dig into the allegations and the details of a possible cover-up, the two mothers decided to talk to The Patriot-News.
Both said they don’t want their sons’ stories to get lost in the scandal.
Victim One
Victim One met Sandusky through the Second Mile — a charity for needy children that Sandusky started — and quickly got drawn into his world of big-time college football: gifts, trips, sporting events, and hanging out with a guy who seemed to be loved by everyone.
But his mother said it came at a price.
The Patriot-News will not identify either women or their sons in keeping with our policy not to name victims of sexual assault. The mother of Victim One specifically asked that other media respect her request for no more interviews.
She brought the psychologist who has been helping her son cope with the trauma to the interview.
Almost from day one, psychologist Michael Gillum has met regularly with the boy and counseled him through the protracted police investigation.
A few weeks before her son broke down and confessed to a principal at Central Mountain High School in Clinton County that he was being molested by Jerry Sandusky — a volunteer football coach at his high school — his mother began to suspect something was wrong.
First, it was because her son was acting out. When she grounded him, she said Sandusky demanded he be able to “take care of it.”
“I said, ‘No way, he’s my kid,’” she said.
Then, her son began asking her about an online database for “sex weirdos.”
“You don’t want to just accuse people of that,” the mother said. “I called the school principal and the guidance counselor and said, if nothing else, he’s taking my son out of classes. He’s leaving the school with him. ... So I asked them to call him into the office and ask [my son] how he felt.
“They did call him to the office that day and I remember [the principal] was in tears and she said, ‘You need to come here right away.’”
Her son, then 15, broke down and told them what happened.
“They told me to go home and think about what I wanted to do, and I was not happy,” she said. “They said I needed to think about how that would impact my son if I said something like that. I went home and got [my son] and we came to [Children and Youth Services] immediately.”
Officials at Central Mountain High School have said they immediately reported the abuse, and Attorney General Linda Kelly praised them for doing the right thing.
The boy’s story would evolve over the next few weeks as he was interviewed by police. That’s not atypical for sex cases involving teens, Gillum said.
“It’s essentially peeling back the layers of an onion,” Gillum said. “Because it’s so humiliating. It’s so much mental anguish. ... They typically want you to know something inappropriate happened, then there was a progression where boundaries were violated.”
But sometimes it takes time for the victim to get it all out.
That’s something Sandusky’s attorney Joe Amendola points to in defense.
He said it appears someone coaxed this victim into embellishing his story because it changed from groping to more graphic sex acts.
Gillum called it a typical defense tactic.
"They will imply ... that I must have led the witness,” he said. “But when you’re specialized in children and adolescent child abuse, you’re trained to make sure you wouldn’t compromise the evidence.”
Victim Six
Victim Six cried when he read the 23-page grand jury presentment released Saturday, his mother said. And not for himself.
“He had no idea how bad it was,” she said. “He was lucky. He only had that one contact with him.”
It allegedly happened in May 1998, following a tour of the football locker rooms. Her son and another boy, both 11, shared a shower with Sandusky.
When he got home he said, ‘If you’re wondering why my hair is wet, we took a shower together,’ and ran into his room, his mom recalls.
She called police.
But after a six-week investigation that included the mother confronting Sandusky in her home as police listened in the other room, Sandusky was cleared.
Then-Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar decided there wasn’t enough evidence.
“And you’re going to tell me that Spanier and Paterno weren’t informed of something that was that huge that Ray Gricar was in on it but Spanier was kept in the dark?” she said. “I’m just not that stupid. I’m so upset I just can’t believe it.”
Paterno’s son, Scott, has said that lawyers for Penn State assured him his father was never told about the 1998 report — investigated by university police.
It’s unclear from the presentment if Spanier knew. However, Schultz, who was in charge of the police force, acknowledged knowing about it.
When the mother confronted Sandusky, he said: “I understand. I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead,” according the presentment from the grand jury.
An investigator for Children and Youth Services broke the news to the mother: It was all a big mistake, the mother said she was told. The police officer who investigated won’t comment. Neither will the former police chief.
“Jerry Sandusky admitted to my face, he admitted it,” the mother said. “He admitted that he lathered up my son they were naked and he bear-hugged him. If they would have done something about it in 1998, and then again in 2002 — there was two chances they dropped the ball and I think they should all be held accountable.”
Her son, she said, can’t stop thinking about Victim One.
“That poor child,” she said. “My heart is like breaking for this boy and his family. And what about all the boys we don’t know about? They could have all been saved.”
The only semblance of comfort their family has had in the last three days is from community support.
“At last, my family and I are believed,” she said. “Because they tried to make my son and the other boy out to be liars.”
Every day was a struggle
Finding the courage to come forward was supposed to be the hardest part.
“We expected you just arrest people who do stuff like that,” Victim One’s mom said. “We didn’t realize it was going to be this difficult and take this long.”
The three-year investigation eventually ended with a grand jury finding that Sandusky had eight victims — two of them had long-term relationships with Sandusky and six involved shared showers in Lasch Building at Penn State, which houses the football program.
“I am upset that it took this long, but I also realize that the more people they find, the less impact it’s going to have on my son ... and it’s only going to help everybody else,” the mom said.
Hearing that he wasn’t alone was a challenge of emotions for her son.
“He wasn’t happy that it happened to somebody else,” she said.
But in a way, there was some relief: more chance that he would be believed.
It was very hard to keep their cool, to keep the allegations a secret, and not talk to anyone. But they did it.
When the arrests were announced Saturday, and the family learned that two Penn State officials had known about a prior incident and didn’t report it to police, she flipped out.
“I’m infuriated that people would not report something like that,” she said. “I still can’t believe it. I’m appalled. I’m shocked. I’m stunned. There’s so many words. I’m very mad. They could have prevented this from happening.”
Her son has accused Sandusky of four years of abuse, and it started not long after Curley and Schultz were notified of a abuse report in 2002.
The attorney general has said their inaction allowed Sandusky to molest this boy.
His mom said he knows that.
“He’s very angry,” she said. “I just can’t fathom how anybody could do that. When I read the indictment, I was very shocked that there was so many people that didn’t do anything ... and there had to be more people covering it up, I think, for him to get away with it for this long.”
When her son first came forward, every day was a struggle. There was this overwhelming feeling of deception. Sandusky was supposed to be a role model.
“In the beginning, it was extremely upsetting. I was so shocked. It got so bad we didn’t know what to do,” she said. “[He] is really, really afraid of Jerry. He told me numerous times when he started backing away from him, you just can’t tell him no. I said, why not?”
Her son replied, “You just don’t do that.”
“His attorney was saying how these disadvantaged children, you can’t trust them ... because they come from low income. I don’t think that has any bearing on anything,” she said. “I was warned that is what this basically would be about, because kids in The Second Mile are basically disadvantaged.”
In the first page of their presentment, grand jurors noted that, too. They accused Sandusky of using the charity to find his victims, “many of whom were vulnerable due to their social situations.”
“Obviously it’s a price that the brave victim pays,” Gillum said.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index. ... andus.html
