Sandusky faces accusers

Several alleged victims of Jerry Sandusky offered graphic and disturbing testimony of sexual abuse this week as the trial against the former Penn State assistant football coach opened in Bellefonte, Pa. One accuser, now 18, wept on the witness stand as he recounted repeated instances of sexual assault beginning when he was 11, and others testified that Sandusky repeatedly engaged them in oral sex and inappropriate touching after meeting them through his Second Mile charity. Former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary testified that he heard a “skin-on-skin smacking sound” and saw a naked Sandusky pressed up against a young boy in the locker-room showers in 2001. Sandusky, 68, has pleaded not guilty to 52 criminal counts of molesting 10 boys over 15 years. Defense lawyer Joe Amendola told the jury that Sandusky “loves kids so much he does things that none of us would ever think of doing,’’ but that his expressions of affection were not sexual.

That’s just part of what will be a “distinctly sordid defense,” said Amy Davidson in NewYorker.com. Sandusky’s attorneys intend to argue that all of the alleged victims are lying for money, and that “taking showers with other people’s children was part of Sandusky’s ‘culture.’” That strategy “seems certain to backfire,” said Phil Sheridan in The Philadelphia Inquirer. “Victimizing the victims all over again is a despicable tactic.” But then, why “expect honor from this man now?”

Sitting near a “monster like Sandusky” in the courtroom this week “made me want to take a shower,” said Maureen Dowd in The New York Times. What makes him “especially vile” is the way he targeted vulnerable boys, using his charity “as a perverted recruiting tool, putting asterisks next to the names of boys who were fatherless and blond.” Victims recalled that Sandusky would stalk them incessantly, and that their attempts to tell authority figures fell on deaf ears. “Sandusky, they were told, had a heart of gold.”

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Some still believe that, said Joel Achenbach in WashingtonPost.com. After one day of particularly devastating testimony, Sandusky stood “chatting and laughing” with a small group of old friends in the courtroom, delighted to have “people who still believe in him.” One friend of 40 years said, “I totally trust him.” Like so many who never asked questions, they still can’t “imagine the worst.”