whyinthehell

A jury in Centre County Court convicted Sandusky, 68, of sexually assaulting 10 boys, all of them children from disadvantaged homes whom Sandusky, using his access to the university’s vaunted football program, had befriended and then repeatedly violated. The jury, seven women and five men, more than half with ties to Penn State, returned a verdict on the second day of deliberation.

Sandusky stood stoically as the jury foreman read off the verdicts on the 48 counts against him. The foreman said guilty 45 times. Many of the charges, which include rape and sodomy, carry significant prison terms, and it seems likely that Sandusky will spend the rest of his life behind bars. Sandusky was taken into custody after the verdicts were read.

In one of the case’s final startling chapters, this coming after the case had gone to the jury on Thursday, another man came forward to assert that Sandusky had molested him: it was one of Sandusky’s adopted children, Matt, who said he had offered to testify at the trial.

At one point in his interview [last year] with NBC, Sandusky was asked if he was sexually attracted to boys.

“Sexually attracted, you know, I, I enjoy young people,” Sandusky answered. “I, I love to be around them. No, I’m not sexually attracted to young boys.”

Joseph E. McGettigan III, the lead prosecutor, cited that reply in his closing argument on Thursday as evidence that Sandusky was a guilty man.

“I would think that the automatic response, if someone asks you if you’re a criminal, a pedophile, a child molester or anything along those lines would be: ‘You’re crazy. No. Are you nuts?’ ” McGettigan said.

In the end, Sandusky chose not to take the stand. Amendola said he made that decision after learning from prosectors that they would have called his son Matt to testify as a rebuttal witness if Sandusky testified. That, Amendola said Friday night, would have devastated Sandusky.