Quickest guilty verdict in history: Jerry Sandusky--Guilty

Butterside Up

By David Breidenbach

As I write this, the defense in the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case has just rested its case.  To say that things are looking pretty grim for poor Jerry is an understatement of mammoth proportions. As I said in an earlier post about this case, what would come out in the trial would be worse than anyone could imagine from just hearing the initial details.

So, before we get to the point of closing arguments, deliberation, or sentencing, I think it would be safe to say that Mr. Sandusky can get ready to spend a significant amount of the rest of his life behind bars. In fact, it’s likely that he will never be outside a prison again.  And for that, we can thank our criminal justice system.

The testimony of the eight victims was particularly damning. In fact, the case was strong enough that the judge would only toss one of the 52 counts Sandusky was charged with. And it was nowhere near the worst of the charges. One after another the eight testified to almost exactly the same set of situations leading up to the sexual abuse. If it sounds like they were in cahoots, it was because Sandusky felt he had a good model to follow and he followed it to the nth degree.

One after another, they told of him grooming them. Oh, they didn’t use the term grooming; they probably didn’t even know it could mean more than combing your hair and dressing well. But there it was. The prosecution didn’t even have to connect the dots. The dots just sort of connected themselves.

It’s just amazing to me to hear what some of these people thought and did when the suggestion of potential child abuse was raised. “Oh, Coach has a heart of gold, he wouldn’t do that.” BS. When kids come to you and tell you that things are happening, you have a moral imperative to check into it. There’s a tendency among adults not to believe a child when they report such things. We don’t want to believe such things, but the sad fact is that you may be the only person he or she has nerve enough to tell.

If you ignore it, it sends exactly the message that people like Sandusky want the kids to get and they clam up.  It’s defeatist, but where else do they have to turn? And, in the case of Sandusky, the kids were being enticed with gifts and opportunities most other kids never get. Who wouldn’t want to be invited to an all expenses paid trip to a Bowl game, including a place to stay, food, and being on the sidelines.

And what about that legal defense?  His wife, Dottie, didn’t really help him out much. And all of those character witnesses? What good is that? ‘Well, I saw Jerry bringing kids into the showers and didn’t think anything of it.’ Of course, there were likely several people in the shower at the same time and for him to do anything untoward would have been much more difficult to explain.

To me when the high school coach caught him “showing wrestling moves” and when McQueary saw what he saw, that sort of sealed the deal.  I have no doubt that Sandusky did everything the witnesses claim he did. In fact, I would be surprised if there weren’t a bunch more “alleged” victims out there.

Even so, there are still a lot of questions.  It seems the college may have known about his bizarre behavior well before the incident at the Alamo Bowl in 1998.  Am I the only one who latched onto the super secret file the administration kept on him for his bizarre behavior?  Certainly, that portion of this case will be coming out soon, too.

All along Penn State has tried to show this as a case against Jerry Sandusky and not about the university. But, as we move closer to the end of this mess, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the college was aware of Sandusky’s odd behavior. In the end, I believe Penn State will also be culpable from trying to cover up the scandal.

Of course, all of that is speculation on my part.

There’s always the chance that someone on the jury will hold out from finding Jerry guilty due to a misguided sense of protecting PSU.  But they would be wrong to do so.  If the school did in fact know about Jerry’s behavior before the 1998 season ended, then those in charge should be held culpable. It was their express duty to protect those kids; they dropped the ball and allowed a sex abuse predator to remain active for many more years.  In the end, they will all be punished.