Sandusky Arrested On New Sex Abuse Charges
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Ex-Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was arrested and jailed Wednesday on new child sex abuse charges brought by two new accusers, including one who claims Sandusky molested him numerous times in a basement bedroom, according to authorities.
READ: Second Jerry Sandusky Grand Jury Report
The claims bring the number of Sandusky's alleged victims to 10 and he now faces more than 50 charges stemming from accusations he molested boys for years on Penn State property, in his home and elsewhere.
The scandal has raised questions about whether Penn State officials did all they should have to stop the alleged activity and ended the careers of the school's president and legendary football coach Joe Paterno.
Sandusky, 67, was first arrested last month and has said repeatedly that he is innocent. The latest charges were brought after new accusers were questioned by a grand jury, which issued another report detailing chilling new allegations of abuse.
Sandusky lawyer Jerry Amendola said after the arraignment Wednesday that he had not yet read the latest grand jury report, but said he has no reason to doubt Sandusky's claims of innocence. Sandusky was unable to immediately post a $250,000 bail and was taken to jail.
Like earlier accusers, both of the new alleged victims told the grand jury they met Sandusky through The Second Mile charity for at-risk children that he founded in 1977.
"As in many of the other cases identified to date, the contact with Sandusky allegedly fit a pattern of 'grooming' victims," Attorney General Linda Kelly said in a statement. "Beginning with outings to football games and gifts; they later included physical contact that escalated to sexual assaults."
One of the new alleged victims, dubbed Victim 9 by prosecutors, claims he was first assaulted in 2004, and the other, called Victim 10, told the grand jury he was assaulted after being referred to Second Mile in 1997.
The ninth accuser, currently 18, was 11 or 12 when he first met Sandusky in 2004. Sandusky took him to Penn State football games and gave him gifts and money, and later sexually assaulted him during overnight stays in a basement bedroom in Sandusky's home, the grand jury said.
The accuser said that Sandusky forced the boy to perform oral sex and attempted on at least 16 occasions to anally penetrate him, sometimes successfully. "The victim testified that on at least one occasion he screamed for help, knowing that Sandusky's wife was upstairs, but no one ever came to help him," the grand jury report said.
The 10th accuser told the grand jury he was referred to The Second Mile in 1997, when he was 10 and experiencing problems at home. He also attended Penn State games, spent time at Sandusky's house, and was subjected to "wrestling sessions" in the basement of the home that led to Sandusky performing oral sex on the boy, authorities said. The accuser also detailed incidents at a pool on the Penn State campus, and a time when Sandusky allegedly exposed himself in a car and requested oral sex from the boy.
As he left his arraignment Wednesday in Bellefonte, Sandusky did not say anything or make eye contact with about two dozen reporters and photographers. Agents from the state attorney general's office then drove him to the Centre County Jail after he was unable to post bail.
If he is able to pay, Sandusky will have to submit to electronic monitoring and house arrest, have no contact with victims or witnesses and have no unsupervised contact with minors.
"It may well be that Jerry's going to be in jail for the overnight into tomorrow until we can sort this out," Amendola said.
Prosecutors had sought $1 million in bail.
The new conditions ordered by Senior Magisterial District Judge Robert E. Scott are a stark contrast to the $100,000 unsecured bail Sandusky was granted last month by a local judge.
Also Wednesday, The Second Mile said in a statement that it has lost significant financial support and that some employees will be laid off over the next several months. It didn't say how many staffers would be cut.
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