The lawyer for former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky said on Tuesday one of his alleged child rape victims will tell “a very different story” from grand jury testimony.
Joe Amendola said in an interview on NBC’s Today program he thinks he has located the man, now in his mid-20s, who was allegedly raped by Sandusky in 2002 as a young boy.
“We believe we’ve found him and if we have found him, he is telling a very different story than Mike McQueary ... He is saying it never happened,” Amendola said.
In his recent grand jury testimony, McQueary said he told team officials, but not police in 2002, when he was a graduate assistant on the football team, that he saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in the showers.
However, an e-mail McQueary wrote on Nov. 8 says he made sure the act was stopped and then went to police — contradicting what the grand jury report says.
McQueary, who has been placed on administrative leave and did not coach in Saturday’s 17-14 loss to Nebraska, wrote: “I did stop it, not physically ... but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room ... I did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police .... no one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds ... trust me.’’
Sandusky was charged on Nov. 5 with 40 counts of sex crimes involving eight boys during more than a decade. He has denied all of the charges.
Since the scandal broke, Penn State’s revered football coach Joe Paterno and the university president have been fired by the board of trustees.
Two former university officials have been charged with not reporting the alleged 2002 incident. They have also professed their innocence.
The New York Times said on Monday about 10 more victims might have come forward, citing sources close to the investigation.
Amendola’s comments came from a string of interviews in the past day, in addition to Sandusky’s first public statements on Monday night. Some legal experts questioned the wisdom of letting him talk to the media.
Also on Tuesday, US Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania called for urgent hearings on US laws governing child sex abuse.
“It is clear we need to examine the federal laws that are designed to protect children from this type of heinous abuse,” Casey said in a statement.
On Monday night, Sandusky professed his innocence in a telephone interview on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams program.
“I have done some of those things. I have horsed around with kids. I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their leg. Without intent of sexual contact, but so if you look at it that way there are things that wouldn’t, you know, would be accurate,” Sandusky, 67, said.
Asked if he is a pedophile, Sandusky said: “No.”
When asked if he was sexually attracted to underage boys, Sandusky seemed to hesitate. He repeated the question before replying: “Sexually attracted, you know, I enjoy young people. I love to be around them, but no, I’m not sexually attracted to young boys.”
Sandusky also talked about the 2002 incident described by McQueary.
“We were showering and horsing around,” he said. “We were, as I recall, possibly, like, snapping a towel, horseplay.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of