“During the trial, Matt Sandusky contacted us and requested our advice and assistance in arranging a meeting with prosecutors to disclose for the first time in this case that he is a victim of Jerry Sandusky’s abuse,” attorneys Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici said in a written statement that confirmed details of a report by NBC News. “At Matt’s request, we immediately arranged a meeting between him and the prosecutors and investigators. This has been an extremely painful experience for Matt.”
The jury, which deliberated in the courthouse Thursday evening and was sequestered in a hotel overnight, did not hear anything in court about the new accusation.
The Washington Post generally does not publish the names of victims of alleged sex crimes. The accusers in Jerry Sandusky’s trial sought to testify under pseudonyms but were required by the judge to use their real names. But reporters covering the trial generally did not use them.
The decision by Matt Sandusky to go public, however, was accompanied by an e-mail from his attorneys to dozens of journalists and news organizations, and his identity has now been widely reported.
The trial went to the jury Thursday after Sandusky’s attorney made a rousing closing argument that portrayed the former coach as a man pursued by overzealous investigators, prosecutors, news organizations and big-city lawyers hoping to cash in on the case.
“The system decided Mr. Sandusky was guilty and the system set out to convict him,” Joseph Amendola, Sandusky’s lead attorney, said in a robust defense of his client. “They were going to get him hell or high water, even if they had to coach witnesses!”
The prosecution alleges that Sandusky turned the charity that he founded, the Second Mile, into a kind of engine for pedophilia. Sandusky is accused of finding boys who needed father figures, cultivating intense relationships, acclimating the boys to physical touching and then ratcheting that behavior into ever more overt acts of sexual abuse.
“You saw the full spectrum of predatory pedophile behavior,” lead prosecutor Joseph McGettigan said in his closing argument.
McGettigan’s presentation was low-key, folksy and rambling, but he ended with a flourish, striding to a spot directly behind Sandusky’s chair, close enough to touch the defendant, and declaring, “He molested, abused and hurt these children. . . . Give him the justice he deserves. Find him guilty of everything!”
The jury’s deliberations could be complicated by the sheer number of allegations. The day began with the judge noting that several of the charges had been dropped, for reasons he didn’t explain. That leaves 48 charges. They include “involuntary deviant sexual intercourse,” “corruption of minors” and “attempted indecent assault on a child under 16.”
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