Adopted son offered to testify; says Sandusky abused him, too

Published 5:00 am Friday, June 22, 2012

BELLEFONTE, Pa. — Hours after a jury began deliberating the child sexual abuse charges against Jerry Sandusky, lawyers for one of his adopted children said Thursday that he had been abused by Sandusky and had offered to testify in the case.

“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,” the lawyers, Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici, said in a statement they released late in the afternoon. “At Matt’s request, we immediately arranged a meeting between him and the prosecutors and investigators.”

The statement gave no details and no indication why prosecutors did not call Matt Sandusky to testify, but it raises the possibility of new criminal charges against Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant football coach, after this case concludes. Matt Sandusky’s lawyers did not return calls.

One of Jerry Sandusky’s lawyers, Karl Rominger, declined to respond or to say whether the prospect of facing Matt Sandusky’s accusation was one reason Jerry Sandusky did not testify in his defense. Rominger said a judge’s order prevented the lawyers from commenting.

Matt Sandusky, 33, has been a peripheral presence in the case since it broke into public view last fall. He was involved in the Second Mile, the charity for troubled youths where, prosecutors said, Jerry Sandusky found his victims, and then, at about age 11, went to live with the Sanduskys, at first as a foster child.

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After Jerry Sandusky’s arrest, Matt repeatedly denied being abused and accompanied the family in public shows of support.

But his biological mother has told The Patriot-News of Harrisburg that Jerry Sandusky in effect stole her son from her.

Her husband, Mike Long, said in a November interview that Matt’s behavior worsened after he was sent to the Sanduskys and that soon after moving there, he ran away at night in a torrential rainstorm. “Everybody was thinking there was something going on, we just weren’t sure what,” Mike Long said.

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