Skip to footer

Jerry Sandusky sentenced to 30-60 years in jail on child sex abuse charges

The former Penn State assistant football coach was sentenced Tuesday after maintaining his innocence and the court hearing from some of his victims.

|
Gene J. Puskar/AP
Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, center, arrives for sentencing at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa., Oct. 9, 2012.
  • By Ian Simpson and Dave Warner Reuters

| Bellefonte, Pa.

Serial child molester Jerry Sandusky, a former Pennsylvania State University football coach, was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison on Tuesday for abusing young, at-risk boys for more than a decade.

The sentence by Judge John Cleland in Centre County Court could put the 68-year-old retired defensive coordinator in prison for the rest of his life.

Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of child sex abuse for molesting 10 boys over 15 years, some in the football team's showers on campus. "Your crime is not only what you did to their bodies, but your assault on their psyche and their souls," the judge told him. "The tragedy of this story is it is a story of betrayal. Some of your victims had a genuine affection for you.

"It is precisely that ability to conceal those vices from yourself and everyone else that in my view makes you dangerous," he said.

But the judge added: "I am not going to sentence you to centuries in prison even though the law allows me to do that."

Sandusky's defense attorney Joseph Amendola has said any prison term longer than 20 years would be a "life sentence" for his client.

Sandusky, wearing a red prison uniform, maintained his innocence.

"I did not do these alleged disgusting acts," he said in court. "The pain continues as I think of those who made the allegations. These are people I cared about, and still do.

"We will continue to fight," he said, breaking into sobs as he talked about his family.

"I tried to bring joy, I tried to make people laugh," he said of his work at The Second Mile charity he founded and where he was accused of recruiting his victims.

Prosecutor Joseph McGettigen read statements from some of Sandusky's victims.

"I've been left with deep painful wounds that you caused that have been buried in my heart for many years," said one.

Another said: "I will never erase the images of his naked body on mine. ... He took away my childhood the day he assaulted me."

Another attorney on Sandusky's defense team, Karl Rominger, said they would file an appeal to Sandusky's conviction in the next ten days. The defense contends they did not have enough time to prepare for the high-profile case.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Jerry Sandusky sentenced to 30-60 years in jail on child sex abuse charges
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1009/Jerry-Sandusky-sentenced-to-30-60-years-in-jail-on-child-sex-abuse-charges
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe