BELLEFONTE - Jerry Sandusky will testify at his child sex abuse trial and will refute "in his own words" charges that he sexually assaulted at least 10 boys over the past two decades, his attorney said Monday in an opening statement.
"The one constant is that Jerry Sandusky has said he is innocent," attorney Joseph Amendola told the jury of seven women and five men.
Amendola, in a 40-minute address, portrayed Sandusky's accusers as money-hungry liars who helped relentless investigators stretch benign facts into a warped narrative.
He said another key prosecution witness, former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary, misinterpreted an incident he told a grand jury he witnessed in a campus shower in February 2001. McQueary said he saw what appeared to be Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy.
"He saw something and made assumptions," Amendola told jurors. "It's common for people to see an event and assume the pieces that they didn't see. What you're going to hear from the stand, from Michael McQueary ... he assumed that it was a sexual act. He didn't see a sexual act. He didn't hear a sexual act. He assumed."
Other participants in The Second Mile program, Sandusky's charity for neglected youth, will also testify on Sandusky's behalf and will tell jurors that Sandusky gave them gifts and took them to football and baseball games but never abused them, Amendola said.
Sandusky started The Second Mile in 1976, "not as a victim factory," as prosecutors have alleged, but as "a way to help kids," Amendola said.
The accusers, he said, fabricated their allegations and exaggerated their experiences with Sandusky to bolster their standing in civil litigation. Six of the eight accusers expected to testify already have civil attorneys, Amendola said. One, he said, retained a civil attorney before going to investigators.
"We believe money is a motivating factor in this case," Amendola said, repeating a claim he made during a press conference following Sandusky's waived preliminary hearing in December. "We believe, the evidence will show, these young men had a financial interest in pursuing this case."
Several of the accusers maintained contact with Sandusky even after start of a grand jury investigation into the allegations in June 2009. In one instance, an accuser with a 3-year-old son "looked like he was bringing his family to meet his father," Amendola said.
Last fall, as the grand jury prepared to issue a report detailing the allegations, Sandusky took the accuser identified as Victim 9 and a friend of Victim 9 to a Penn State football game, Amendola said. Sandusky "was so naive," he later telephoned Victim 9 "to see if he would be a character witness for him."
According to prosecutors, Sandusky met Victim 9, a self-described "troubled child" through The Second Mile in September 1997.
Sandusky invited the boy, 12 at the time, to Penn State football games and took him swimming at a local hotel. There, prosecutors said, Sandusky performed oral sex on the boy and forced him to do the same.
"What you're going to hear at the beginning is going to be graphic, it's going to make you queasy and you're going to want to say, 'I've had enough,' " Amendola said. "But that doesn't make it true."
At least five of the accusers said Sandusky showered with them. Growing up in western Pennsylvania, Sandusky routinely showered with other children who participated in programs at his parents' recreation center. Amendola said it was part of "Jerry's culture."
"There is going to be testimony that Jerry Sandusky had showers with kids. Many of us say, 'That's kind of strange.' But that doesn't prove that he's guilty of these crimes," Amendola said.
Amendola called defending Sandusky a "daunting" challenge, considering the "tidal wave" of media coverage and public sentiment asking, "How can this man be innocent?"
"It's a task similar to climbing Mount Everest. It's David vs. Goliath," Amendola said. "The government, with all its resources, is prosecuting one individual."