With his arrest looming last fall, former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky repeatedly contacted and attempted to "exert control" over the victim whose 2001 rape led to sanctions this week against the university, attorneys for the man said Thursday.
The attorneys said the man, identified by prosecutors as Victim 2, planned to sue Penn State and unspecified others "to hold them accountable for the egregious and reckless conduct that facilitated" the man's "horrific abuse." Attorneys for several other Sandusky victims have also said they intended to sue the university.
A university investigation completed this month revealed evidence of a high-level cover-up after former graduate assistant Mike McQueary told longtime football coach Joe Paterno he saw Sandusky abusing Victim 2, then a preteen, in a team shower. Paterno, the investigation found, dissuaded three top administrators from taking the allegation to the authorities despite his knowledge of a brief university police investigation into abuse by Sandusky in 1998.
"Our client has to live the rest of his life not only dealing with the effects of Sandusky's childhood sexual abuse," the attorneys, Joel Feller and Matt Casey, said in a statement, "but also with the knowledge that many powerful adults, including those at the highest levels of Penn State, put their own interests and the interests of a child predator above their legal obligations to protect him."
Penn State spokesman David La Torre said the university took the matter "very seriously" but would not comment on pending litigation. The university's president, Rodney Erickson, and its board of trustees, "have publicly emphasized that their goal is to find solutions that rest on the principle of justice for the victims," La Torre said.
Feller and Casey, maintaining a cloak of secrecy around Victim 2, did not reveal his name in their statement on the coming lawsuit, nor did they include his whereabouts or other identifying details. Victim 2 was mentioned frequently throughout the state and university investigations and during Sandusky's trial last month but he never testified.
A spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office, Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, declined comment Thursday when asked why Victim 2 never testified, citing the "ongoing nature of our criminal prosecutions and investigation." Hagen-Frederiksen also declined to comment on whether prosecutors were aware, before or during the trial, of Sandusky allegedly attempting to contact Victim 2.
Feller, a Hazleton native, and Casey, a Scranton native, released with their statement audio of two voicemail messages they said were from mid-September 2011 in which Sandusky said he loved Victim 2 and offered to take him to a Penn State football game. The attorneys said the messages were among a trove of "overwhelming evidence" they uncovered in preparation for their lawsuit.
In a voice message the attorneys said was from Sept. 12, 2011, Sandusky appeared to be coaching Victim 2 on his testimony to investigators.
"Probably ought to just go forward," Sandusky said in the voicemail. "I would be very firm and express my feelings, uh, upfront. But, you know, there is nothing really to hide. If you want, give me a call."
Sandusky purportedly called the man again Sept. 19.
"Just calling to see, you know, whether you had any interest in going to the Penn State game this Saturday," Sandusky said. "If you could get back to me and let me know, I would appreciate it. When you get this message, give me a call and I hope to talk to you later. Thanks. I love you."
Prosecutors charged Sandusky on Nov. 5 with abusing at least 10 boys over the last two decades.
A jury convicted him last month on 45 of 48 counts.
Sandusky's attorney, Joseph Amendola, did not respond to a message Thursday.
The voicemails disclosed Thursday appeared to be part of a pattern of extensive contact between Sandusky and several victims over the last four years, as his abuse waned and investigators closed in.
At Sandusky's trial, an agent with the state Attorney General's Office said the ex-coach made 108 phone calls to Victim 1, a Clinton County high school student, between January 2008 and July 2009.
Victim 6, whose allegations of inappropriate showering led to the 1998 police investigation, said he sent Father's Day and Thanksgiving greetings to Sandusky as recently as 2009, accepted Penn State football tickets from him in 2010, borrowed his car and had lunch with him and his wife in 2011.
Victim 9, who accused Sandusky of multiple instances of forced anal sex, said he and Sandusky attended the Penn State game against Illinois last October 30 - six days before Sandusky's arrest and the last game ever coached by Joe Paterno.
Feller and Casey said the messages to their client, Victim 2, were evidence that Sandusky was attempting to "exert control" over the man "even as his arrest for child sexual abuse became imminent."
Janet McKay, the executive director of the Victims Resource Center in Luzerne County, said sex offenders often use "any kind of means to have some control" over their victims and will attempt to convince them "there's nothing wrong with the behavior, that this is how people normally act."