Joe Amendola, the former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer, said yesterday that he would consider “possible alternatives” if more sexual abuse charges were filed against his client.
Joe Amendola said he had not discussed pleading guilty with Jerry Sandusky and that he still maintained he was innocent of charges against him.
Jerry Sandusky has been accused of 40 criminal accounts of abusing eight boys, some on the university campus, over 15 years.
Joe Amendola said that Jerry Sandusky has never considered a plea in his case.
Jerry Sandusky, 67, is awaiting a preliminary hearing on the charges.
Joe Amendola said the topic of a guilty plea came up as a “what-if” question about potential additional charges – and that if more charges were filed, Jerry Sandusky would only then discuss the possibility of a plea.
Earlier this week, Jerry Sandusky was accused of sexually abusing a young boy more than 100 times after meeting him through his charity The Second Mile in the 1970s.
The 29-year-old new accuser, who is not part of the criminal case, said in a lawsuit that Jerry Sandusky threatened to harm his family to keep him quiet.
The accuser, identified only as John Doe, claimed he had never told anyone about the abuse until Jerry Sandusky was charged last month.
The alleged victim felt “tormented” after learning others were said to have been abused after him, according to a statement read out by his lawyer Jeff Anderson.
“I am hurting and have been for a long time because of what happened, but feel now even more tormented that I have learned of so many other kids were abused after me,” the man said.
The alleged victim became the first plaintiff to file suit in the Penn State child sex abuse scandal.
The lawsuit claimed Jerry Sandusky abused the boy in encounters at the coach’s home, in a Penn State locker room and on football game trips.
Jerry Sandusky has acknowledged that he showered with boys but denied molesting them.
