Matt Sandusky, the adopted son of Jerry Sandusky, has dramatically accused the former Penn State coach of abuse as a jury deliberates over scores of sex abuse charges against him.
A lawyer for Matt Sandusky said the man told authorities that the former Penn State assistant football coach abused him.
Matt Sandusky, 33, is one of Jerry Sandusky’s six adopted children.
His lawyers, Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici, issued a statement on Thursday naming Matt Sandusky and saying that he had been prepared to testify on behalf of prosecutors at his father’s sex abuse trial.
The statement says Matt Sandusky is “a victim of Jerry Sandusky’s abuse”, but doesn’t go into specifics.
NBC News reported that Matt Sandusky was to take the stand as a “rebuttal witness” if Jerry Sandusky testified.
Jerry Sandusky’s defense team ultimately decided the 68-year-old former coach wouldn’t speak in his own defense.
Matt Sandusky’s attorney’s told the network: “This has been an extremely painful experience for Matt and he has asked us to convey his request that the media respect his privacy.”
The statement came after jurors began deliberating 48 charges against the ex-coach.
Prosecutors say Jerry Sandusky met the 10 sex-abuse victims through his charity, The Second Mile, which he established in 1977.
Matt Sandusky’s lawyer says his client met with investigators very recently.
Matt Sandusky went to live with Jerry Sandusky and his wife, Dottie, as a foster child and was adopted by them as an adult.
Shortly after Jerry Sandusky’s arrest in November, Matt Sandusky’s ex-wife Jill Jones successfully obtained a restraining order forbidding the children from sleeping at their grandparents’ home.
At about the same time, details emerged that Matt Sandusky had attempted suicide just four months after first going to live with Jerry and Dottie Sandusky in 1995.
He had come into the home through The Second Mile charity, and was first a foster child before being legally adopted.
His name also came up last week during the testimony of one of Jerry Sandusky’s ten accusers.
The man, dubbed Victim 4 by prosecutors, said Matt Sandusky was living at the Sandusky home on an occasion when he had stayed there overnight.
When asked by prosecutors whether Jerry Sandusky ever engaged him in a soap battle in the showers, he recounted a time when he and Matt Sandusky had been playing racket ball.
When they were done, he said, they went back to a locker room. Matt got undressed and got into the shower and then Victim 4 and Jerry Sandusky followed him in there, he testified.
“Me and Jerry came in. He started pumping his hand full of soap,” he said.
At that point, Matt Sandusky shut off his shower and left and went to another locker room to shower, the witness said.
Asked by prosecutors about Matt’s facial expression when the soap battles started, he replied: “Nervous.”
Jerry and Dottie Sandusky married in 1966 and have no biological children together, but adopted six times and have served as foster parents.
The news comes just hours after Travis Weaver, a 30-year-old Ohio man, became the first alleged Jerry Sandusky victim to reveal himself to the public, saying in an interview that he was sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky more than 100 times, starting when he was just ten.
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