Prosecution calls alleged victim to testify in Sandusky child sex abuse case

The young man identified as “victim number four” in the commonwealth’s case against Jerry Sandusky took the stand yesterday in the first day of the trial’s testimony.

 

The alleged victim was matter-of-fact as he recalled meeting Sandusky as an 11- or 12-year-old in 1997. Number Four says within a few weeks of that meeting, he was playing sports with Sandusky on the Penn State campus.

Such activities, he says, were invariably followed by showers, and, soon, escalating incidents of sexual abuse that went unseen by student athletes and coaches who used the same locker room facilities. Number Four says there were also gifts, tickets to football games, and friendship with the Penn State football players.

The defense attorney asked him why he put up with abuse for years before distancing himself in the year 2000.

The alleged victim says he didn’t want to lose all those good things, wanted to save face with kids at school.

He says he hardly wanted to admit what was happening to himself.