Jerry Sandusky Child Sex Abuse Scandal: Penn State Coach Admits to Showering With, 'Touching' Kids
Defense Attorney Joe Amendola Insists Former Coach Is 'Big, Overgrown Kid' and Did Nothing Sexual
In a phone interview with Bob Costas on NBC News' "Rock Center With Bryan Williams" Monday night, former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky admitted to showering with "kids" as well as horsing around with them, but claimed there was no sexual contact.
When asked about the 40 felony and misdemeanor charges he has been hit with as well as the testimonies offered in the grand jury indictment, Sandusky told Costas: "I say that I am innocent of those charges."
When pressed further, Sandusky added:
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"I could say that I have done some of those things. I have horsed around with kids. I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them. I have touched their leg, without intent of sexual contact."
Costas also asked the married father of six adopted children if he was a pedophile, to which Sandusky replied, "No."
In a preview of the interview, "Rock Center" reported that when pressed further by Costas about his alleged wrongdoings, Sandusky said: "I shouldn't have showered with those kids."
Sandusky, 67, was arrested on Nov. 5 and later released on $100,000 bail. The charges he is facing involve the sexual abuse of eight boys, with the alleged abuse occurring between 1994 and 2009.
The former coach's defense attorney, Joe Amendola, defended his client to CNN's Anderson Cooper Monday night.
"Jerry Sandusky is a big, overgrown kid. He's a jock," Amendola told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "The bottom line is jocks do that -- they kid around, they horse around."
In the wake of the revelation of the alleged abuse, legendary coach Joe Paterno and Penn State University President Graham Spanier were both dismissed because trustees felt the men could have done more to alert authorities to the alleged sexual abuse.
Sandusky would bring some of his participants from The Second Mile, a nonprofit organization that strives to help children achieve their highest potential, to the Penn State campus, which is where he admittedly showered with the boys.
In 2002, Mike McQueary, graduate assistant coach at the time, allegedly witnessed Sandusky raping a young boy in a shower room on campus and told Paterno, head football coach then, about the incident. Paterno then told Curly. However, law enforcement was not alerted until years later, according to the indictment.
The university's athletic director, Curly, and Senior Vice President Gary Schultz have both resigned after being charged with perjury. Both men deny having done any wrongdoing.
"They have throwing everything they can throw up against the wall," Amendola said of prosecutors' case on CNN. "And they're saying, [out of] all these accusations, some of them have to be true. But when you take it apart, they don't even have victims in several of their cases."
CNN noted, as most media have, that the judge who presided over Sandusky's bail hearing, Judge Leslie Dutchcot, is listed as a volunteer for The Second Mile in her biography on a law firm's website. However, it was not immediately known if Dutchcot currently held any affiliation with the non-profit founded by Sandusky.
Sandusky helped establish the charity in 1977, according to ABC News, and retired from the organization in Sept. 2010. The former Penn State defensive coordinator was reportedly The Second Mile's primary fundraiser.
