The Presentment says "[assistant principle and head football coach Steven] Turchetta testified that Sandusky would be "clingy' and even "needy' when a young man broke off the relationship he had established with him and called the behavior "suspicious.' " But this behavior can easily be understood as nothing more than Sandusky grieving over lost innocent contact with someone dear to him. Sandusky likes kids, and enjoys their company. He mentors them. And it seems in some cases he develops a father-like concern for them. (Alleged victim 1 perhaps falls into this category, considering the long-continued calls after the boy cut off contact.) Seeing that many adults develop non-sexual affection for other people's children, enjoy their company, and grieve when a child no longer cares to continue contact, we need not conclude that the behavior Turchetta describes is sinister.
We may suppose that Sandusky took many kids to games and other places, and gave gifts to many different kids, and had many kids stay over at his house, one or a few at a time. For millennia people who are well off have done this sort of thing for those less fortunate when they cared about them. Such behavior does not imply child abuse.
The testimony of B.K. is that Sandusky touched both him and alleged victim 1 in ways I consider inappropriate. But such touching is not criminal unless there is criminal intent. And criminal intent is a thing to be proved, not assumed.
The Presentment provides no third-party eyewitnesses of sexual assault against alleged victim 1. So as said above, we are down to "he said, he said," so far as the evidence provided in the Presentment is concerned. And this alleged victim has reasons to lie.
How an innocent Sandusky could draw so many accusations.
If we suppose that Sandusky's inappropriate but legal behavior was displayed toward many of the kids he mentored, then there is a plausible scenario which would account for all the accusations leveled against him, both in the Grand Jury Presentment, and by people coming forward now.
The following scenario is based on the limited information in the Presentment, so one can only say that it is plausible so long as no contradictory information comes out. We need not concern ourselves in this scenario with those alleged victims of merely inappropriate but non-criminal behavior. If we suppose Sandusky innocent, as we should until proven otherwise, we may construe all merely inappropriate behavior in Sandusky's favor when assessing his probable behavior in other cases.
The plausible scenario:
First, as suggested above, alleged victim 1, already unhappy with Sandusky for some non-sexual reason which caused him to cut off contact, eventually became so annoyed by Sandusky's continuing calls that he decided to punish him: he claimed child abuse. This soon resulted in a Grand Jury investigation, which included taking testimony from Penn State personnel. By this means the Grand Jury learned of the 1998 police investigation, the 2000 incident testified to by the janitors, and the 2002 accusation by McQueary. The Grand Jury took its time, fishing for more witnesses, and as word leaked out about what it was doing, a few of the boys Sandusky mentored, now grown up, and remembering that Sandusky had pushed them harder than they cared to be pushed, or in some other non-sexual way had offended them, and remembering, and perhaps annoyed by, his inappropriate behavior, realized they could make a lot of money if they accused him of child abuse, and then brought a lawsuit against Penn State, The Second Mile, or both.
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