Defense lawyer says total Sandusky acquittal would be shock, talks of funereal ... - Washington Post

BELLEFONTE, Pa. — As jurors deliberated a second day, Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer said Friday he would be shocked and “die of a heart attack” if the former Penn State assistant football coach were acquitted on all counts in his child sex abuse trial.
The candid remarks by Joe Amendola lasted about 15 minutes inside the courtroom and opened a wide window into Sandusky’s state of mind as he and his wife, Dottie, waited for a verdict.

Video
http://www.washingtonpost.com/rw/sit...ogs/spacer.gif
Jurors in Jerry Sandusky's child sex abuse trial listened again to testimony from a key prosecution witness Friday as they began their second day of deliberations in the former Penn State assistant football coach's high-profile case.

Video
http://www.washingtonpost.com/rw/sit...ogs/spacer.gif
A lawyer for an adopted son of Jerry Sandusky says the man has told authorities the former Penn State assistant football coach abused him.


Sandusky is accused of sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period. Jurors have deliberated more than 17 hours since getting the case on Thursday and were still talking Friday evening.
Amendola said the Sanduskys were spending a lot of time praying. He described the atmosphere at their home as like a funeral.
The couple was “crushed” Thursday when lawyers for one of their sons, Matt Sandusky, said the 33-year-old had been prepared to testify on behalf of prosecutors, Amendola said. Matt Sandusky said his father abused him, his attorneys said.
Amendola said he wasn’t surprised by another man, Travis Weaver, who claimed during an NBC interview Thursday that he was abused by Sandusky more than 100 times in the early 1990s, or by any others who might come forward.
“Money does a lot of bad things to people,” he said.
As for Sandusky and his family, Amendola said he has given them an objective appraisal of what they could expect.
“I’ve used the best example I could use: climbing Mount Everest from the bottom of the mountain,” he said. “It’s a daunting, daunting case.”
He also said that Sandusky had his wife talk to a criminal defense lawyer a couple months ago “just to be careful.”
Amendola’s interview ended when he was summoned into the chambers of Judge John Cleland, who presided over the two-week trial. Cleland has issued a gag order barring lawyers from discussing the case.
The verdict will impact not only Sandusky and the eight young men who accused him of molestation, but a range of civil and criminal probes of the scandal that shamed the university and brought down coach Joe Paterno.
The jury’s apparent focus on the charges involving an unknown boy called Victim 2 in court papers renewed attention on the separate criminal case against two former school officials.
Tim Curley, who temporarily stepped down as athletic director, and now-retired vice president Gary Schultz are charged with lying to a grand jury about what they knew of the 2001 assault that then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary said he witnessed.
Jurors took copious notes and appeared to pay close attention Friday as McQueary’s two-hour testimony was read back to them. McQueary, who said he walked in on the assault, testified that he did not see penetration, but he did see a boy pressed up against a wall in the football team shower with Sandusky behind him.
Jurors also reheard the testimony of a McQueary family friend, Dr. Jonathan Dranov, who said that McQueary told him a different version of the story that didn’t include sexual contact.
McQueary, however, also testified that he hadn’t told Dranov everything that he saw.

http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif