BELLEFONTE, Pa. — One, a foster child, said he was threatened, warned he would never see his family again if he ever told anyone what happened. Another said he stayed quiet because he didn’t want to stop getting tickets to the hottest game in town — Penn State football.
That was how two of Jerry Sandusky’s accusers explained the former Penn State assistant coach’s hold over them.

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Jerry Sandusky pinned down a foster child and performed oral sex on him, threatened to keep him from seeing his family if he reported what happened and then later told him he loved him, the accuser testified Wednesday.


“He told me that if I ever told anyone that I’d never see my family again,” the former foster child said Wednesday, the third day of testimony in Sandusky’s child sexual abuse trial.
He said it terrified him when Sandusky uttered the threat after the coach pinned him while wrestling in the basement of the Sandusky home and performed oral sex on him.
Sandusky, 68, is charged with sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period, accusations he has denied. His arrest last fall rocked Penn State and led to the firing of football coach Joe Paterno for not taking stronger action against Sandusky after allegations emerged a decade ago.
Three of Sandusky’s accusers testified Wednesday, bringing to five the number of them who have taken the stand.
Lawyer Tom Kline, who represents one of them, told reporters outside the courthouse: “It’s just remarkable how many children one man can shower with.”
The 25-year-old man who told jurors about the threat to keep him away from his biological family said he believed Sandusky’s wife was inside the home, upstairs, at the time. He occasionally stayed in the Sanduskys’ basement in State College in the late 1990s.
Speaking in a calm but sometimes hesitant voice, he said Sandusky later apologized for the threat: “He told me he didn’t mean it and that he loved me.”
The man, identified in court papers as Victim 10, said Sandusky also assaulted him on other occasions in 1998 and 1999, including once at a pool and another time in the basement. He said he was about 11 at the time.
An expressionless Sandusky sat mostly still at the defense table during his testimony, occasionally turning his head to look the accuser in the eye.
Victim 10 is one of two who came forward after Sandusky was initially charged in November with assaulting eight boys. Sandusky’s attorneys have suggested his accusers have financial motivations for making their allegations.
Under cross-examination, the man testified that he was the roommate of another Sandusky accuser at a camp sponsored by Sandusky’s charity, The Second Mile. He also acknowledged spending nearly two years in prison for a robbery and involvement with drugs and alcohol but said he is doing better now.
“I’m married. I’m expecting” a child, he said.
Another boy who was the subject of testimony Monday, dubbed Victim 8, has never been located, and his identity remains a mystery to prosecutors, but jurors heard about his alleged sexual abuse by Sandusky over defense objections.
Judge John Cleland ruled that a co-worker of Penn State janitor Jim Calhoun could testify about what Calhoun told him in November 2000. Calhoun is now suffering from dementia.