By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY

Updated


In Happy Valley, where Penn State football was the church and former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was the bishop, the sex abuse case that rocked the tight-knit campus teaches important lessons about how power and prestige can blind people to abuse.
AP
Jerry Sandusky is shown in a booking photo released early Saturday morning.



In the wake of the avalanche of guilty verdicts handed down Friday night to Sandusky for raping and molesting 10 boys over more than a dozen years, mental health experts, legal analysts and advocates for sex abuse victims say Sandusky got away with abusing the children for as long as he did because he was a revered figure. And he was known not just as a winning coach but as a man of charity who wanted to help disadvantaged, poor children.
"That was part of his evil genius," says Christopher Mallios, a former prosecutor and professor at the University of Pennsylvania who trains law enforcement personnel in dealing with sex abuse victims.
The Sandusky verdict came on the same day that a Philadelphia jury convicted a monsignor in the Roman Catholic church of endangering children when he helped the archdiocese keep predatory priests in the ministry and kept it silent. In a landmark case, Monsignor William Lynn was the first U.S. church official convicted for covering up claims of sexual abuse.
The parallels between the two cases are stark, Mallios says.
"Here you have two people in positions of power and prestige," he says. "In one you have an enabler of serial child rapists and the other one was a serial child rapist."
The cases shine a light on who offenders are, and they are not always menacing strangers or flashers in raincoats at a playground. Often, says Mallios, and others, they are family members, church members, people who cloak themselves in the appearance that they are doing good work.
Mallios' take away: "Don't be fooled."
Dr. Ryan Hall, a forensic psychiatrist, says this case is important for future ones because it shows prosecutors who may be hesitant to pursue such cases that they can obtain convictions.
Sex abuse cases, such as this, can be difficult because the incidents take place over a long period of time and often there is no physical evidence. But Hall says parents and law enforcement need to believe children when they make claims of sexual abuse and report them to authorities immediately.
The incident with former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary points to this question of when and how to report a sex abuse incident. McQueary testified he saw Sandusky as he appeared to be sodomizing a boy in a shower. McQueary then went to Penn State officials but did not report the incident to police or confront Sandusky.
Those who work with sex abuse victims say regardless of how hard it is to believe or how horrific, the incident should have been reported to police immediately.
"This is somebody you idolize, someone you sit next to at church," Hall says. "People do not always want to admit this is happening or that they did not pick up on it sooner."
Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at St. Vincent College in Pittsburgh, says the case represents a loss of innocence because people cannot blindly trust iconic or beloved personalities in their community.
"You have to be vigilant," he says, "and you have to adopt a healthy sense of skepticism."
He says Sandusky did what he did for as long as he did because he was admired in a community where the football program meant everything to people and he was respected for his charity off the field.
But at the same time, he was abusing the children he was purporting to help.
"This case is a wake-up call that no matter how marvelous the person seems, you need to be vigilant," he says.

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