Sandusky employed threats, gifts

BELLEFONTE, Pa. – One boy, 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.

“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.

Three of Sandusky’s accusers testified Wednesday, bringing to five the number of them who have taken the stand.

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.”

An expressionless Sandusky sat mostly still at the defense table during his testimony, occasionally turning his head to look the accuser in the eye.

The judge said the prosecution’s case should wrap up by the end of the day on Friday.