No inappropriate contact, Sandusky’s wife testifies
Psychologist says ex-coach has personality disorder
BELLEFONTE, Pa. – Jerry Sandusky’s wife testified Tuesday that she remembers most of the men who told a jury that her husband sexually abused them, but she said he never had inappropriate contact with them as boys.
She also said that the basement where the boys would stay wasn’t soundproof, a statement that contradicted one man’s testimony that he screamed during an assault but couldn’t be heard.
Defense lawyers called the former Penn State assistant football coach’s wife to the witness stand Tuesday after they went after two investigators, suggesting that police shared details among accusers and planted the seeds of the alleged victims’ evolving accounts of abuse.
The jury also heard from a psychologist who testified that Sandusky has a personality disorder that might explain the “creepy” letters he sent to one of his accusers.
Jerry Sandusky is charged with 51 criminal counts related to 10 alleged victims over a 15-year span. He’s accused of engaging in illegal sexual contact ranging from fondling to forced oral and anal sex.
Dottie Sandusky has stood by her husband, posting his bail, accompanying him to court proceedings and issuing a statement in December that proclaimed his innocence and said that accusers were making up their stories. She is not charged in the case.
In her testimony she said she knew several of the accusers, some well. Some of them, she said, were “clingy” around her husband while another was “charming.” Nearly all would stay overnight in the Sandusky home and her husband “would tell them good night,” she said.
One witness testified last week that he was attacked by Jerry Sandusky in the basement of the ex-coach’s home and cried out for help when Dottie Sandusky was upstairs. She, however, said the basement was not soundproof and she would have been able to hear shouting if she was upstairs.
She also rebutted one victim’s claim that Sandusky tried to engage in oral sex with him while in a hotel bathroom at the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. The man said the assault was interrupted when Dottie Sandusky walked into an adjoining room.
“They were just standing … in a hallway kind of thing… they had their clothes on, they were fully clothed,” she said.
The psychologist, Elliot Atkins, told jurors that he diagnosed Sandusky with histrionic personality disorder after talking with the ex-coach for six hours.
People with the disorder often interact with others in inappropriately seductive ways and don’t feel comfortable unless they’re the center of attention, Atkins explained.
According to the National Institutes of Health, histrionic personality disorder occurs more often in women than in men.