Victim #1: “Nowhere Really to Hide” From Sandusky

He graduated from high school on Thursday. Eighteen years old, Sandusky’s alleged victim no. 1 looked younger. Nervous, he sobbed on the witness stand during the morning of the second day in the trial of Jerry Sandusky. At one point, he looked directly in his alleged molester’s eyes. Sandusky remained without expression.

No. 1 came from a troubled home; he never knew his father. His mom’s ex-husband abused her. And his younger sister was bipolar. So when a middle-school teacher recommended he attend the Second Mile summer game, it seemed like a perfect outlet.

No. 1 says that between 2005 and 2006, he spent the night at Sandusky’s more than 100 times and that Sandusky would kiss, caress and massage him. He weighed less than 100 pounds. The touching led to oral sex. Sandusky’s wife, Dottie, was upstairs each time.

“I was extremely confused about what was going on,” he testified. “I didn’t know what to think … I was frozen.”

He said he tried to make it stop. He tried hiding, underneath a table, in closets. But Sandusky found him practically every time. “There was nowhere really to hide,” he testified.

So he started acting out, wetting the bed, making bad grades. By the time he was in ninth grade, he had gone from earning A’s and B’s to practically failing. And one day in high school, the assistant principal came on the loud speaker and asked him to report to the office.

When he arrived, Jerry Sandusky was there, too. They wanted to know why he was acting up. Another time, Sandusky showed up in the parking lot of his high school, no. 1 says. Scared, he started running away from Sandusky, who followed him. He ran into an alley and got away. But when he arrived back at his house, Sandusky was there.

A few weeks later, he asked his mom about the Megan’s Law website. She wanted to know why he was curious. He shrugged her off. She set up a meeting with his guidance counselor. He finally let it out.

But his reports of the incident, as Sandusky’s attorney, Joe Amendola, pointed out, differed. He never alluded to oral sex to authorities until he testified to the Grand Jury. Amendola again questioned if he discussed making money off the case. As no. 4 did, he denied this.