by Bill Moushey
Chapter 18
Civil Lawsuits
As Jerry Sandusky was slowly receding from the headlines, civil suits began to start pouring in against Sandusky, The Second Mile and Penn State. One was from a twenty-nine-year-old man, who had seen coverage of Sandusky’s arrest on network news shows and the cable sports channels. As if in a time machine, he was transported back fifteen years to his time as a Second Mile participant. Then he searched for legal counsel and shared a disturbing secret. He too was one of Jerry’s kids, and the time had come to emerge from the shadows. In his own words he wrote a statement for his lawyers to read on his behalf, after they filed the first lawsuit against Sandusky, on November 30, 2011, in Philadelphia.
“I am the man in this lawsuit and I’m writing this statement and taking this action because I don’t want other kids to be hurt and abused by Jerry Sandusky or anybody like Penn State to allow people like him to do it—rape kids! I never told anybody what he did to me over 100 times at all kinds of places until the newspapers reported that he had abused other kids and the people at Penn State and Second Mile didn’t do the things they should have to protect me and the other kids. I am hurting and have been for a long time because of what happened but feel now even more tormented that I have learned of so many other kids were abused after me. Now that I have told and done something about it I am feeling better and going to get help and work with the police. I want other people who have been hurt to know they can come forward and get help and help protect others in the future.” To protect his identity the statement was attributed to John Doe A.
The message was read at a news conference by the attorneys Marci Hamilton of suburban Philadelphia and Jeffrey Anderson of St. Paul, Minnesota, both nationally known experts on cases involving child sex abuse. Their lawsuit listed Sandusky as a defendant, along with The Second Mile Foundation, Penn State University, and others to be named later. It claimed the university and the charity engaged in a conspiracy of silence after incidents of Sandusky’s pedophilia were twice reported to them. Their inaction enabled Sandusky to abuse more children for years, according to the suit. The lawsuit sought a minimum of $450,000 in damages, plus interest. A day before filing the lawsuit John Doe A’s version of events was turned over to criminal investigators.
For John Doe A, the filing was a cleansing experience. However, he still found it shocking that the grooming he had endured was so similar to the accounts of ten other boys from The Second Mile. According to the lawsuit, John Doe A came from a single-parent household and was living in poverty when he was referred to The Second Mile in 1992, at ten years old and in jeopardy of getting into trouble on the streets. His lawyers would not disclose where he had lived. Things went well for a time, and Sandusky built a trusting relationship with the child’s mother. She believed the well-known Penn State defensive coordinator could be the father figure who could save her son from trouble. Thus groomed herself, she encouraged her son to listen to everything Sandusky had to say.
In John Doe A’s first year in The Second Mile, Sandusky bestowed gifts and opened doors to worlds he could never imagine. Sandusky took him to Penn State football facilities and Nittany Lions’ games, even to one of Penn State’s bowl games. In addition, Sandusky took him to football games played by the Philadelphia Eagles.
Then the relationship changed; the fatherly love and affection turned sexual. Favors and gifts came at a huge price, as the mentor began sexually abusing the boy. John Doe A said he was sexually assaulted more than one hundred times from 1992 to 1996. The assaults occurred in Philadelphia, State College, and outside of Pennsylvania when Penn State traveled to a bowl game. Some of the assaults took place in the Penn State football locker rooms and showers. Others happened in the Sandusky home when the boy was invited to sleep over. He wanted to end the abuse, but he was terrified. According to the lawsuit, John Doe A claimed Sandusky said if he ever told a soul about what was going on, he would harm the young man’s family. He endured the shame and pain of what was happening because he lived in fear. He suffered in silence.
“He was poor,” said Hamilton, his attorney. “Sandusky was the only way he was going to get the kind of attention he was getting, which is typical of a lot of kids.”
The lawsuit claimed it could prove that Jerry Sandusky was enabled by Penn State and The Second Mile dating back to the 1970s. From her talks with other lawyers and people familiar with the Sandusky case, Hamilton believes more young people will come forward to tell similar stories. She has successfully litigated cases against the Catholic Church and other religious orders where adults use their authority over children to abuse them, and she said serial child molesters often amass over one hundred victims.
The lawsuit claimed Sandusky was enabled by years of inaction by the two institutions that should have stopped him: “On multiple occasions, Sandusky’s interest in, among other things, showering with young boys, and secluding himself alone with boys to permit sexual access to the young boys, was known, or should have been known, to officials with Penn State and Second Mile.”
The first warning sign was the 1998 investigation of Sandusky, when Penn State campus police and the state Department of Welfare looked into a complaint by a concerned mother. As described in the lawsuit, “In 1998, an investigation was done into Sandusky’s sexually improper conduct with children. . . . Sandusky admitted to showering naked with children at Penn State, admitted to having naked contact in the showers with children and admitted it was wrong of him to do so. Another possible child victim was identified during the investigation. That child was not contacted, and reasonable actions were not taken.” The filing noted that Sandusky retired as a coach the following year, but nothing was done to limit his access to Penn State football facilities.
Another opportunity to stop abuse occurred in 2000, when a janitor observed Sandusky assaulting a boy in the Penn State football shower room: “While the janitor immediately informed his direct superior about what he saw, no action was taken and those with information about Sandusky’s sexual misconduct with children were discouraged from reporting the incident further.”
The suit also claimed a 2002 incident witnessed by Mike McQueary was silenced in a cover-up. After McQueary reported seeing Sandusky sexually assaulting a ten-year-old in the shower at the Lasch Building, Athletic Director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, the university vice president charged with oversight of the campus police, did little of consequence other than to alert The Second Mile of Sandusky’s behavior. “Neither Penn State nor The Second Mile made any other report about the known sexual contact, and neither Penn State nor The Second Mile took any other action to limit Sandusky’s access to sexually exploit children, to report Sandusky to law enforcement or to ascertain if Sandusky had molested other children through either Penn State or Second Mile. Had such an investigation been done competently, its results reported, and action taken, both Penn State and Second Mile would have learned that Sandusky had been molesting children since at least the late 1970s and many children after 2002 would not have been sexually assaulted by Sandusky.”
Within months of the 2002 report Sandusky turned up as a volunteer football coach at Central Mountain High School in Clinton County, forty miles from State College. Because of a culture of silence at Penn State and The Second Mile, the lawsuit claimed, Sandusky’s sexual assaults continued for six more years, until 2008, when a young man at Central Mountain High reported that the coach had abused him for years.
The lawsuit also claimed “significant social and financial links” between Penn State and The Second Mile that may have contributed to the inaction: “Second Mile traded on . . . Sandusky’s affiliation with Penn State, its football program, and its revered coach Joe Paterno to increase awareness for its programs and to increase participation by youth. Penn State permitted Second Mile to trade on its image, its reputation, its football program, and its facilities and resources in order to enhance Second Mile’s programs and base of donors.” Calling the relationship a colla
boration, the suit described a series of relationships between Penn State and The Second Mile. They included Paterno’s active fundraising efforts for the charity, numerous connections between board members of the charity and university officials, and construction projects at Penn State that provided lucrative contracts for some of The Second Mile’s board members.
The lawsuit said John Doe A “has suffered and continues to suffer great pain of mind and body, shock, emotional distress, physical manifestations of emotional distress, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, humiliation and loss of enjoyment of life.”
A second lawsuit, also filed in Philadelphia, brought even more troubling accusations against Sandusky, Penn State, and The Second Mile. That suit, filed by attorney Charles Schmidt of Harrisburg shortly after John Doe A’s had been filed, said his client was raped in Sandusky’s Penn State football office in 2004, when he was one of The Second Miles’s summer campers. According to the lawsuit, those events occurred two years after Curley prohibited Sandusky from bringing children to Penn State facilities. Sandusky’s attorneys have said he surrendered his keys to the football facilities after he was indicted in November 2011. They assert that the account makes no sense and that it was motivated by possible proceeds from a lawsuit. They did not respond to numerous inquiries for comment.
Several other actions and legal notices have been filed. David Marshall, a lawyer based in Washington, D.C., and a co-counsel for one of the victims, sent letters to child welfare agencies in Centre County requesting that they preserve all records relating to the Sandusky investigation. Letters were also sent to state officials, Curley, Schultz, The Second Mile, and Penn State administrators. In the letters Marshall wrote, “It may have been only Sandusky who laid his hands on these children, but it is clear that a number of other individuals and agencies placed the children in harm’s way by knowingly taking actions that allowed the abuse to continue even after they became fully aware of it.” Marshall and his team of lawyers, which includes Justine Andronici and Andrew Shubin of State College, represent a young man identified as John Doe in the grand jury presentment and possibly others they have yet to identify.
There are at least ten lawyers awaiting the outcome of Sandusky’s criminal prosecution to also file suits against him, Penn State, The Second Mile, and others who might be named in testimony. Under Pennsylvania law there is no hurry. The normal statute of limitations on crime is two years, but in child abuse cases, if the accusers are under the age of eighteen when the crimes occur—as is the case with all of Sandusky’s alleged victims who have come forward—they have until they turn thirty to file suit. The first case was filed quickly because the young men had nearly reached the age bar. Lawyers for the rest of the accusers can continue to amass evidence from the criminal prosecution because none of the individuals who claimed abuse has reached the cutoff age.
The only other legal issue that could bar civil actions regards whether or not Penn State and its employees qualify for sovereign immunity under state law. Under that provision, the state and its agencies can’t be sued for damages. Immunity is waived when an agent of the state, which would include any Penn State employees embroiled in the scandal, committed crimes during the process.
Lawyers have asked a judge in Centre County to prevent The Second Mile from disbursing any of its assets until the legal issues are settled. Attorney Ben Andreozzi settled a lawsuit with The Second Mile over an injunction he filed to stop it from divesting itself of almost $9 million in assets after the charity agreed to refrain from any such actions until the criminal prosecution unfolded.
Among other legal actions, a former board member of The Second Mile charity sued it over its failure to return $250,000 toward the building of a learning center. Construction for the 45,000-square-foot center was halted after the scandal erupted. As a result Lance Shaner demanded the return of his donations. “We will review the lawsuit and respond appropriately when we have done so, continuing to adhere to our legal responsibilities in the process,” said The Second Mile’s spokesman Eric Herman in a statement following the suit’s filing. “Our primary focus remains helping the children of our communities; we’re evaluating the future of our programs so those kids can continue to benefit.”
The Second Mile has said it is trying to determine its options. One is to restructure its organization to keep programs going at a reduced level. Another is to transfer its programs to another entity involved in child welfare. Shutting the thirty-five-year-old charity down completely is also on the table. For the moment the charity is closed until further notice. Herman put out a press release in November 2011 expressing sadness and describing the plans going forward: “To this end, we are working with our supporters and partners to let them have a voice in how we move forward. As we do so, the victims and their families will remain foremost in our thoughts and prayers. Ultimately, it is the children who matter.”
NOTE: AS THIS BOOK WAS going to press, McKean County senior judge John Cleland ruled to allow Jerry Sandusky, who is under house arrest pending trial, supervised visits with his eleven grandchildren. But the mother of three of those grandchildren, Jill Thomas, said she does not feel comfortable allowing her former father-in-law to see her three sons. “I cannot understand how a court could place the desires of someone who is criminally charged with sexually abusing children above the safety of children,” Thomas said in statement released on February 13, 2012.
Thomas is the ex-wife of Sandusky’s son, Matthew, with whom she is in a custody battle over her three boys. She claims that her five-year-old son told her that his grandfather had “inappropriately touched” him, but said in a statement that authorities who investigated the allegation told her there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges.
Thomas said in a statement, “I was also advised . . . that the psychologist who investigated the case had concerns about what had happened to my son and could not rule out that Jerry Sandusky was grooming my son for sexual abuse.”
Sandusky’s lawyer, Joe Amendola, said the allegations were prompted by the custody battle and were baseless. He hailed the judge’s ruling to allow his client visitation with his grandchildren and said Jerry, Dottie, and their family were satisfied with the visitation ruling. “Jerry is also happy he can now have visitation from his longtime friends with prior approval of the Probation Department, and will be able to continue to use the deck to his home to exercise, and care for and supervise his dog, Bo, when Bo is in the yard,” Amendola said in a statement after the judge’s February 13 ruling.
Neighbors and parents of students who attend the elementary school behind Sandusky’s home have voiced concerns that Sandusky seems to be observing the playground when he is outside.
“The commonwealth failed to present any evidence whatsoever that the defendant presents a clearly defined threat to any student at the adjoining elementary school simply by being on his deck,” Judge Cleland wrote in his ruling. “No evidence was presented that at any time the defendant made any effort to contact any of the children by signaling or calling to them, or that he made any gestures directed toward them, or that he acted in any inappropriate way whatsoever.”
Judge Cleland has said that he is aiming for a May 14, 2012, trial date, although that is considered extremely ambitious due to various legal hurdles that exist before a jury will hear evidence. As far as Jill Thomas and Matt Sandusky’s three children are concerned, a legal guardian appointed to represent the interests of the children has submitted a letter to Judge Cleland indicating the boys would like to see their grandfather, but the judge hearing their custody battle will make the decision.
Epilogue
Marci Hamilton earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Penn State University, but she was more than just an interested alumna as she monitored the memorial service for Coach Joe Paterno. She is a nationally known lawyer who has represented victims of child abuse committed by priests of the Catholic Church and other religious orders, and she represents the cl
ient who filed the first civil suit against Jerry Sandusky, The Second Mile, and Penn State.
What stood out in her mind from the January 2012 memorial was that not a single word was said about the young men who have told investigators they were sexually abused by Sandusky. In her view not enough attention had been paid to Paterno’s own words, his admission that he wished he had done more in 2002 after Mike McQueary came to him with a disturbing account of a crime against a child. Sadly, Monday-morning quarterbacking was not an option, and the subsequent damage because of the inaction had already been done. “It was very sad that even though everyone at the memorial service was thinking Sandusky and the cover-up, nobody said a word during it,” Hamilton said in an interview.
At the memorial’s conclusion she posted comments on her Facebook and Twitter accounts to console all survivors of abuse: “Don’t feel bad at all. You are not being re-victimized. Many of us are thinking of you. Justice will prevail.”
Hamilton said sex abuse victims all over the nation were outraged by Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight’s comments defending Joe Paterno. A grassroots movement has begun to boycott Nike gear in response. Among those participating in the boycott are members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the oldest and most active nonprofit support group for men and women wounded by religious authority figures. In Hamilton’s mind, the insularity at Penn State is similar to the insularity present in the Catholic Church. In that institution, when allegations of abuse where made, the suspected offenders were often removed from the place where the abuse occurred and transferred to a new location, only to abuse again.
Jennifer Storm, the executive director of the Victim/Witness Assistance Program in Harrisburg, is also a Penn State graduate. For two years of her time on campus she lived directly behind Joe Paterno’s house in State College and walked by the residence many times on her way to and from campus. One wall in her office in the Dauphin County Courthouse in Harrisburg is adorned with her Penn State diploma and a picture of the Nittany Lion monument. She also monitored the memorial service and found it lacking.
