Just when you think this story can’t possibly get any worse, horrible and heartbreaking new details emerge. Just a short while ago, lawyers for Matt Sandusky, Jerry Sandusky’s 33-year-old adopted son, issued a statement that Matt had been abused and that he had been prepared to testify against his father.
More from the Associated Press:
“During the trial, Matt Sandusky contacted us and requested our advice and assistance in arranging a meeting with prosecutors to disclose for the first time in this case that he is a victim of Jerry Sandusky’s abuse,” Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici wrote in the statement. “At Matt’s request, we immediately arranged a meeting between him and the prosecutors and investigators.
“This has been an extremely painful experience for Matt and he has asked us to convey his request that the media respect his privacy. There will be no further comment.”
“Extremely painful” is putting it mildly. We can’t even begin to imagine the extent of the emotional trauma Matt suffered at the hands of his adoptive father.
Matt Sandusky went to live with Sandusky and his wife, Dottie, as a foster child and was adopted by them as an adult.
Shortly after the former coach’s arrest in November, Matt Sandusky’s ex-wife went to court to keep her former father-in-law away from their three young children. Jill Jones successfully obtained a restraining order forbidding the children from sleeping over at their grandparents’ home.
At around the same time, details emerged that Matt Sandusky had attempted suicide just four months after first going to live with the couple in 1995. He had come into the home through The Second Mile charity, which Jerry Sandusky founded, and was first a foster child before being legally adopted.
During testimony last week, an accuser known as Victim 4 said Matt Sandusky was living at the Sandusky home at the time he stayed there overnight.
When asked by prosecutors whether Jerry Sandusky ever engaged him in a soap battle in the showers, he recounted the time when he and Matt Sandusky had been playing racket ball. After they were done, he said, they went back to a locker room. Matt got undressed and got into the shower and then Victim 4 and Sandusky followed him in there, he testified.
“Me and Jerry came in. He started pumping his hand full of soap,” he said.
At that point, Matt shut off his shower and left and went to another locker room to shower, the witness said.
Asked by prosecutors about Matt’s facial expression when the soap battles started, he replied: “Nervous.”
Absolutely vile.
Unlike last week, when Sandusky apologists took to Twitter to voice their support for that sorry excuse for a man, today, the reaction is near-universal disgust:
Can they just go ahead and disembowel Sandusky and hang him over the terrace like Lecter did in Hannibal?
— Flossy (@_Rotten_Apple) June 21, 2012
"…find him guilty of everything"-prosecutor McGettigan…couldn't have said it better #Sandusky #justice
— Sarah Fuhrman (@FuhrmanSarah) June 21, 2012
https://twitter.com/ElChosenJuan94/status/215922959905325057
Sandusky abused HIS OWN SON on top of everything else. I mean, how has he not been struck with the fire of a thousand suns?
— ?♼???? (@robhatt) June 21, 2012
Jerry Sandusky's adopted son Matt told prosecutors "he is a victim of Sandusky's abuse" — He deserves to burn in hell.
— Katelyn (@KKinnett) June 21, 2012
https://twitter.com/ConceitedEgo/status/215922959179718656
@ChristinaCBS21 kind of shocked to hear it. Then it dawns on me that it should not come as a surprise. Not one bit. Sandusky is predator.
— JHVI (@JHVI1) June 21, 2012
Sandusky. Serial Pedophile. Liar. Inhuman. Despicable. See the commonality? #ThatsTheShitIDontLike
— kym (@kympossible3) June 21, 2012
https://twitter.com/Dance2myDrum/status/215932091752394752
As if we needed more reasons to be disgusted with Jerry Sandusky. Jesus.
— Blake Spires (@RealFakeBlake) June 21, 2012
https://twitter.com/Shawn__Edward/status/215931981974863872
So there actually WAS a way for the Jerry Sandusky story to get worse.
— Michael Schaub (@michaelschaub) June 21, 2012
Sadly, yes.
Think about the frightening message it would send to children being abused if Sandusky was awarded w a not guilty verdict.
— Colin Cowherd (@ColinCowherd) June 21, 2012
Hopefully, justice will be done. The man who liked to call himself the Tickle Monster while he abused little boys has absolutely nothing to laugh about. Jerry Sandusky robbed children of their innocence and dignity; he deserves to be punished for his thievery.
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