The ever-developing case of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky and the allegations of 40 counts of sexual activity with children may have just taken another dark turn -- one that could beg further questions as to why Sandusky wasn’t arrested sooner.
The Patriot News, who has been on top of the Sandusky story, reports that two more cases of alleged child abuse against Sandusky have been opened by Children and Youth Services in Pennsylvania. Both of alleged victims are still under 18 years of age and the cases were reported less than 60 days ago.
Prior to the two new cases, the only known alleged victims who came forward have been adults.
The first of those victims, known in the 23-page grand jury indictment of Sandusky as “Victim 1", came forward in 2008 and alleged that Sandusky had sexually abused him. At the time, Sandusky was a volunteer football coach at Central Mountain High School and had frequent contact with the boy at that location. However, instead of initially arresting Sandusky, police opened a grand jury investigation. For the first 15 months of that investigation, only one state trooper was assigned to the case. The Patriot-News explains:It wasn’t until the fall of 2010 that agents from the state Attorney General’s office got involved, and then when then-Attorney General Tom Corbett was elected Governor and took office in January 2011, he appointed state police commissioner Frank Noonan, who increased the number of investigators to eight.
That was when things really started to take off. It wasn’t until January 2011 that Joe Paterno, fomer athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz testified. It wasn’t until April that officials from The Second Mile testified.
None of the other seven cases of alleged abuse, outlined in the grand jury presentment, were known until more investigators joined the team.
This report from the Patriot News dated Nov. 13 gives a more detailed account of the series of events involving “Victim 1" and the grand jury investigation.
Earlier this month, Corbett said “we must keep in mind that when it comes to the safety of children, there can be no margin of error, no hesitation to act.”
He also answered the following from the Patriot News:In response to questions about the length of the investigation, Corbett said yesterday:
“The one thing you do not want to do as a prosecutor is go on one case. ... You want to show a continued course of action.”
If a first set of charges are filed early and “you were to lose that one case, it would be much more difficult to bring charges in other cases because it would be seen by you, by the public, as vindictive,” he added.
It was only after the assistant principal/head football coach of the high school that “Victim 1" attended learned of the allegations against Sandusky in 2008 that Sandusky was barred from the school district attended by “Victim 1". Likewise, it was only after Sandusky informed his charity Second Mile that he was under investigation for allegations child-sex abuse that he was barred from activities with children, according to charity officials.
However, the grand jury report states that Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, currently on administrative leave while he faces perjury charges in the case, informed Second Mile Executive Director Jack Raykovitz of the alleged 2002 incident involving “Victim 2".
Raykovitz recently resigned from his position with Second Mile.
Sandusky’s lawyer, Joe Amendola, told ABC News that he anticipates more charges to be filed against Sandusky, although he did not specifically mention if any additional charges would be filed by the two new cases. If prosecutors bring new charges from additional accusing victims, Sandusky could have his bail revoked and be jailed.