Victim No. 2 – the abused boy witnessed by Mike McQueary that eventually led to the demise of arrest of Jerry Sandusky, the demise of the legacy of Joe Paterno and harsh sanctions to the Penn State football program – has come forward after months out of the pubic spotlight.
And he has come seeking some form of retribution from the school for the heinous acts committed on him by Sandusky, the former assistant coach convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse.
The man’s lawyers said Thursday they have done an extensive investigation and gathered “overwhelming evidence” on details of the abuse by Sandusky, who used his now-disbanded Second Mile program to recruit victims and the Penn State campus to abuse them.
Jurors convicted Sandusky last month of offenses related to so-called Victim 2 largely on the testimony of McQueary, who was a team graduate assistant at the time and witnessed Sandusky’s assault on the youth in the shower of the football training building.
“Our client has to live the rest of his life not only dealing with the effects of Sandusky’s childhood sexual abuse, but also with the knowledge that many powerful adults, including those at the highest levels of Penn State, put their own interests and the interests of a child predator above their legal obligations to protect him,” the lawyers said in a news release.
They did not name their client. The university said it was taking the case seriously but would not comment on pending litigation.
Penn State president Rodney Erickson and the board of trustees, a school spokesman said, “have publicly emphasized that their goal is to find solutions that rest on the principle of justice for the victims.”
Trust that Victim No. 2 will not be the only one Sandusky damaged that will come forward seeking financial restitution.
The statement from the man’s attorneys said Victim 2 suffered “extensive sexual abuse over many years both before and after the 2001 incident Michael McQueary witnessed.”
McQueary testified in December at a hearing that he had seen Sandusky and a boy, both naked, in a team shower after hearing skin-on-skin slapping sounds.
“I would have described that it was extremely sexual and I thought that some kind of intercourse was going on,” McQueary said.
McQueary reported the abuse to school officials, including Paterno, but none of them told police. In a recent report conducted by former FBI director Louis Freeh and commissioned by Penn State, the investigators excoriated Paterno and the other administrators for not attempting to identify Victim 2, saying it showed “a striking lack of empathy.”
Trustees fired Paterno, who since has died, because he failed to do more about claims against Sandusky, and the scathing independent review said several top school officials looked the other way because they were afraid of bad publicity.
