Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky enters the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa.
BELLEFONTE, Pa. â€" The first witness in the Jerry Sandusky trial spent Monday meticulouslyâ€"and often uncomfortablyâ€"describing his relationship with the former Penn State football coach that allegedly resulted in over 50 different acts of sexual abuse.
The now 28-year-old man, identified by prosecutors as "Victim 4," told of how Sandusky nurtured a relationship with him in his teenage years, granting him inside access to the Penn State football program and lavishing him with a number of gifts while at the same time engaging in multiple acts of abuse.
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Prosecutors say Victim 4 was introduced to Sandusky in July of 1997 while participating in a summer camp held on the campus of Penn State by Second Mile, Sandusky's charity. Within two weeks, Sandusky had befriended the witness, inviting him to a number of recreational events, including a picnic where the witness met Sandusky's family.
Over the course of the next few months, Sandusky and the witness continued to meet on campus for recreational purposes, where prosecutors say he and Sandusky would share showers in the East Hall locker room, a practice facility used by Penn State football players.
The witness says he and Sandusky would "horse around" and "play boxing" in the shower, and Sandusky would escalate the incidences, groping the witness or prodding the witness into touching or washing Sandusky inappropriately.
Defense lawyer Joe Amendola countered the man's claims, saying he is financially motivated by civil lawyers that reached out to him before the commonwealth's case was announced. The witness said he has yet to pay anyone for any legal services associated with the case.
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The alleged shower incidents continued into the winter of 1998, where the witness says "two to three times a week" Sandusky would inappropriately touch him or pin him to the shower floor in order to sexually assault him.
The witness also described another alleged incident where the witness accompanied Sandusky on a bowl trip to Texas, where Sandusky threatened to send him back to Pennsylvania if he did not perform oral sex on him in a hotel bathroom.
The witness said the access to the Penn State football team, the lavish gifts Sandusky bought him, and the fear he faced due to the alleged abuse were what kept him silent.
"I didn't want to lose all that," the man said.
However, as Sandusky tried to involve himself more in the witness's life, the boy began to pull away. Sandusky tried to have the witness sign up for an alleged Second Life program, where the witness would be paid for good grades at school. Mark McGann, Assistant Program Director with Second Life, told the jury later in the day that the mentoring program was never sanctioned by anyone at the charity.
The man eventually began to ignore Sandusky's alleged advances, and did not begin cooperating with police until his biological father alerted him to the grand jury investigation in 2010.
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