BELLEFONTE, Pa. -- For the third day in a row, the jury in the Jerry Sandusky child molestation trial heard graphic testimony from accusers who alleged that they were sexually abused more than a decade ago at the hands of the former Penn State assistant coach.
"I felt his body on my back. I kept lurching forward, but I didn't have any more room to go. I kind of turned away and felt his arm on me, and he touched my genitalia. Then he took my hand and placed it on his," Accuser #5 testified in court today as he fought back tears.
The names of the accusers are being withheld, although they are testifying in open court.
The 23-year-old said he decided to come forward after first telling his girlfriend last year about the alleged 2001 sexual assault by the former Penn State assistant football coach. "I wanted to forget and I was embarrassed," he said, to explain why he had not spoken out sooner.
Sandusky, 68, faces 52 criminal counts related to the alleged assaults of 10 boys over a 15-year period. Prosecutor Joseph McGettigan III has referred to Sandusky as a "serial predator." Sandusky maintains his innocence.
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Key Figures In Penn State Scandal
*captions via AP
Earlier Wednesday, Accuser #10, a 25-year-old man, said he was 11 in 1998 when Sandusky repeatedly invited him to his house and bought him presents. The niceties, however, were costly, he said, explaining some of the price tags involved oral sex.
Like Accuser #5, Accuser #10 said he was, "ashamed ... embarrassed" and scared. "He told me if I ever told anyone, I'd never see my family again," Accuser #10 testified.
Many of the allegations made from the different accusers were similar.
Accuser #7 said he met Sandusky in 1995, when he was 10. "At that age I was very, very scrawny, very lean ... and Jerry was three or four times my size, it seemed."
He often spent the night at Sandusky's home, he said, and it was not long before the former coach began touching him. He said Sandusky sometimes would try to cuddle with him in bed. "To this day, I am sort of repulsed by chest hair now ... I just remember the feeling of it pressed up against my back," Accuser #7 testified. "For whatever reason, it just made me hate it. I just have this thing now where I hate chest hair."
Like the others, he did not know what to do. "It was not something I wanted my family or anyone to know ... I chose to block that stuff out and focus on the positive," he said.
Earlier Wednesday, John McQueary, father of Penn State former assistant coach Mike McQueary, took the witness stand. Mike McQueary previously testified that he saw Sandusky in the shower with a boy in 2001, and according to grand jury documents, he told his father about the incident.
McQueary corroborated his son's testimony and detailed a phone call he received from his son. He said his son was distraught and said something like, "I saw Coach Sandusky in the shower with a boy."
McQueary said his son was uncomfortable discussing what he allegedly saw, but, "you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand what happened in that shower."
He also testified that a couple of months after the discussion with his son, he met with University Vice President Gary Schultz about the alleged shower incident and that Schultz told him that he "heard noise about this before."
Penn State janitor Ron Petrosky also testified that in 2000, he encountered former coworker Jim Calhoun, who now suffers from dementia and is unable to testify, and that Calhoun told him he had seen Sandusky making a boy perform oral sex on him. Petrosky said Calhoun was shaking and "white as a ghost."
The janitorial supervisor, Jay Witherite, is expected to testify Thursday.
The Commonwealth played parts of a 2011 interview between Bob Costas and Sandusky in court, during which the former coach denied the locker room incident.
"You say you're not a pedophile ... but you have continuously put yourself around young boys. How do you account for these things," Costas asks.
Sandusky replies, "Well, I am a person who has taken a strong interest in trying to make a difference in the lives of some young people. I have worked very hard to try to connect with them ... to be something significant in their lives."
Judge John M. Cleland told the jury Wednesday that the Commonwealth will be done presenting its case by Friday. So far, five of the eight alleged victims expected to testify have taken the stand.