BELLEFONTE, Pa. -- Prosecutors in the trial against Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant coach accused of sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period, rested their case on Monday.
After a week of grueling testimony, the prosecution capped its argument with testimony from an alleged victim's mother, who said her son would claim he threw away his underwear because of an accident. Last week, the teen said that Sandusky would force him to have anal sex, causing him to bleed.
"I always wondered why he never had any underwear in the laundry," she said. "There was never any underwear, any socks ... that was odd to me."
Also on Monday, the prosecution dropped one of the charges against the former coach.
The decision to drop the charges came early, after Sandusky’s defense attorney, Karl Rominger, made several motions before the court. The defense team asked for more than 20 of the 52 counts against Sandusky, 68, to be dropped, citing a lack of supporting evidence.
Prosecutor Frank Fina agreed to drop count 33 -- a third-degree felony charge of unlawful contact with a minor regarding Accuser #7.
On Wednesday, Accuser #7 testified that he met Sandusky in 1995, when he was 10. He said he often spent the night at Sandusky’s home, where the former coach would touch him and sometimes 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.”
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Key Figures In Penn State Scandal
The accuser testified the incidents took place between 1995 and 1996. The unlawful contact statute did not become a law in Pennsylvania until 1997.
The prosecution argued all other charges should stand, saying the evidence clearly paints the picture of a “serial abuser.”
The jury was not in the courtroom during the arguments.
Judge John M. Cleland acknowledged count 33 had been dropped, but denied all of the other defense motions. Cleland said the jury has been provided with sufficient circumstantial evidence.
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