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Sandusky Sentenced to 30–60 Years
Gene J. Puskar / AP Photo
Victims speak in court.
Time to face the music. Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was sentenced Tuesday to 30 to 60 years in prison for 45 counts of child abuse. Judge John Cleland could have sentenced Sandusky to up to 400 years, but Cleland said that this sentence “has the unmistakable impact of saying the rest of your life.” Sandusky opted not to speak at his trial, but apparently had been crafting a statement while in jail and told the judge on Tuesday that he has “been kissed by dogs, been bit my dogs. I've been me.” Five of his victims either spoke or had messages read for them at the sentencing, with one victim saying “I want you to know that I don’t forgive you and I don’t know that I will ever forgive you.”
Latest Updates
Sandusky’s Jailhouse Interview
Gene J. Puskar/AP
The infamous shower incident didn’t happen as we thought, according to a new documentary teased on the ‘Today’ show. Caroline Linton on what Sandusky said from behind bars.
John Ziegler is at it again.In a much-touted Today show interview Monday morning, the conservative radio host and documentary filmmaker revealed excerpts from a jailhouse interview with convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky which he claims will help exonerate the late Joe Paterno, the famed Penn State football coach whose role in the sexual-abuse scandal ended his career.The Daily Beast breaks down Ziegler and Sandusky’s claims—and whether you should believe them.
Inside Sandusky’s New Home
Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo
Pennsylvania wrote the book on prison reform—and now the state’s penal system will take in one of the world’s most public sex offenders. From the birthplace of the term ‘penitentiary’ to current inmates’ 13-inch televisions, The Daily Beast rounds up some fun facts about Jerry Sandusky’s new home.
After Tuesday’s sentencing it is clear that Jerry Sandusky will spend the rest of his life in prison. The final question looms, where? Anywhere in Pennsylvania, and he should count himself lucky. In the state that founded the American prison system—and then virtually wrote the book on its reform—he is likely to get better treatment than anywhere else in the United States. As the PA prison system awaits its newest lifer, here are eight fun facts.
‘The Rest of Your Life’
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Jerry Sandusky, the disgraced ex–Penn State coach, was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison for 45 counts of child abuse. In a tearful statement, he launched into a soliloquy about seeing himself free again playing with children, balloons, and dogs. Diane Dimond reports.
It was a very different Jerry Sandusky who entered the Centre County Courtroom to hear his sentence today. Gone was the smile, swagger, and "gee whiz" attitude seen during his child molestation trial. Today he appeared much thinner, ashen, stooped. His dark red prison issued pants and shirt hung loosely on his frame."I'm not going to sentence you to centuries in prison," Judge John Cleland announced in his deep baritone.
Sandusky, the Sequel
Gene J. Puskar / AP Photo
The convicted ex-coach heads to court Tuesday to hear his sentence. Diane Dimond reports on the new accusers who have stepped forward since the trial—including his own adopted son, whose birth mother speaks exclusively about why Matt Sandusky is remaining silent. Plus, local law enforcement’s fears of keeping Sandusky safe from vengeful attacks, and what he’s been up to in jail.
No matter what sentence is ultimately imposed upon 68-year-old Jerry Sandusky, it seems likely the former Penn State football coach will die in prison. The challenge for local law enforcement tasked with transporting him from the Centre County Correctional Facility to the Bellefonte, Penn., courthouse on Tuesday is to keep him alive long enough to hear the sentence. “My big concern is that we get him in and out of there without someone shooting him,” Sheriff Denny Nau told The Daily Beast.
Sandusky Voicemails Released
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Penn State may face civil lawsuit soon.
Lawyers for one of Jerry Sandusky’s victims released on Thursday two voicemails the former coach left for their client in September 2011. In one message, it appears as though Sandusky, who was convicted in June of sexually abusing several boys, is asking whether the victim would like to go to a Penn State game. Both messages allegedly end with the phrase “love you.” The attorneys said the voicemails showed that Sandusky was trying to exert control over his victims and announced they will be filing a civil lawsuit against Penn State because the university facilitated Sandusky’s criminal acts.
Will the Penn State Sanctions Work?
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Probably not, argues college sports critic Murray Sperber. The cult of the football coach will return to Happy Valley unless Penn State takes stronger action.
Since the publication of the Freeh Report, colleagues and students at the University of California, Berkeley, where I teach, have asked me how the cover-up at Penn State that Freeh describes could have occurred. I reply that if they had ever lived in an isolated college town like State College, Pennsylvania, or Bloomington, Indiana, where I lived for thirty years during the reign of Bob Knight as men’s basketball coach, they would have some insight into what occurred at Penn State.
Paterno Was a Dictator
Gene J. Puskar / AP Photos
Buzz Bissinger says Penn State alumni will whine and wallow in self-pity after the NCAA punishment, but the culture of college football needs to be banished—too bad it’s too late.
The statue of Joe Paterno has been removed, covered in a blue tarpaulin and carted off into the dust and dark of storage. There was always something strange and eerie about that statue, the smiling and bespectacled presence of the legendary coach emblazoned into bronze, as if Penn State wasn’t an academic institution at all but a kind of football theme park, Welcome to JoePa Land.A man of lesser ego would never have permitted a statue to be built of him.
The NCAA’s Stale Father Figure Shtick
Getty Images; AP Photo
Emmert, unable to rely upon the NCAA's rule book for justification, took to the bully pulpit and bullied, righteously, writes David Roth.
Punishment arrived Monday for Penn State, in the way that punishment tends to arrives in big-time college sports: via stern words spoken by serious white men at a press conference.Every game that the football team won between 1998 and 2011 would be stricken from the record books, decreed NCAA Commissioner Mark Emmert. The school lost of 10 of its 25 football scholarships in each of the next four years and would be banned from playing in bowl games during each of those years; it was fined $60 million dollars, with that money going toward a fund dedicated to helping the victims of child abuse.
Penn State Sanctions: The Internet Reacts
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Everyone has an opinion on the Penn State sanctions. Students are furious. For alumni, it's a bit more complicated. See their tweets.
Insta-reactions came quick Monday morning in the moments after NCAA president Mark Emmert gave word that the Penn State Football program would suffer greatly for its enabling of the crimes committed by once-assistant couch Jerry Sandusky.The school was fined $60 million, its team is now banned from playing bowl or postseason games for the next four years, and any wins obtained under Joe Paterno since 1998 were wiped clean off the record—stripping the former coach of his 'most winningest' football coach title for good.
Penn State’s Life Sentence
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Today’s NCAA punishments, while crippling, are only the beginning. Kevin Cirilli on the battle brewing off the field—impending legal action against ousted president Graham Spanier.
Hell hath no fury like a football fan scorned. This morning in Indianapolis, the NCAA stripped Penn State’s wins from 1998 through 2011, bombed it with a $60 million fine, yanked its scholarships, banned it from bowl games for four years, and opened the floodgates for current players to transfer. It wasn’t the death penalty. It was a life sentence. (Read the NCAA’s full statement here.)“Football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing, and protecting young people,” said NCAA president Mark Emmert.
Forget About Football!
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The NCAA came down on Penn State for its ‘conspiracy of silence,’ levying a $60 million fine. Sexual-abuse survivor Daleen Berry is grateful—but can we stop talking about Paterno now?
Jerry Sandusky is gone, locked away in jail. Joe Paterno—the man and the statue—is gone. But Penn State football has been narrowly spared.Today the NCAA hammered the university where it hurts the most: in the pocketbook and on the playing field. NCAA president Mark Emmert announced a $60 million fine that must go to help sex-abuse victims. He also said the Nittany Lions are ineligible to play in postseason games for the next four years. In addition to these and other sanctions, the college also forfeits all 112 football wins from 1998 to 2011.
Penn State Fined $60M
Gene J. Puskar / AP Photo
Football team banned from bowl games; wins vacated.
Penn State will be fined $60 million—one year’s worth of revenue from the football team—which will go toward foundations to help victims and the prevention of sexual abuse, the NCAA announced today. Its football team will also be banned from bowl games and any other postseason games for the next four years, and the number of scholarships provided for Penn State athletes will be reduced from 25 to 15 for the next four years. Any students entering or returning on a scholarship will be given the option to transfer schools. Also, wins between 1998 and 2011 will be vacated. The NCAA president acknowledged that the “death penalty,” or suspending the entire program, will not be used.
The Statue Had to Go
John Beale / AP Photo
Penn State has finally removed a campus statue of tarnished football coach Joe Paterno. Recent grad Kevin Cirilli watched it come down with relief. But there's more to be done, he writes.
Gone. Just after 6 a.m. this morning, interim Penn State president Rodney Erickson ordered that the campus’s iconic statue of Joe Paterno be removed. A handful of students scrambled to take a final picture. “He did so much for our university,” senior Stephen Sywy, who was the last person to pose with the statue, told me.“Clear the area,” a policeman told them. “Get off the road.” Four Dumpster-size trucks blocked the area. Dozens of construction workers, in fluorescent safety vests and white hard hats, fenced the area, draping blue tarp to block the media’s prying eyes.
Penn State Trustee Chair Resigns
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Steve Garban is former senior VP of university.
The chairman of the Penn State Board of Trustees, Steve Garban, resigned Thursday night—the first of the Board to quit amid the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse scandal. Since the scandal erupted last year, four have left the 32-member Board of Trustees—three when their time expired and one was voted out by alumni. Graban has been criticized after it came to light that former university president Graham Spanier gave Graban a heads up about the Sandusky presentment days before charges were filed. Graban has been on the Board of Trustees since 1998 and also served as the university’s senior vice-president / treasurer. He graduated from the university in 1959.
Penn State’s Next Battle
Gene J. Puskar / AP Photo
Three new accusers reportedly date Jerry Sandusky's abuse back to the '70s. Diane Dimond on why more victims are sure to emerge—and how cops can tell if they’re just cashing in.
It comes as absolutely no surprise to anyone that three more men have reportedly surfaced to accuse Jerry Sandusky of abusing them when they were children in the '70s and '80s. If their stories are true, these men represent the earliest know cases against the former Penn State coach, who would have been in his 20s at the time.Sandusky joined the Penn State’s football coaching staff in 1969. He started his Second Mile charity in 1977; because he had such ready access to children for so many years, mental-health experts who work with survivors of childhood abuse predict this latest trio of alleged victims may be just the tip of the iceberg.
Private
Penn State's Secretive Culture
We Are All Penn State
It wasn't just university leadership that enabled Jerry Sandusky. It was a system that discourages rocking the boat at all costs.
Shrouded
Penn State's Veil of Secrecy
Shellshocked
Penn State Begins Soul-Searching
Entitled
Why Penn State Is So Powerful
Sandusky: The Lawyers Speak
After Jerry Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse, both his lawyer and the prosecutor who put him away spoke about the case.
Full Coverage
Dispatches from the Sandusky Trial
Sandusky Guilty
It took 21 hours for a jury to find the ex-Penn State coach guilty on 45 of 48 charges.
Day Eight
Sandusky Son's Bombshell
Day Seven
Sandusky’s Last Mile
Day Six
Dottie Defends Her Man
Day Five
Sandusky Defense Flails
Day Four
‘Was Mrs. Sandusky Home?’
Day Three
Sandusky Gets Steamrolled
Jerry Sandusky Speaks Out
Jerry Sandusky spoke to the New York Times at length this weekend and he proved once again that his lawyer is delusional for letting his client anywhere near a video camera.
Tainted
A Coach's Legacy
Paterno’s Lying Ways
Emails from the Penn State probe show JoePa helped decide not to report Jerry Sandusky to authorities—and why ‘liar’ should be added to his legacy, says Buzz Bissinger.
Dottie Sandusky
What Did She Know?
My Husband the Pedophile
Darlene Ellison, the ex-wife of a convicted sex offender, reveals how Dorothy Sandusky may have been kept in the dark.
Shocking Accusation
Did He Molest His Son?
Science
Current Research
What Makes a Pedophile?
As pedophilia cases rivet the nation, psychiatrists uncover new details about the mental illness, Casey Schwartz reports.



