Jerry Sandusky's son Jeffrey Sandusky awaits hearing on child sex solicitation charges
BELLEFONTE, Pa. -- A son of former Penn State University assistant coach Jerry Sandusky has been jailed as he awaits a hearing on charges he pressured a teenage girl to send him naked photos and asked her teen sister to give him oral sex.
Jeffrey Sandusky, 41, was arrested Monday, more than five years after his father was arrested in a child molestation case that shook Penn State and is still working its way through criminal and civil courts.
He faces 14 counts, including solicitation of statutory sexual assault and solicitation of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. His lawyer isn’t commenting on the allegations.
One of six adopted children of Jerry Sandusky, Jeffrey Sandusky has been a stalwart supporter of his father, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for sexual abuse of 10 boys.
He regularly attended his father’s court proceedings alongside his mother, Dottie Sandusky, who also has consistently supported her husband and fought to clear his name.
Jeffrey Sandusky, a state prison guard, knew the girls through their mother, authorities said.
A state trooper said in the arrest affidavit that on Nov. 21, their father turned over to investigators text messages from Sandusky in which he asked one of the girls for nude photographs. Investigators obtained the messages and confirmed the account, the DA says.
“All children have a right to feel safe,” Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller said in the statement. “We will prosecute this case as aggressively as we do all child abuse cases.”
The affidavit said Sandusky told the teen in texts in March that “it’s not weird because he studied medicine” and instructed her “to not show these texts to anyone.”
The girl’s mother told investigators that when she confronted Sandusky, he told her “he knows it was wrong and inappropriate,” police said.
The girl told police the texts made her uncomfortable and that “he kept pressuring me and asked me multiple times not to show the texts to anyone,” police said.
In the affidavit obtained by CBS affiliate WTAJ, police say the victim responded to Jeffrey Sandusky: “No we don’t need to talk, and we aren’t going to...you literally tried to guilt me into doing it and you even told me specifically what I ‘needed’ to do. You know who does that? Rapists and abusers.”
Prosecutors allege Jeffrey Sandusky sought oral sex from the other girl in 2013. She was 15 years old at the time.
That teen told investigators that Jeffrey Sandusky told her in March: “I can’t even say anything except I’m sorry.”
Richard Gelles, chair of child welfare and family violence at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice, gave the teen accuser credit for reporting the alleged contact.
“This girl was mature beyond her years, and smart beyond her years, and certainly not vulnerable to the kind of grooming that predators tend to use,” he said.
Gelles said adult men who seek sexual contact with adolescent girls are seeking power over them and can’t have a mature relationship with another adult.
The state Corrections Department said that because of the charges, Jeffrey Sandusky was suspended without pay Monday from employment as a corrections officer at Rockview State Prison, near State College. He was hired in August 2015.
Jeffrey Sandusky was arraigned Monday and jailed on $200,000 bail. He is reportedly prohibited from any contact with minors and was ordered to surrender his passport. A preliminary hearing was set for Wednesday, WTAJ reports.
One of Jeffrey Sandusky’s siblings, Matt Sandusky, alleged at the time of their father’s 2012 criminal trial that he had been abused by him. Matt Sandusky was not called as a witness, and Jerry Sandusky has never been charged with those allegations. Jeffrey Sandusky has not made any public allegations of abuse by his father.
Jerry Sandusky maintains he was wrongly convicted and is appealing.
