STATE COLLEGE — The wife of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky says she “definitely” believes her husband is innocent despite his conviction of the sexual abuse of 10 boys.

Dottie Sandusky said in an interview broadcast today on NBC's “Today” show that she would have heard abuse had it occurred in their small house in State College.

She denied being a “weak spouse” and said she believes her husband's accusers had been manipulated “once the lawyers came into the case.”

She said in the interview recorded Monday she believed her husband showered with children but “that's the generation that Jerry grew up in.”

Jerry Sandusky is serving a 30- to 60-year sentence. He has repeatedly said he is innocent and has appealed to the state Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON — Authorities say a former Ukrainian champion figure skater was killed in the crash of a small plane at a southwestern Pennsylvania airport.Officials said 52-year-old Igor Novodran of Upper St. Clair was practicing touch-and-go landings when the plane crashed near the runway at Washington County Airport shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday.The Allegheny County medical examiner's office said Novodran was flown to UPMC-Presbyterian hospital, where he died about an hour and a half later.Fire crews said the front of the 1998 Avid Bandit aircraft was destroyed and the cockpit badly damaged.Novodran, a Ukrainian National Champion skater in his youth, had in recent years coached skaters in international competitions.

PITTSBURGH — A federal judge has denied a bid to reduce the sentence of a former Western Pennsylvania police chief convicted of conspiring to create an unauthorized slush fund.Former Pittsburgh police chief Nathan Harper was sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay almost $32,000 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit theft from a federal funded program and failure to file tax returns.Defense attorney Milton Raiford argued Tuesday that his 61-year-old client should have entered into a plea agreement and asked the judge to consider his repentance.