Sandusky son tells his story
HARRISBURG — Hearing the first victim to take the witness stand against Jerry Sandusky helped push the former Penn State coach’s adopted son Matthew to come forward with his own allegations of abuse, he said in a television interview.
Matthew Sandusky said in a Thursday broadcast of “Oprah Prime” that he recognized elements of his own abuse when he sat through testimony by a young man described in court as Victim 4, someone he knew better than any of the other seven who testified at the trial. Sandusky was convicted of various types of abuse involving 10 boys, including all eight who testified.
“But his story isn’t his story — it’s my story,” Matthew Sandusky told Oprah Winfrey about Victim 4. “At this point, that’s where the door really opened up and it kind of just hit me from every single detail that this man is talking about.”
He said he wonders if it wouldn’t have been easier to simply keep quiet and not turn against his adopted father, knowing it would alienate family members who helped him in many ways over the years.
Winfrey asked him how people can know that what he’s saying is true and not an adaptation of Victim 4’s experience. “I would say my story has been well-documented,” he said. “And if you really want to find out what my story is and you really can objectively look at it, it’s in the record.”
Matthew Sandusky said the sexual abuse by his adopted father consisted of oral sex, a more serious allegation than he made to detectives two years ago.
The claim of oral sex was specifically denied in an audiotape of his 29-minute interview with police detectives that NBC obtained at the time of Jerry Sandusky’s 2012 trial.
Matt Sandusky told investigators two years ago that Jerry Sandusky had rubbed along or against his genitals but that he did not recall any penetration or oral sex. He said then that he was getting therapy and memories were coming back to him.
He was not called to testify in court, and Jerry Sandusky has not been charged with any crime in relation to his adopted son.
Matt Sandusky is among those who have shared in $60 million worth of civil settlements with Penn State.
