Jerry Sandusky In His Own Words

By now, everyone probably knows the name Jerry Sandusky.  Charged with and found guilty of multiple counts of child molestation, Jerry and his wife Dottie offered some words to the judge just before his sentencing.  CNN published the letter here to go along with the following article:

Letter By Sandusky, Wife Blame Everyone Else

I guess I'm not entirely surprised by the tone because I don't believe Sandusky feels he ever did anything wrong.  His wife must be in a tough emotional spot, I can't imagine what it must feel like to have your spouse accused of one of the worst crimes imaginable.  Luckily my wife only dabbles in the white collar stuff and some light cocaine trafficking.  Reading over the three-page letter from Jerry Sandusky obviously yielded some interesting passages, such as:

I write without expectation or a plea for leniency.  However, I write with hope and resolve to keep fighting for a brighter day.

There were so many people involved with the orchestration of this conviction (media, investigators, prosecutors, "the system," Penn State, and the accusers).  It was well done.  They won!  When I thought about how it transpired, I wondered what they had won.  I thought of the methods, decisions, and allegations.  I relieved (sic) the inconsistent and dishonest testimonies.

Wondering what would happen if the accusers and conspirators were investigated, Sandusky mused:

All of their issues would surface.  They would no longer be these poor, innocent people, as portrayed.  I have been blamed for all of their failures and shortcomings, but nobody mentioned the impact of the people who spent much more time with them than I did.  Nobody mentioned the impact of abandonment, neglect, abuse, insecurity and conflicting messages that the biological parents might have had in this.

That last passage struck me as odd.  Maybe those closer to the victims could have more influence, but those closer to the victims aren't charged with sexually molesting anyone.  Seems like molestation might intensify your influence on someone's life greatly even in the shortest of timespans.

Sandusky's letter goes on to mention conspiracies to protect the "system," it drops a Thoreau quote, and finally talks about a book covering the Rwandan holocaust.  Yes, Sandusky compares himself to a survivor of the Rwandan holocaust:

There was betrayal and murder.  Families turned against one another.  Best friends became enemies.  Those who had been helped at one point in their life sought and killed those who had helped them.  In a lesser way I've experienced this.

In the end, his faith in people is gone but his faith in God remains.

Dottie Sandusky also penned a few pages on her husband's behalf.  It also avoids asking for sympathy, it mentions lost faith in the system, it throws the adopted son who testified against Jerry Sandusky under the bus as a Bipolar off his meds, and unfortunately includes a lot of passages with unintended molestation double entendre:

He is a very up front man.

Jerry always puts others before himself and always wanted to make each person feel special no matter who they were.

Many times he would give up much of his free time, which was not many hours when he was a coach, to make a sporting event of one of the kids he was trying to help.

In the end, there's nothing good to come from this.  The victims get closure seeing Sandusky hauled off to prison for the rest of his life, but that can't change the past.  With appeals, much of the Jerry Sandusky story could be regurgitated multiple times over the next dozen years.  The victims may have to undergo their pain again and again during this process.

Regardless of what you think of Sandusky, his family is shattered.  His wife gets to spend the rest of her life alone except for weekend visiting hours.  Their adopted kids who didn't say they were molested just lost their father for all intents and purposes.  I'm not claiming sympathy for Sandusky, but collateral damage is collateral damage.

In the end, I find this whole saga one of the saddest stories I've heard in a long time.  As a rebuttal to Sandusky's letter, I offer some moments from Bob Costas' interview with Sandusky:

Can Sandusky be a cog in his own grand conspiracy?