V4 at times went into graphic detail of abuse he suffered at the
Defendant's residence, EALR and Lasch. See amended Bill of Particulars below.
At trial, V4 testified to the abuse at Lasch and EALR, along with the bowl trip. But, only to raspberries at the Sandusky residence, not the assaults he claimed previously. Why is that? Was he fearful Matt Sandusky, who was still living in the house at the time, could refute those claims?
FWIW, here are notes on v4 from an observer at the trial.
ALL STORIES EMERGE FROM MEMORY AFTER ATTORNEY/POLICE COERCION
V4/BH 09/09/1983
Attorney: Benjamin Andreozzi
In photo with v6, v5, and v7 in “Touched”.
Lived five doors down from v3 at Spring Brae Apt. during 2007-2011. He owed rent when he vacated after first police contact.
Grew up in Snow Shoe PA. Spent most of time with grandmother, who lived next door . Did not like his stepfather or grandfather. Natural father was “around”. Admits to being a bully and getting in trouble a lot. Attended Second Mile camp in ’96, ’97. Stole a car, was in rehab for drug use as older teen. In 99 JS and BH signed an agreement whereby BH would be awarded $1000 for college if he met expectations of effort in HS. JS attended H.S. graduation. BH accepted football tickets and participated in a golf tournament with JS in 2002.
REPUTATION
Megan Rash, the sister of BH’s longtime friend Ryan Dixon knew him for 18 years and said he was dishonest and embellished stories. (Ryan died in a motorcycle accident in 2008.) During testimony BH said his mother disregarded his statement that Jerry was gay by saying it was just another one of his lies.
2010 BH visited JS and family with his girlfriend and their three year old son. Elaine Steinbacher was among the visitors and said BH acted as if he were part of the family and that a big fuss was made over his son.
2010, 2011 Natural father calls and tells him about the newspaper article. Father calls an attorney, and the attorney came to BH. The police knock on door and BH states he already has an attorney and want to talk to him prior to talking to them. At the second police interview with Leiter and Rossman,, the attorney was present and BH was told by police there were other people JS had abused. BH did not admit his own abuse. He did not disclose abuse to attorney either.
BH signed an agreement with Benjamin Andreozzi which stipulated counseling as part of the deal. Afterwards, Andreozzi was with him five times including at the GJ, and police interviews. BH spoke on the phone with Andreozzi multiple times.
April 21, 2011 Grand Jury Testimony
ADMISSION BY ANDREOZZI OF LACK OF ALLEGATIONS OF ORAL SEX PRIOR TO GRAND JURY
Andreozzi confirms that BH had not disclosed oral sex prior to the meeting in the hall.
SUGGESTIONS BY CORPORAL LEITER BEFORE TESTIMONY
Andreozzi, Leiter and Rossman conspire in hall to elicit more graphic testimony from BH. This is accidentally caught on tape during a time the men thought the tape had been turned off.
After acknowledging his belief that he was not being recorded, Andreozzi said “ Oh, you’re kidding. The time frame matches up? Can we at some point in time say to him, listen, we have interviewed other kids and other kids have told us that there was intercourse and that they have admitted it. You know, is there anything else that you want to tell us?’ Corporal Leiter answers “Yep, we do that with all the other kids. Say, listen, this is what we found so far. You fit the pattern of all the other ones. This is the way he operates and the other kids we dealt have told us that this has happened after this happened. Did that happen to you? “ On tape Leiter told BH, “Before we start again, I just want to let you know you are not the first victim we have spoken to We have interviewed probably I’m going to say nine. Again I call them kids. I apologize. Nine adults we have interviewed and you are doing very well. It is amazing if this was a book, you would have been repeating word for word pretty much what a lot of people have already told us. It is very similar. A lot of things you have told us is very similar to what we have heard from the others and we know from listening to these other young adults talk to us and tell us what has taken place, that there is a pretty well-defined progression in the way he operated and still operates I guess to some degree and that the often times this progression, especially when it goes on for an extended period of time, leads to more than just the touching and the feeling. That’s been actual oral sex that has taken place by both parties and there’s—we unfortunately have found that there’s been – classifies as a rape has occurred and I don’t want to you feel that again. As Trooper Rossman said, I don’t want you to feel ashamed because you are a victim in this whole thing. What happened happened. He took advantage of you but when I – when we first started we talked, we needed to get details of what took place so these types of things happened. We need you to tell us this is what happened. Again, we are not going to look at you any differently other than the fact that you are a victim of this crime and it is going to be taken care of accordingly. But we need you to tell us as graphically as you can what took place as we get through this whole procedure. I just want you to understand that you are not alone in this. By no means are you alone in this.”
After that , the officer said “Okay, we’re going to restart the recording. It’s now 12:37 on 4/21/2011 and again we’re going to continue to record it.”
V4 STATE OF MIND DURING INTERROGATION
BH was very tired and mentally fatigued. BH was shaky and concerned about betraying Jerry Sandusky because he had been a father figure to him.
ROSSMAN ADMITS SUGGESTION WAS USED IN ALL VICTIM INTERROGATIONS
Trooper Rossman testifies that he suggested similar things to the other victims as well. Rossman said he believes it to be appropriate technique. Leiter when asked if he had ever turned the tape off during any other interviews said he couldn’t remember. After admitting that he and Rossman had discussed their testimony on 6/19/12 he was confronted with the fact that Rossman had said they hadn’t and asked to explain it. Cleland said it was for the jury to decide whether they were lying.
ROSSMAN ADMITS HE THOUGHT MORE HAPPENED THAN THEY WERE TELLING
Rossman admits that during the initial interviews that victims said nothing happened or something minimal happened and later added to it. He said he thought that more had occurred than what they were telling him. He said he did not think he was tainting the investigation.
JUDGE CLELAND TWISTS SIGNIFICANCE OF SUGGESTIVE INTERVIEW WHICH TAINTED TESTIMONY
Judge Cleland: “The issue is not whether or not the witness’s testimony was corrupted by any questions.
The purpose of the evidence is to show that the troopers didn’t tell the truth, not that v4 didn’t tell the truth.
GRAND JURY STORY: BH TESTIFIES TO ORAL RAPE IN SHOWERS
BH testifies that he remembers being touched in pool. States that first assaults took place at Toftrees. BH describes soap fights in showers and having it turn into wrestling, which would then become 69 positions, where JS would insert his penis into BH’s mouth. Sometimes JS would ejaculate into his mouth. BH said JS attempted anal intercourse but he resisted. At Alamo Bowl, JS threatened to send him home because he wouldn’t cooperate with sex in hotel bathroom. BH said that after the move to Lasch Hall, in 1999, all sex which did not occur in hotel rooms occurred in the sauna because it was more private. ( In 1999 he would have been 15, going on 16) BH said Sandusky was upset about being told by Joe Paterno that he would not become head coach. BH said he had JS buy him cigarettes regularly, and JS gave him $50, drove him to a drug dealer where he scored marijuana, and allowed him to smoke it in JS’s car.
CRIMINAL TRIAL, Day One, June 11, 2012
BH describes to McGettigan how in 7/1997 he was invited to go to football games, taking part in the tailgates and other things with Second Mile kids. Interspersed with these details were the general questions about showering crimes, with no specific ties to dates. BH testifies that it was in the coaches shower area, that he could not fight back, and that nothing was said afterwards and he didn’t protest or tell anybody about it. JS never asked him to not say anything. BH said “It was basically, like whatever happened there never really happened.” BH said that although many coaches came into the locker room and shower area, and he interacted with them and talked to them , they were never caught in the act because JS would be alerted by the loud clicking of the four button lock which he heard in spite of the shower noise. BH said that JS inserted his penis in his mouth two or three times a week for years. BH estimates the total times to be 40 at least. When asked why he continued cooperating, BH said that “this is something good happening to me, you know …..And I’m liking everything I’m getting.” He plays the pity card by stating he “didn’t have a father” although he had a stepfather, a grandfather, and a birth father who were all available to him.
At trial he changes his GJ story that the sex happened only in the sauna in Lasch Hall, and says it happened in the shower there instead, apparently realizing that he needs to be consistent with the soaping, wrestling and positioning tales. When questioned about how the attempt at anal sex arose, BH said he was chest to chest and estimates that he was so small he only came up to JS’ waist “a little bit above the belly button” This fantastic exaggeration would make him the size of a three year old, 3 ½ feet tall, at the age of 14. McGettigan had trouble getting BH to make a credible story. “You weren’t really chest to chest really were you? A: Yes. Q: You were facing….A. Well, yes. Right. Right. ….” Eventually BH replied to the prompting by saying that JS “slid his finger between my butt cheeks.” Later at Lasch Hall, when he was 15 or 16, JS soaped him up, had him flat on the ground with an erection and attempted to slide it between his butt cheeks. Q. “And what did you do?” A. Got up and left. Q. Well, the defendant was on top of you, how did you—“ A. Yeah, no. I pushed. I pushed with all my might. Squiggled. Slided underneath him. Got out of there. I’m covered in soap too, you got to remember.
The Grand Jury allegations about abuse at Toftrees is ignored by the prosecution at trial. McGettigan wraps it up by having BH agree that JS put his penis in BH’s mouth over 40 times, and attempted sodomy. BH said there was no reason for him to say these things other than they are true.
Upon cross, BH said that he was taken to the campus where he played basketball with JS alone at the end of summer until the end of the year from 6 to 9 pm. Although it was preseason, and football season, there weren’t any coaches around. When asked if on the first offensive shower he was touched on his privates, BH said “That first time, yes, but you got to understand that he never was really right for it with touching me. It was more like he wanted to be touched.” When asked why he put up with this abuse over the years, BH explained that he was picked on, that he liked to be one of the cool kids, “and second off,
REFERENCE TO SUGGESTION THAT HE COULD HAVE BURIED HIS OWN MEMORY, AND GUILT BECAUSE HE BELIEVED OTHERS HAD REALLY BEEN ABUSED
I don’t even really want to admit that it’s happening, you know. I have spent, you know, so many years burying this in the back of my mind forever. I wouldn’t even be here doing this right now unless—I thought I was the only person. I had come to terms with that and just wanted everything to go away. But then I find out that this has happened over and over and over and over again forever, and I feel if I just would have said something back then, they wouldn’t have had this happen to them. So I feel responsible for what happened to other victims.”
On cross BH changes his story to say the total of 50 times of abuse included groping, kissing of thighs, and “any of that”. BH played basketball/racquetball totally hundreds of times, with JS twice a week from summer through the end of 1997 in late afternoon. BH states there were no coaches or players in and out because they were all done and gone by then. Besides, nothing inappropriate was observed because there was a blue curtain extending all the way to the floor. When questioned about the new facility, Lasch , BH said that the shower area was open to all, there were no key codes, and anybody could walk in. BH said that he was abused 50 times in the Lasch shower area when he would have been 15 or 16. BH said that nobody used the new locker room.
COUNSELING INCLUDED IN CONTRACT WITH ANDREOZZI
After arguing that specific communications with BH were confidential, the only parts of the agreement that he disclosed to the jury was that going to counseling was a part of the written agreement along with dealing with the media.
Summary: BH’s false testimony was probably suggested in counseling. He was no doubt tempted by the financial benefits but reluctant to present these ideas as the truth until assurances came from troopers that his friends had truly been sexually assaulted and his G.J. testimony was going to be unquestioned. His trial testimony about public sex in open showers is ludicrous.
