any concept of the kind of trauma that that can produce in a child, much less when we re talking about sodomy and the horrible events that have been described. i think he s very unaware. i have seen this in child molesters before. there is the guy in the raincoat, the evil guy we think about, and then there are plenty that truly in their minds think they re loving children. so you ve seen this behavior before if other cases. oh, yeah. just total denial all the way through it. what they re doing is loving children, not abusing children. reyou re watching msnbc jerry sandusky trial. sandusky the accused in this trial has arrived at the courthouse. and the verdict has been reached in the trial. catherine crier joins us tonight here in the studio in new york. ron allen, nbc reporter is on the ground who has been covering this trial. catherine, the impact of the community has been just absolutely gut wrenching.
right. it is in some ways changed penn state for dare i say forever, but certainly for the foreseeable future because it will be impossible i think for people to think about penn state as much as they would not like this to be the case without thinking about what has happened with this jerry sandusky case because it was that profound. i think that every college president in this country is watching this story thinking, what if this comes to my door with these allegations? allegations brought to administrators from this point on will be handled with tremendous intensity in the education community throughout the country. we understand that the sandusky family, the entire family is there at bellefonte. but ron, you have been in that community. if you could capsulize, you say that they just want to get this over with, but is there hurt? is there anguish? is there anger? is there a wave of emotions that s going through that community and leading up to what
unable to have contact with the outside world, outside media, telephones, families, locked up in a room to try to deliberate and try to figure out the case, the very emotional case that has weighed heavily on the community, on penn state university, on the entire surrounding state of pennsylvania, for that matter. again, as you said, there are some 48 counts, 48 criminal counts that jerry sandusky faces. there are ten accusers, ten alleged victims. that s why it may take some time for the judge, the clerk of the court to read down the charge sheet to explain what all the charges are. with ten alleged victims, there are five charges involving one, four involving the other, some of the charges are more serious than the others. but the rules s that the courts put in place is that they we can not publicly tell you what the charges are until all of the charges have been read in court and court is adjournadjourned. it s a very emotional process.
seemed to be above all that, and then this hits. this is not about money. this is about some very, very horrifying, frankly, sexual allegations, sexual abuse allegations involving young boys, as young as age 10 or 11. some have said they were abused dozens of times over many years. they allege there was a pattern, that they were groomed. and many of the kids were met sandusky they say, through a charity. they were kids from broken homes, kids who were from underprivileged back grounds who saw them az this huge father figure, this icon, this person they could not dare say anything negative ability, and many of them told stories that when they cold counselors or people in the community, they weren t believed, so they were scared, so that s why they also held this inside, adding to the pain they were feeling over so many years. now, imagine you re a juror sitting there listening to all
to justify it once they walk out the door. jerry sandusky wanted this trial to be held in this community, and there are nine people on the jury who have had ties with penn state university. was that his best move in all of this? because he had had such he had been such a revered person in the community. i mean, this man was going to replace joe paterno. right. as the head football coach at penn state university. arguably the football legend of all college football in america. this man was one of his defensive coaches. they had a long association. but think about that, ed. when he left that program, he moved into almost oblivion. and for any coach with that kind of history, what would you expect? instant recruiting by another major university. so when this story broke, one of my first questions was, hmm, why was he basically sent off into the exile?