According to USA Today, former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, whose sexual abuse of children triggered a cascading crisis that still shadows the state’s largest university, was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison Tuesday.
The sentence issued by Judge John Cleland means that the 68-year-old former coach, convicted of abusing 10 children over 15 years, will spend the rest of his life in prison barring a successful appeal.
Sandusky, appearing in court in a bright red jail jumpsuit, delivered a sometimes rambling four-minute statement in which he denied his crimes, saying that he would “fight” to overturn the verdicts against him.
“They can make me out as a monster, but in my heart I know I didn’t do these alleged, disgusting things,” Sandusky said before the judge.
Sandusky was proceeded by three of his victims, two of whom spoke through tears, about how he had “betrayed” their trust. One of them, designated by the state grand jury as “Victim 4,” looked directly at Sandusky and told him: “You should be ashamed of yourself. I want you to know I will not forgive you. I don’t know if I could ever forgive you.”
The short hearing ended with Judge John Cleland describing Sandusky’s statement as “unbelievable.”
Sandusky’s sentence comes just more than three months after a jury rendered its guilty verdicts and nearly a year after a Pennsylvania grand jury first published a gruesome catalog of crimes directly implicating the once-revered former coach.
Within days, the fast-moving scandal prompted the ouster of longtime university President Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno, the iconic head football coach who had become university’s public face.
Two other university officials, Athletic Director Tim Curley and retired Vice President Gary Schultz, also have been charged with failing to report Sandusky’s abuse to police and lying to the grand jury about what they were told about the coach’s activities involving a 2001 assault of a young boy in a locker-room shower.
Both men have denied any wrongdoing and are awaiting trial in January.
Information from The Associated Press and USA Today contributed to this report.
