Sandusky Trial Hears Wife Call Accusers 'Conniving' and 'Clingy' - East Idaho News
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Sandusky Trial Hears Wife Call Accusers ‘Conniving’ and ‘Clingy’

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Getty 061912 DottieSandusky?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1340147614575Rob Carr/Getty Images(BELLEFONTE, Pa.) — A poised Dottie Sandusky testified Tuesday that she never saw anything sexual occur between her husband Jerry Sandusky and any of the accusers in the sex abuse trial that could send her husband to prison for life.

Dottie Sandusky, who winked at her husband as she took the stand, said in a soft voice that she would be married to Sandusky for “46 years in September,” and was the strongest witness called so far by Sandusky’s defense lawyer, Joseph Amendola.

In a patient grandmotherly style, she described most of her husband’s accusers as “very nice,” but remembered some as “conniving” and “very clingy.”

Her testimony followed a morning of testimony in which Amendola poked holes in the accounts of two lead investigators and challenged the credibility of the police and the alleged victims.

Dottie Sandusky bluntly denied the accusation of one accuser who told the court last week that during the Alamo Bowl she walked in on her husband trying to force the boy, now known as Victim 4, to perform oral sex on him. He claimed she interrupted her husband by asking, “What’s going on in there?”

Mrs. Sandusky’s version was quite different.

“I came in one day. It was like a bathroom and dressing area. They were standing there. I said ‘what’s going on’ because Jerry was very upset and we had asked (Victim 4) if he wanted to go to a luncheon which was $50, and he said he’d really like to go. And Jerry said OK, and it was the day of the luncheon and (Victim 4) wouldn’t go and Jerry knew I’d be very upset about spending the money.”

Dottie Sandusky told the court room that nothing seemed inappropriate about the exchange.

“They were just standing in little hallways, they were fully clothed,” she said.

Dottie Sandusky also rejected repeated testimony by the alleged victims that Jerry Sandusky would molest them at night in the family basement, an area they said his wife never went.

Mrs. Sandusky told the jury Tuesday that she and her husband had always shared a bed and that her husband would usually go to bed first. She also testified that she would often go down to the basement to get food out of a freezer there.

In response to the allegation from Victim 10 that he once yelled for help while being sexually abused in the basement while Dottie Sandusky was upstairs, Amendola asked whether someone on the ground floor would be able to hear someone yelling from the basement. “Yes,” she responded and added that her hearing was very good.

She also described Victim 4, who testified powerfully about the sex abuse he allegedly endured, as “demanding, and he was very conniving, and he wanted his way and didn’t listen a whole lot.”

Amendola told Judge John Cleland that the defense “had not yet decided” about another unidentified witness. The prosecution can still call Sandusky to testify on his own behalf, but refused to tell reporters whether Sandusky would take the stand, saying only, “stay tuned.”

Sandusky is charged with 51 counts of sex abuse of 10 boys. The jury of seven women and five men is expected to get the case later this week and Sandusky, 68, could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

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