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Bob Costas And Jerry Sandusky

March 1, 2012 by · Comments Off on Bob Costas And Jerry Sandusky 

Bob Costas And Jerry Sandusky, Former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky admitted to showering and horsing around with young boys, but said he is not a pedophile, in an exclusive interview with Bob Costas broadcast Monday night on NBC’s Rock Center.

“I say that I am innocent of those charges,” Sandusky said in the phone interview.

When asked by Costas, “Are you a pedophile,” Sandusky responded, “No.”

Joe Paterno’s one-time defensive coordinator was charged earlier this month with 40 criminal counts accusing him of sexual abuse of minors. He is currently free on a $100,000 bond and has denied any wrongdoing. The allegations date back to 1994, according to the grand jury report filed November 5 in Pennsylvania state court. The report detailed claims of alleged sexual encounters with as many as eight boys in Sandusky’s home, hotels and Penn State locker rooms.

“I could say that I have done some of those things. I have horsed around with kids. I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their legs without intent of sexual contact,” said Sandusky.

When asked by Costas to concede any wrongdoing, Sandusky said, “I shouldn’t have showered with those kids.”

Sandusky’s attorney, Joseph Amendola, verified Sandusky’s voice and asserted his client’s innocence.

“I believe in Jerry’s innocence. Quite honestly, Bob, that’s why I’m involved in the case,” Amendola said.

“We expect we’re going to have a number of kids, now how many of those so called eight kids we’re not sure, but we anticipate we’re going to have at least several of those kids come forward and say this never happened. This is me, this is the allegation, it never occurred. In fact, one of the toughest allegations…what [Mike] McQueary said he saw, we have information that that child said that never happened,” Amendola said.

McQueary is currently on paid administrative leave from his job as an assistant coach for Penn State’s football team. In 2002, while a graduate assistant, he witnessed Sandusky allegedly engaged in a sexual act with a minor in the Penn State locker room’s showers, according to the grand jury report. He told Paterno what he witnessed, according to the grand jury testimony.

Sandusky said McQueary’s claims are false.

“We were showering and horsing around and he [the boy] actually turned all the showers on and was actually sliding across the floor and we were, as I recall, possibly like snapping a towel,” Sandusky said. McQueary’s allegations were never reported to the police.

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