Former daughter-in-law said Sandusky abused her son

By Mindy Szkaradnik

While a judge ruled Monday that Jerry Sandusky can have contact with his grandchildren, he may have to go without seeing three of them.

Jill Thomas, the ex-wife of Jerry Sandusky’s son Matthew, said in a statement issued Monday that she doesn’t believe it’s safe for the former defensive coordinator to be around any children, including hers.

Judge John Cleland ruled Monday that Sandusky, who is charged with 52 counts of child sex abuse, is allowed to contact his grandchildren but, since Thomas and her ex-husband are currently in a custody litigation, he left it up to the judge in that case to decide if her children can see their grandfather.

In Thomas’ statement, she said that after the charges were filed against her former father-in-law, one of her three children told her that Sandusky had “inappropriately touched” him.

She said she was told that there was not enough evidence to charge Sandusky from her son’s account, but a psychologist recommended counseling for him.

“I was also advised at the same time that the psychologist who investigated the case had concerns about what had happened to my son and could not rule out that Jerry Sandusky was grooming my son for sexual abuse,” she said in the statement.

In response to Thomas’s statement, Sandusky’s attorney Joe Amendola wrote in a statement that Sandusky “unequivocally denied these new allegations” when they were first brought to light.

Nonetheless, Thomas said she disagrees with the judge’s ruling, and her first priority is the well-being of her children.

“I cannot understand how a court could place the desires of someone who is criminally charged with sexually abusing children above the safety of children,” she said.

Amendola wrote in his statement that it seems Sandusky has been “dragged into” the custody battle between Thomas and Matthew.

But, Thomas’s lawyer Kimberly Hamilton said in her statement that she has never used the Sandusky case as a way to gain more custody of her children.

Read more here: http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2012/02/14/new_sandusky_charges_.aspx
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