Jerry SanduskyCARLISLE, Pa. (WHTM) -
An attorney on the defense team of Jerry Sandusky is accusing the state attorney general's office of unjustifiably whipping up the public outcry that led to the firing of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno.
Karl Rominger said Wednesday that state prosecutors wrote and sensationalized the 23-page grand jury presentment that accused Sandusky of sexually abusing young boys, particularly the purported account of assistant coach Mike McQueary and his testimony that he witnessed Sandusky sodomizing a young boy in a locker room shower.
"We believe he never said that to the grand jury and we believe that the report was embellished, embellished for effect," Rominger told abc27 News. "In other words it was designed to hurt Mr. Sandusky publicly, to whip up public foment against him, and Joe Paterno became collateral damage of that."
Rominger points to McQueary's testimony in the preliminary hearing for athletic director Tim Curley and former Penn State vice president Gary Schultz, in which he said he never used the words anal and sodomy together.
Elsewhere in his testimony, McQueary made it clear he witnessed intercourse between Sandusky and a young boy, but Rominger insists the grand jury presentment was intentionally inflammatory; costing Paterno his job, his legacy, and ultimately his life.
"What it did was give the public a misimpression, and that same misimpression was adopted by the Board of Trustees at the emergency meeting," Rominger said. "I firmly believe that the attorney general's office owes an apology to the public for throwing Joe Paterno under the bus by trying to trump up the charges against Jerry Sandusky."
Rominger also blasted the attorney general's office for asking that an out-of-county jury be brought in for Sandusky's trial. He said the people of Centre County should be insulted that prosecutors don't think they could be fair and impartial.
A spokesman for the attorney general's office said Rominger's comments did not merit a response.
