Sandusky: 'I'm Not the Monster Everyone Made Me Out to Be'

Dec. 3, 2011— -- Lawyers for one of the alleged victims of Jerry Sandusky said the former Penn State assistant coach's interview with the New York Times goes "a long way toward corroborating the victims' accounts and further expanding the web of liability" in the sexual abuse scandal.

"He admits he 'wrestled' and showered alone with boys, gave them gifts and money, and travelled with them. Surprisingly, Sandusky's interview also revealed that to this day, Penn State has not taken away Sandusky's keys to the Football locker room where so much of the abuse occurred," the statement read.

Sandusky, who was an assistant to college football coaching icon Joe Paterno for 46 years, defended himself against sexual abuse allegations for the first time in an on-camera interview with the Times.

"These allegations are false, I didn't do those things," Sandusky told the Times. "I'm not the monster everyone made me out to be. I didn't engage in sexual acts."

Sandusky, who also ran a charity for disadvantaged youth called Second Mile, has been charged with molesting eight boys over the course of 15 years. He is scheduled to return to court for a preliminary hearing on Dec. 13.

"Once again, Jerry Sandusky has chosen to provide the national media with an entirely unconvincing denial and a series of bizarre explanations," said Andrew Shubin, a lawyer for one of the alleged victims in the case.

"If he had any compassion for his victims or our community, he would immediately accept responsibility for his behavior, express remorse for the pain he has caused, and spare the victims, their families, and our community further trauma," Shubin said.

Sandusky claimed that some victims were "drawn into this" and talks about the "positive" things he did for them.

"This type of delusional rationalization is classic in these kinds of cases. Pedophiles often horribly mischaracterize the abuse they perpetrate as something that their victims sought or benefitted from," Shubin said.

What Did Paterno Know?

The scandal created ripples beyond Penn State, because of the damage to the image of Paterno, who had a reputation for focusing as much on the character of his players as on winning -- and on being successful in both areas.

But Paterno was fired amid questions about how much he knew about the allegations against his longtime assistant, and how much or how little he did about them.

Sandusky said Paterno never talked to him about any alleged incidents of abuse with minors.

"I don't know that he didn't know. I know that he never said anything to me, I know that," Sandusky told the Times.

"I never talked to him about either one," Sandusky told the newspaper.

On Paterno's knowledge, Sandusky told the Times, "He's (Paterno) the only one who knows whether anybody ever said anything to him."

Paterno, who chached the Nittany Lions for 46 years, was fired by the Penn State trustees on Nov. 9, despite his own statement earlier that he would retire at the end of the current season.

When Sandusky was first confronted about the incident in which Assistant Coach Mike McQueary claimed to have seen him raping a boy in the team showers he said, "that it didn't happen, in my mind there wasn't inappropriate behavior."

McQueary said he told Paterno. Paterno told his superior, who alerted then Penn State President Graham Spanier, but no one at the school called police, according to a grand jury report.

Last month, McQueary's account of the incident came under question.