Jury Begins Deliberations in Sandusky Trial BELLEFONTE, Pa. - The trial of Jerry Sandusky went to the jury Thursday afternoon, after closing arguments in which his lawyer said the child sexual abuse case against him defied common sense, and a prosecutor said the defense wanted jurors to believe a ridiculous conspiracy theory. Joe Amendola, representing Sandusky, noted that the witnesses who accused Sandusky of abusing them when they were boys did not step forward until years later - in most cases after similar allegations were made public. He suggested that they were goaded into making the allegations by one another, by law enforcement officials eager to find more victims, or by the promise of lawsuit payouts. To convict Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant football coach, "you have to believe he was the boldest perpetrator in history, taking these kids out, showering with them in front of other coaches," Amendola said. It doesn't add up. It makes no sense, absolutely no sense. But one of the prosecutors, Joseph E. McGettigan III, said that in a case with such strong evidence, "you always have to accuse the victims, and you always have to allege a conspiracy," and that in this case the conspiracy would have to include the accusers, a fellow coach who testified for the prosecution and law enforcement. "The great thing about conspiracy theories," he said, is that "they collapse of their own weight." McGettigan appealed to the jury to recall how pained and nervous the accusers, now young men, were to tell their stories. "There are so many offenses, so many grievous and horrible offenses for so many years," he said. The arguments and testimony in the case took just nine days, and the jury must sift through 48 separate charges; four others were dismissed. Judge John M. Cleland ordered the jury sequestered while it deliberates, and if there is no verdict by late Friday, deliberations will continue into the weekend. Amendola repeatedly asked the jury to use logic and sense to test the prosecution's claims, and in particular, to undermine witness testimony. He noted that several of the alleged victims have lawyers, and suggested that they were motivated by a desire to sue Sandusky and Penn State. He said one had a reputation for dishonesty, suggested that children who had been abused would have exhibited more medical problems than these boys did, and noted that the mother of one man talked with a journalist about the case before being interviewed by investigators. And he reminded the jury that when the police did talk to them, some of the boys "initially said nothing happened." "The police kept going back and questioned them to say there's more to this, we know you aren't telling the truth," Amendola said. He also emphasized that the earliest allegations against Sandusky, now 68, date to the 1990s. "After all these years, when Jerry Sandusky's in his mid-50s, he decides" to be a pedophile, Amendola said. Does that make sense to anybody? He was involved with kids form the time he was a kid. The most difficult account for him to dismiss may have been that of Mike McQueary, who testified that in 2001, as a young graduate assistant, he saw Sandusky rape a young boy in a locker room shower at Penn State. Amendola called a witness, a McQueary family friend, who testified that McQueary told him of the incident the night it happened, but did not claim to have seen any sex act. Amendola said the fact that "Mike McQueary didn't do one thing to stop what he said he saw" calls his story into question, adding, "he assumed something." But when his turn came, McGettigan said that for victims in such cases, "humiliation, shame and fear equal silence," leading to years of evasions before the truth comes out. For them to testify, "Can you imagine how difficult that must have been?" he said, adding that he felt cruel asking them about it. You have to have some sympathy and compassion for a person who's in that place. In this case, he said, "You see the full spectrum of predatory pedophile behavior," lavishing attention and gifts on troubled and neglected children, and getting them accustomed to the abuser's touching, before attempting any sexual contact. McGettigan discussed the interview Sandusky gave in November with Bob Costas of NBC, which was shown to the jury. Costas asked if Sandusky was sexually attracted to young boys, and Sandusky first repeated the question, then gave a meandering answer that ended in a denial. "I would think that the automatic response when someone asks you if you're a pedophile, a child molester or anything along those lines, your response would be, "You're crazy, you're nuts, no," " McGettigan said. And he scoffed at the defense's repeated references to the good work Sandusky has done with children. "Is that supposed to insulate you from responsibility for your crimes, that you've done some good in your life?" he said.