(Reuters) – The defense in Jerry Sandusky’s child sex abuse trial rested its case on Wednesday without calling the former Penn State University assistant football coach to the witness stand.
Closing arguments in the closely watched trial in Pennsylvania are expected on Thursday. Jury deliberations could begin by the end of the week. Defense attorney Joe Amendola had said previously that Sandusky would testify.
Sandusky, 68, is charged with 51 counts of abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period, and faces more than 500 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
Among its witnesses, the defense called Sandusky’s wife of 45 years, Dottie, who testified on Tuesday that she had never seen anything inappropriate in her husband’s behavior with children.
The defense also earlier presented testimony from a psychologist who said Sandusky suffered from histrionic personality disorder – a condition characterized by excessive emotionality and attention seeking, with symptoms including inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior.
Eight alleged victims, now men aged 18 to 28, testified for the prosecution last week, describing in often graphic detail being molested by Sandusky as boys, including oral and anal sex and shared showers. Two other alleged victims have never been identified.
Before resting their case on Wednesday, Sandusky’s lawyers sought to cast doubt on testimony from an earlier prosecution witness who told jurors he had seen Sandusky molesting a boy.
The defense witness, Dr. Jonathan Dranov, said he had gone to the home of John McQueary, the manager of his medical practice, in 2001 after McQueary had called to say that his son Mike had seen Sandusky in a Penn State locker room with a young boy.
Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant football coach at Penn State, testified last week that he had heard sounds of a sex act when entering the locker room late on a Friday in February 2001. He said he then saw Sandusky in a shower behind a boy, his arms around the boy’s waist, moving against him.
McQueary told jurors he left the locker room, called his father and then went to his home.
Dranov said on Wednesday that when he entered the McQueary home, “Mike was sitting on the couch. He was visibly upset and shaken.” The younger McQueary told Dranov he had heard “sexual sounds,” the doctor said on the witness stand.
Dranov said he asked McQueary three times if he had seen any particular sex act. McQueary, he testified, had said no.
Two other character witnesses also testified on Wednesday for the defense.
The Sandusky case has focused renewed attention on the issue of child sexual abuse in the United States and prompted the firing in November of Penn State President Graham Spanier and legendary head football coach Joe Paterno. Paterno died of lung cancer in January.
The jury is due to be sequestered during its deliberations.
(Editing by Will Dunham)
