Sandusky May Have Tampered With Witness: Lawyer

(Newser) – One lawyer in the Penn State abuse scandal is crying foul after Jerry Sandusky reached out to his alleged victims while under a grand jury investigation, MSNBC reports. "One of the questions that raised in my mind, ‘Was this an effort on his part to tamper with witnesses?’” says Baltimore attorney Howard Janet. But Sandusky, accused of more than 10 years of child sex abuse, says the encounters prove he's innocent—because he never thought of the former students as victims, and hoped they would become character witnesses.

After the story of his grand jury investigation broke in March, Sandusky tried to contact men who had been in his Second Mile charity—two of whom later testified before the grand jury. He took one or two out for dinner with his wife Dottie, and reached out to a third who says he never called Sandusky back. But the invitations were all friendly, says Sandusky's lawyer: Jerry and Dottie "have maintained positive contact with [the boys who came over] as well as many other kids they helped who have grown into adulthood over the years." Click for another story out today, about Joe Paterno's close ties to the Second Mile charity.