Officer: Sandusky Should Have Been Charged in 1998

Detective that investigated 1998 claim of abuse says he thought Sandusky should have faced charges for an alleged incident with boy

A police detective who investigated Jerry Sandusky in 1998 says he still believes charges should have been filed then, but the district attorney didn't do so.

Ronald Schreffler testified Thursday he interviewed Sandusky in 1998 after a woman complained about her 11-year-old son and the former Penn State assistant football coach showering together.

Schreffler says he felt charges were warranted, but Ray Gricar, the DA at the time, didn't agree.

Gricar disappeared in 2005 and has been declared legally dead.

Earlier Thursday, the alleged victim in that 1998 encounter described Sandusky lathering him up and lifting him under a showerhead to rinse his hair.

Under cross-examination, the man, identified by prosecutors as Victim 6, acknowledged staying in contact with Sandusky for years.

The man, 25, told jurors that Sandusky lathered up his back in a Penn State locker room shower, hugged him chest-to-chest then lifted him closer to a showerhead to rinse his hair.

The man said the shared shower happened after a brief workout at a campus gym -- even though he hadn't broken a sweat. His mother went to authorities when she saw her then-11-year-old son come home with wet hair, although the inquiry spawned by her report didn't lead to any charges.

The man is the sixth accuser to testify at Sandusky's sex abuse trial. The ex-coach faces 52 criminal counts involving alleged assaults of 10 boys over a 15-year span. He denies the charges, which brought disgrace to Penn State and led to the ouster of both the school's president and Hall of Fame football coach Joe Paterno.

On cross-examination, the man testified that in recent years he and Sandusky exchanged text messages, sent notes for holidays and special occasions and met for lunch last summer. He also told the court that Sandusky and his wife, Dottie, had supported a mission trip he took to Mexico.

When asked why he had decided to testify against Sandusky, the witness said he had been approached by investigators and asked to think more about the 1998 encounter.

“As I started to go over it in my mind I quickly realized, my perception changed thinking about it as an adult as opposed to an 11-year-old,” he said. “That was inappropriate, what happened to me.”

Asked if he was looking for financial benefit from coming forward, the man replied, “Zero.”

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