The newest attorney to join the Jerry Sandusky defense team says that the former Penn State football coach showered with young boys because the kids lacked basic hygiene skills and needed to be taught.
Sandusky is charged with more than 50 counts of child sex abuse against 10 young boys and he has repeatedly admitted to showering with children he mentored through his Second Mile charity.
"Some of these kids don't have basic hygiene skills," attorney Karl Rominger told abc27 News Tuesday. "Teaching a person to shower at the age of 12 or 14 sounds strange to some people, but people who work with troubled youth will tell you there are a lot of juvenile delinquents and people who are dependent who have to be taught basic life skills like how to put soap on their body."
Rominger later clarified his statement to NBCPhiladelphia.com's Lu Ann Cahn.
"The question was, 'could you come up with any possible explanation why an adult male would be in the shower,' and gave a possible explanation," Rominger said.
Penn State football coach Mike McQueary testified to a grand jury that he walked into the football locker room in March 2002 to see Sandusky anally raping a 10-year-old boy (victim No. 2) in the showers.
Another alleged victim (No. 6) went home after spending the day with Sandusky and his mother noticed he had wet hair. Upon being questioned, the boy told his mother that Sandusky insisted on showering with him. The mother reported the incident to police.
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Yet another victim (No. 5), told the grand jury that when he was between 8 and 10 years old Sandusky made him shower naked with him and put the boy's hand on his erect penis.
As an anecdotal back-up of the "coaches teaching kids how to put soap on their bodies by showering with them” argument, Rominger told abc27 News that his college cross country coach often showered with the team.
Rominger told the news station that the fact that the alleged victims have similar personal accounts of Sandusky’s alleged child sex abuse will help the defense.
"That's what's unusual about this case," Rominger told abc27. "We don't see unique victimologies and that is a flag to somebody for false reports of collusion, because one child picks up on another one's story."
Rominger also told NBCPhiladelphia.com that Sandusky would be checked for organic brain injury that could be responsible for the way Sandusky talks.
