Jerry Sandusky has six adopted children. One of them is Matt. He's a Second Mile kid who burned down a barn as a teenager and attempted suicide as a foster child in the Sandusky home in 1995. Plenty has been reported about Matt's unstable behavior, which includes several stalking and harassment incidents. Matt first found himself in criminal court in 2001, after harassing a former lover of his soon-to-be wife. According to documents located by the Deadspin field unit in a central Pennsylvania courthouse (and posted below), Matt, now 33, would call his rival, say mean things, and hang up. His preferred mean thing to say was, in hindsight, also infelicitous:
[M]ost of the time Victim would be called "ass-licker."
Matt didn't limit his harassment to phone calls. On one occasion, arts-and-crafts premeditation was involved:
Both parties spotted each other on E. College Avenue in College Twp Centre County, when Defendants held up a sign that read "ass-licker." This sign was directed at Victim.
Matt waived his right to a preliminary hearing in the ass-licker case, meaning it advanced from the district court to the court of common pleas, the next level of Pennsylvania jurisprudence. He received "Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition," a diversionary program for first-time offenders in Pennsylvania that allows defendants to avoid pleading guilty.
A lot of people, including his biological mother, think Matt may have been abused by Sandusky. The mother sent several concerned letters to children and youth services and a county judge after Matt began living with Sandusky, who adopted her son when he turned 18. Matt's antics certainly indicate a troubled personality. But no evidence has emerged to support an abuse claim. And Matt himself has denied that any abuse took place.
Image via Good Morning America.