Teenage impregnator and Jerry Sandusky attorney Joe Amendola appeared today on ABC news to say a few things in front of a fake fire and a bad painting. First, he stated the obvious: He expects more charges to be filed against Sandusky.
He then argued—with a twinkle in his eye— that Sandusky couldn't have had repeated sexual contact with boys at his home because he was never alone at his home with boys. A brief transcript of Amendola's conversation with ABC host Jim Avila:
Amendola: "This house was like a hotel, particularly on football weekends."
Avila: "But, Joe, a lot of people have sex in hotels."
Amendola: "You're right they have sex in hotels. But this was a house. And the house was filled with people."
Clarence Darrow this is not. Amendola also defended his client by pointing to how long it took Gov. Tom Corbett, who was Pennsylvania's attorney general at the time, to investigate Sandusky:
If you believe that Jerry Sandusky was a pedophile, then you had to believe there was a substantial risk while you were continuing a three-year grand jury investigation which could've resulted in an arrest with the first boy coming forward three years ago.
The pace of the investigation has raised questions, especially because the attorney general's office under Corbett was focused on prosecuting elected officials while Corbett ran for governor. There's no point in speculating whether the Sandusky investigation took too long right now. We know too few details of how the investigation unfolded. The attorney general's office refused to even tell me when Corbett took on the case. (Media accounts give the date as March 2009.) Here's what Nils Frederickson, the attorney general's press secretary, said when I called yesterday:
The only dates we can discuss are the ones in the grand jury presentation.
For now, Nils. For now.