HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A young man who testified against Jerry Sandusky sued Penn State on Friday for its "deliberate and shameful" handling of complaints that the former assistant football coach behaved inappropriately and sexually toward boys.

The suit filed by the person known as Victim 1 at Sandusky's trial said university officials made deliberate decisions not to report Sandusky to authorities.

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It described their actions as "a function of (Penn State's) purposeful, deliberate and shameful subordination of the safety of children to its economic self-interests, and to its interest in maintaining and perpetuating its reputation."

The complaint was filed electronically in Philadelphia state court Friday night, Slade McLaughlin, a lawyer for Victim 1, told The Associated Press. The young man's initial accusations sparked the investigation that led to criminal charges against Sandusky and two university officials.

Sandusky, 68, was convicted in June of 45 criminal counts for sexual abuse of boys, both on and off campus. He awaits sentencing that will likely send him to prison for the rest of his life.

Penn State ex-president Graham Spanier: Freeh report on sex scandal is wrong

Victim 1 and his mother reported Sandusky to the boy's high school and the Clinton County child protective agency in November 2009. Their complaint triggered the state investigation that last year resulted in the criminal charges.

Former Penn State administrator Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley, who is on leave, were charged with perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse. Both deny the allegations and are expected to go on trial in January.

Famed football coach Joe Paterno was fired. He died last January.

The suit draws heavily from court testimony, grand jury investigations and Penn State's own investigative report, conducted by former FBI director Louis Freeh. The report details how university officials handled the claims against Sandusky and Sandusky's behavior. Victim 1 is known as "John Doe C" in the complaint. The suit names no other defendants than the State College university.

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University spokesman Dave La Torre said the school has no comment on the pending litigation.

"The university takes these cases very seriously," La Torre said, adding that the current president and board "have publicly emphasized that their goal is to find solutions that rest on the principle of justice for the victims."

The suit claimed that a "special relationship" between Penn State and The Second Mile, a Sandusky-founded charity for youth, gave Sandusky a respectable public image and connections that enabled him to perform criminal acts.

It alleged "(Penn State) believed its reputation and economic interests would be adversely impacted if the public learned that a man closely associated with the school's football program was, in fact, a pedophile."

The Second Mile's future remains uncertain, subject to a legal dispute.

'Numerous victims'
According to the lawsuit, Victim 1 met Sandusky about eight years ago, when the boy was 11 and a first-year participant in a camp sponsored by The Second Mile. In his second year, the boy drew Sandusky's attention and accepted invitations to spend nights at the coach's State College home and to attend professional sports events, the suit said.

Over a three-year period ending in 2008, the suit said, Sandusky assaulted the boy more than 100 times, including fondling and oral sex. The lawsuit claims Sandusky attacked "numerous victims over a span of 30 years," but noted that his criminal trial was limited to a 15-year period and 10 victims.

Following Victim 1's testimony, Sandusky was convicted of all six counts that related to him, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse for instances of oral sex.

The suit alleged negligence, fraudulent concealment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy. It said Victim 1 has suffered physical and emotional injuries and will likely need medical and psychological help well into his future. The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

Another Sandusky accuser has filed a federal lawsuit related to the scandal and a second victim has filed a court notice that he will file complaint. Lawyers have suggested others may take legal action.

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MIAMI -- An elderly Margate man is behind bars after authorities say he molested at least two young girls and admitted to a detective that he had been abusing girls since he was a child.

Murry Snider, 81, was arrested Tuesday on 10 counts of lewd or lascivious molestation of a child under 12, the Broward Sheriff's Office said.

Snider, who lives in the 6400 block of Brandywine Drive North, would have little girls call him "Grandpa" and invite them into his room for movies and snacks, where he would molest them, the BSO said.

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According to the BSO, detectives began investigating Snider in May after a teen in Sebring told her mother that Snider repeatedly molested her when she was between the ages of 6 and 9 from 2004 to 2009.

At the time, Snider was a maintenance man at the Executive Economy Lodge at 555 S. Federal Highway in Pompano Beach.

The BSO said they've identified two victims and tentatively identified six others and believe there may be more. Snider told a BSO detective he'd been molesting girls since he was a child and didn't know how many victims there were but that he did it whenever he had the opportunity, authorities said.

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Snider was born and raised in Tallahassee, Alabama, and in the 1990s lived in Williamson, Jefferson, Hardin, Panola and Orange counties in Texas. He lived in Las Vegas in 1999 then moved around Florida, living in Sebring, Clearwater, Largo, St. Petersburg and Miami.

The BSO said he has a clean criminal history except for an old prostitution charge.

Snider, who is suffering from lung disease, was being held without bond Wednesday. It was unknown whether he has an attorney.

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A couple in Delaware was arrested for abusing their eldest daughter, which included an alleged act of waterboarding.

Delaware State Police initially arrested Melvin Morse, 58, after they were informed of a domestic assault incident on July 12, when Morse allegedly grabbed his 11-year-old daughter by the ankle and began dragging her across a gravel driveway at their home in Georgetown, Del. He then took her inside and began spanking her, according to a police report.

Morse, a pediatrician, was charged on July 16 with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one count of assault. He was later released after posting $750 secured bail.

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On Monday, the daughter was brought to the Children's Advocacy Center of Delaware where she was interviewed. She told detectives that over a two-year period, she was disciplined by her father by what he called “waterboarding.” She said her father would hold her face under a running faucet, causing the water to go up her nose and all over her face, the police report said.

The child said this form of punishment was used at least four times. She said her mother, Pauline Morse, 40, witnessed a few of these incidents and failed to stop her father.

The couple also have a 5-year-old daughter.

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Police arrested the couple on Tuesday and charged them with four counts of reckless endangering, conspiracy and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

Melvin was committed to Sussex Correctional Institution in lieu of $14,500 secured bond, and Pauline was released on a $14,500 secured bond. Both parents were ordered to have no contact with each other or either of their children.

Both children are currently in the care of the Division of Family Services. 

 

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AUSTIN, Texas -- Linda Gatica survived head injuries caused by child abuse when she was a baby, but more than three decades later they killed her in what Texas police are now calling a murder.

Yet investigators said on Thursday they aren't hunting for a suspect in the murder of Gatica, who was 36 when she died in May at an Austin care facility for people with mental disabilities.

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That's because they believe the killer to be Gatica's long-dead grandmother, Martha Gatica, who abused her when she was four months old.

"Investigators learned that Linda was brought to a hospital by her mother in 1976 with head injuries that appeared suspicious," Austin police said in a statement.

Police weren't notified at the time, but Child Protective Services investigated and baby Linda was removed from her family and placed in foster care, the statement said.

'Out of the norm'
Retracing the CPS' probe, police found that the Linda Gatica's mother, Mary Jane Gatica, who was 20 at the time, had given a caseworkers differing accounts of how her daughter may have been hurt, including that she may have fallen off the bed or slipped on a toy, Austin's statesman.com reported.

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Mary Jane Gatica and her three children lived with her mother at the time, the newspaper reported. 

After her death decades later, authorities concluded that the injuries suffered when she was a baby ultimately killed Linda Gatica. Further details on the injuries were not available. Police detectives decided to clear the case since the person who abused Gatica -- her grandmother -- is no longer alive.

"It's out of the norm," Austin Police Corporal Anthony Hipolito said of the case.

Reuters and NBC News staff contributed to this report. 

 

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PHILADELPHIA -- Monsignor William Lynn, the most senior U.S. Catholic clergyman convicted in the church’s decades-long sex abuse scandal, was sentenced on Tuesday to three to six years in jail for covering up child sex abuse by priests in Philadelphia.

The sentence handed down by Judge M. Teresa Sarmina was less than the maximum penalty of seven years in prison for Lynn's conviction on a single count of child endangerment.

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Sarmina said the sentence was meant to punish Lynn for protecting "monsters in clerical garb who molested children … to destroy the souls of children, to whom you turned a hard heart."

She added: "You knew full well what was right, Monsignor Lynn, but you chose wrong."

As the former secretary for the clergy for the Philadelphia Archdiocese, Lynn, 61, was essentially personnel director for 800 priests from 1992 to 2004. He was convicted last month of covering up the allegations by transferring predatory priests to unsuspecting parishes.

Lynn was acquitted of conspiracy and a second endangerment count. The jury deadlocked on a 1996 abuse charge against a co-defendant, the Rev. James Brennan, and prosecutors said Monday that they would retry him.

Related: Roman Catholic Church official convicted of endangerment in priest-abuse trial

"I believe that what Lynn did was done by just about every diocese," Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks priest-abuse cases, told NBCPhiladelphia.com. "In most cases, I think the vicar general was well informed, and also the bishop."

More than 500 U.S. priests have now been convicted of abuse, according to his organization. But Lynn's three-month trial, he said, shows "just how hard it is to demonstrate collusion."

Bishop Robert Finn and the Kansas City diocese face a misdemeanor charge of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse. Both Finn and the diocese have pleaded not guilty, and are set to go on trial next month.

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Lynn has been in prison since the June 22 jury verdict, when the trial judge revoked his bail, NBCPhiladelphia.com reported.

Defense lawyers call Lynn a scapegoat for the Philadelphia archdiocese, and plan an appeal. They will also ask that he be released while the lengthy appeals process plays out, NBCPhiladelphia.com reported.

They said the trial was flawed on many levels, starting with the fact Lynn was charged with child endangerment under a law revised in 2007 to include those who supervise the caretakers of children. Lynn had left the archdiocese headquarters in 2004, after serving 12 years as secretary for clergy, and returned to parish work.

Prosecutors pushed for the maximum seven-year sentence, NBCPhiladelphia.com reported.

"His active, even eager execution of archdiocese policies, carried out in the face of victims' vivid suffering, and employing constant deceit, required a more amoral character, a striving to please his bosses no matter how sinister the business," they wrote in a sentencing memo filed Friday. "At any time during those 12 years, he could have had a moment of conscience."

This article includes reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.

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FORTH WORTH, Texas -- A North Texas science teacher is accused of having a sex with a student at various hotels near her home, police say.

Science teacher Rachelle Nicole Heenan, a married mother of two, was arrested at her home in Haslet on July 5 after being accused of the inappropriate relationship, NBCDFW.com reported.

While the student was listed as 18 on the police report, the age of the student at the time of the relationship is unclear, according to NBCDFW.com.

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Improper relationships between educators and students is a second-degree felony, and a conviction carries up to a 20-year sentence.

According to police, the relationship took place between Feb. 24 and May 18, according to NBCDFW.com.  Investigators said the pair’s relationship turned sexual after they met up outside a local gym.

Read NBCDFW.com's story on teacher accused of inappropriate behavior

"Ultimately the victim and the suspect met each other in the parking lot of a private gym in Fort Worth, held conversations inside the vehicle, and ultimately led to kissing,” Fort Worth police Sergeant Pedro told CBS News in Dallas.

Later they checked into a hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, where they had sex, according to CBS News.

The sexual encounters continued for several months with the pair checking into hotels after school and during the weekend, CBS News reported.

A school resource officer learned of the allegation and informed the superintendent.  The allegation was reported to the Fort Worth Police Department on May 25.

Heenan is a teacher of forensic science at the Hollenstein Career and Technology Center in the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw Independent School District.  According to her biography on the district website,  she taught Pre-AP and AP Biology at Boswell High School for 8 years before moving to Hollenstein. She has been married for 10 years and has two children, according to the website.

She was placed on paid administrative leave since May.

There is no reason to believe other students were involved, investigators said.

NBCDFW.com's Frank Heinz and msnbc.com's Sevil Omer contributed to this report.

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UPDATED AT 3:43 p.m. ET: PHILADELPHIA -- A Roman Catholic church official was convicted Friday of child endangerment but acquitted of conspiracy in a groundbreaking clergy-abuse trial, becoming the first U.S. church official convicted of a crime for how he handled abuse claims.

Monsignor William Lynn helped the archdiocese keep predators in ministry, and the public in the dark, by telling parishes their priest was being removed for health reasons and then sending the men to unsuspecting churches, prosecutors said.

Lynn, 61, had faced about 10 to 20 years in prison if convicted of all three counts he faced — conspiracy and two counts of child endangerment. He was convicted on one of the endangerment counts and acquitted of the other two counts, leaving him with the possibility of up to seven years in prison.

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The jury began deliberating earlier this month after hearing 10 weeks of testimony in a trial that re-focused attention on the broader sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church, costing billions in settlements, driving prominent U.S. dioceses into bankruptcy and testing the faith of Roman Catholics.

In this case, Lynn's job was supervising 800 priests, including investigating sex abuse claims, from 1992 to 2004, in the nation's sixth largest archdiocese, with 1.5 million members.

Lynn was on trial with Rev. James Brennan. Brennan, 49, was charged with the attempted rape of a 14-year-old boy in 1996, along with child endangerment.

In Brennan's case, the jury remained deadlocked on one count of attempted rape and another count of endangering the welfare of a child, NBC10.com reported.

Read complete coverage from Philadelphia's NBC10.com of the priest abuse trial

Brennan did not testify during the trial, while Lynn spent three days on the witness stand saying that he did what he could to stop molestation by clergy but that he was only doing his job when he reassigned suspected clergy.

On cross-examination, Lynn acknowledged that he had not helped the 10-year-old altar boy raped by the Rev. Edward Avery in 1999, seven years after Lynn met with another Avery accuser.

“And I'm sorry about that,” Lynn said.

Avery is in prison after admitting the crime.

One of the key exhibits was a gray folder found in a locked safe at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The folder contains a list of 35 suspected predator-priests -- and was compiled by Lynn in 1994. At least one priest on the list was a parish pastor until this year.

Lynn, the former secretary for clergy, testified that he created the list from secret church files containing hundreds of child sex-abuse complaints. He said he hoped Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and other superiors would address the growing crisis. Bevilacqua died in January.

It's unclear who put the surviving copy of Lynn's list in the safe. Lynn denied doing so, or owning the safe. The gray file was found when the safe was smashed open in 2006, two years after Lynn left his archdiocese job. An in-house lawyer said he put the gray folder in his files in 2006 without realizing the list -- sought by a grand jury in 2004 -- was inside.

A new team of lawyers for the archdiocese turned it over to prosecutors in early February, days after Bevilacqua died. Lynn's trial started March 26.

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The jury heard from more than a dozen alleged victims, including a nun, a former priest and a series of troubled adults.

Lynn said he did more than his colleagues to help victims and advance the church's response to both accusers and the accused priests, who were often sent for evaluation or treatment before transfers to new, unsuspecting parishes. Lynn said that only Bevilacqua had the power to remove priests from ministry.

But prosecutors say Lynn could have quit or called police. Instead, he stayed in the job for 12 years -- and acknowledged he never once contacted authorities.

This article by NBC10.com includes reporting from The Associated Press and Reuters.

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A retired school bus driver, a Wal-Mart employee, a Penn State professor and a Penn State football season ticketholder since the 1970s. They are among the 12 jurors and four alternates selected to hear the child sex abuse case against former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

With jury selection completed on Wednesday, the judge said the trial would begin next week.

Sandusky faces 52 counts of molesting 10 boys over a 15-year period. He has pleaded not guilty and faces more than 500 years in prison if convicted on all counts. The 68-year-old grandfather has denied the allegations.

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At least one jury expert says Sandusky’s attorney, Joe Amendola, was wise to insist that the case be tried locally. Prosecutors had sought an out-of-county jury.

“I think quite frankly that Amendola is hedging his bets, and he’s very lucky he’s picking his jury in the area. I think he will probably find one person in that pool who will keep Jerry Sandusky from being convicted,” said Robin Wertz, a jury consultant based in Reading, Pa., and a one-time Penn State football season-ticket holder.

“Penn State fans and people with connections to Penn State have a loyalty like none other, and they may need to see some real hard evidence, more so than people from out of town, to convict one of their own," Wertz told msnbc.com. "If there is a close call in this case … I think that Amendola’s smartest move was to hope for that one person in that Penn State community that will prevent a conviction.”

But Howard Varinsky, a leading trial consultant who has been involved in high-profile cases, including those of Michael Jackson, Phil Spector, Jack Kevorkian and Timothy McVeigh, said Sandusky would probably have been better off with a change of venue.

“It sounds like you have a pretty straight jury there, and it sounds like a prosecution jury to me,” he said.

“The defense is hoping that with at least two science people on the jury. They get very picky on their evidence and want to see hard facts. There are no hard facts here. This is all witness testimony,” Varinsky said.

12-person jury, alternates chosen in Sandusky case

Details emerged of the selected jury's composition from the Bellefonte, Pa., courtroom. Many revealed a strong connection to Penn State. A look at jurors:

Juror 1: A woman and Wal-Mart employee. She has two daughters. She said she doesn’t know much about the case.

Juror 2: A 24-year-old man who plans to start school in the fall to study automotive technology.

Juror 3: A woman whose husband is a physician in the same medical group in which John McQueary, the father of one of the key witnesses in the case, worked. The woman also has been a football season ticket holder since the 1970s.

Sandusky's attorney had moved to strike the woman as a juror, but Judge John Cleland overruled his objection.

"We're in Centre County. We're in rural Pennsylvania," Cleland said. "There are these (connections) that cannot be avoided."

Juror 4: An engineer who is married to a librarian. "I do read blogs and papers,” he said. “I did make a point of avoiding stories about this case. I reach a saturation point about 2 ½ months ago. Once I received the summons I thought it would be better not read anyone."

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Juror 5: A Bellefonte High School physics and chemistry teacher. He has two boys, ages 5 and 2. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Penn State in 2003 and 2008. Asked by the defense attorney if he could be fair because he has two young boys, he says he could. He said he doesn't read too many newspapers and if he does, it’s the sports section. He said he knows about the case but not beyond common knowledge.

Juror 6: A married woman in her 20s. She works at a department store. She doesn't read the newspapers and said she has not heard any specific details of the case. She said she has no opinion about the case.

Juror 7: A Penn State junior who works part-time for the university’s sports facility. He is in his 20s and does administrative work for track and softball. He wore a Penn State archery T-shirt.  He read a lot about the case and had opinions, he said, but could put them aside for the trial.

His cousin also played on the Penn State football team for six years, and his mom works for the State College Area School District. He said his mom knows more, but has not shared it with him.

Juror 8: A retired Penn State professor in his late 60s or early 70s. He is married and worked as a soil science professor in the Department of Agriculture for 37 years. He’s been retired for four years.

Juror 9: A retired woman in her 70s.

Juror 10: She works at Penn State as an administrative assistant in engineering. She doesn't know anyone in case. She has two daughters and four grandchildren.

Juror 11: A 30-year-old woman who worked part-time at Penn State as a dance class instructor. She said she has had conversations with her husband about the case. Her husband is a media specialist at the Larson Institute at Penn State. She has a Facebook account, has watched television and read newspapers, but hasn't seen information recently. She knows one potential witness through her dance connections, she said. She has one son, age 6. She has not experienced abuse in her life.

Juror 12: A woman in her 50s or 60s who has been a Penn State professor for 24 years. She did not say what she teaches or what department she works in. She said she has read some news accounts and the Sandusky grand jury report. She also worked on a small committee with ousted Penn State President Graham Spanier.

Alternate 1: A 30-year-old woman who is a Penn State graduate student majoring in human development. She said Sandusky spoke at her graduation.

Alternate 2: A married woman with no children. She said she can be impartial and ready to commit herself to the time the trial would take. "I'm really bad about reading the newspaper. I don't watch a lot of television," she said.

Alternate 3: A man in his 50s. He is married and has two sons, ages 29 and 30. He works in Reading, Pa. He said he talked to his wife about it but wasn't overly exposed to facts of the case. He read the grand jury report when it first came out, but said he hasn't kept up with latest developments. He doesn't get a newspaper or follow blogs, he said.

He graduated from Penn State and his wife is the director for Upward Bound (a program within Penn State geared towards getting high school children prepared for college). This program has no connection with Sandusky’s charity, Second Mile. He attends high school football games. Asked about his two boys and whether he would be able to be objective, he nodded yes. His wife is a reporter, he said. His sister's husband is a retired corrections officer. He said did not know anyone who had been a victim of sexual assault.

Alternate 4: A woman in her 60s. She said she doesn't believe a lot of what is reported in the media and staunchly believes in innocence until proven guilty. She adamantly agreed that prosecution must prove its case. She said she’s seen enough television and movies to know that it "has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt."

Msnbc.com's Sevil Omer and James Eng contributed to this story, as did NBC News's Tom Winter.

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Updated at 10:40 p.m. ET -- By the end of the day Tuesday, nine jurors were selected at a central Pennsylvania courthouse, where former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky will stand trial on charges of sexually abusing children.

"I need you to all have an open mind," Judge John Cleland told jurors, according to PennLive.com. "This defendant is charged with sexual abuse of children."

Sandusky, who had been laughing as Cleland made a few jokes with jurors, immediately looked down at that point, PennLive's reporter wrote from the courtroom.

One of two middle-aged women selected told the court she's been a Penn State football season-ticketholder since the 1970s and that her husband works for the medical group where the father of key witness Mike McQueary previously worked. A 24-year-old man was also selected.

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Cleland said that unless ties to witnesses or Sandusky were strong, relationships such as hers would not mean she could not serve on the jury, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The jury selection officially started later than scheduled with 240 prospective jurors out of the 600 who were called. The pool will be narrowed to 12 jurors and four alternates.

The initial pool of 600 was narrowed down via an at-home questionnaire, PennLive.com reported.

The 240 potential jurors will be divided into groups of 40 for more questions, followed by one-on-one questioning for those who are not dismissed. The process could take days, reported AP, but the judge said he wants the trial to start Monday.

Cleland also told the prospective jurors what their duties would entail and said they would not be sequestered during the trial, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Judges rarely isolate juries; when they do, it is to prevent them from being swayed or threatened.

"I'm trusting you will not read the newspapers, watch TV news, will not read blogs,” the judge said, according to the Inquirer. “I'm sure that judgment will not be misplaced."

Jurors are being chosen from among people who live in the State College area, where Penn State's main campus is located, AP reported.

TV trucks surrounded the courtroom, as potential jurors began slowly filing into the front door of the courthouse around 8 a.m. One man wore a gray Penn State sweatshirt, AP reported.

Sandusky and his lawyer, Joe Amendola, made no comments as they arrived. He has repeatedly denied the charges.

Sandusky, 68, faces 52 criminal counts for alleged abuse of 10 boys over 15 years. Some of the alleged victims are expected to testify.

The defense also presented a list of some 60 possible witnesses that includes: the son and wife of the late coach Joe Paterno; former Penn State President Graham Spanier; and PennLive.com reporter Sara Ganim.

Previous report: Sandusky accusers must use real identities at trial

On Monday, the alleged victims were told they would have to use their real names when they testified. Lawyers for five accusers had requested their clients be allowed to use pseudonyms.

Penn State, for its part, released a statement on the trial that read: "We are further hopeful that the legal process will start to bring closure to the alleged victims and families whose lives have been irrevocably impacted and that they can begin the healing process."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Updated: 3:45 p.m. ET -- The judge in Jerry Sandusky’s child sex abuse trial ruled Monday that the alleged victims of the former Penn State assistant football coach will have to testify using their real names.

McKean County Senior Judge John Cleland also ruled that tweets or other electronic dispatches from reporters covering the trial, which begins Tuesday, will not be allowed, reversing an previous ruling.

At a pretrial hearing in Bellefonte, Pa., Cleland also resolved a dispute over research into potential jurors, rejecting a motion by Sandusky's lawyer to order the state attorney general's office to turn over information it has collected about potential jurors.

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Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday in Sandusky's trial on 52 counts that he sexually abused 10 boys over a 15-year period. Sandusky, 68, who remains confined in his home in State College, Pa., has repeatedly denied the charges.

Lawyers for five Sandusky accusers had requested that their clients be allowed to testify under pseudonyms.

Cleland rejected the motion, but pledged that the court would "cooperate when possible" to protect witness privacy and personal information.

"Arguably any victim of any crime would prefer not to appear in court, not to be subjected to cross-examination, not to have his or her credibility evaluated by a jury - not to put his name and reputation at stake," the judge wrote. "But we ask citizens to do that every day in courts across the nation."

The judge noted the sensitivity of the issue, and the efforts that both sides have made to protect the men to this point. But "once the trial begins, the veil must be lifted," he wrote.

In a statement provided to the Patriot News newspaper, lawyers Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici, who represent multiple alleged Sandusky victims said they were “extremely disappointed” by the ruling.

"The victims in this case courageously came forward and provided extremely painful and personal information to investigators and prosecutors so that they could help protect children from further harm and exploitation,” the wrote. “The victims' experiences, the abuse they have suffered and its effects and their testimony at trial are certainly matters that are critical to the public interest. However, their personal identities are not."

Media organizations typically do not identify people who say they were sexually abused.

Cleland also denied a request by Sandusky's lawyer to order the attorney general's office to turn over information it has collected about potential jurors. Cleland said there was not enough evidence to warrant a hearing on the matter, and noted that prosecutors have said they have only done what a diligent defense attorney would do.

"Even if the commonwealth collected the information in this case in the manner the defense asserts and which the commonwealth denies, I do not believe that the information is constitutionally required to be turned over to the defense," Cleland wrote.

The basis for the defense request was an anonymous letter that claims to list the information prosecutors have collected.

"A motion filed by counsel must be supported by allegations of fact backed up with some credible basis to believe the allegations to be true," Cleland wrote. "Otherwise the court and counsel can be engaged in chasing chimeras."

Cleland, who was selected to preside over the Sandusky case after Centre County's judges recused themselves because of the defendant's connections to Penn State University, has not ruled on defense motions to have some or all of the charges thrown out. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday rejected a motion filed late Friday by Sandusky's attorneys seeking to delay the trial.

Cleland previously had said he would allow electronic communication, but not photographs or the recording or broadcasting of any verbatim account of the proceedings while court is in session.

Media groups, including The Associated Press, sought clarification on Friday, in response to which Cleland rescinded permission for any electronic communications from inside the Centre County courtroom.

"It is readily apparent from the allegations in the media's motion ... that the standard I applied in my definition is confusing to reporters, unworkable, and, therefore, likely unenforceable," the judge wrote.

The rules Cleland put in place are typical for Pennsylvania trials. He noted a state criminal procedure court rule that prohibits transmission of proceedings in session by phone, radio, TV, or "advanced communication technology."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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