A janitor who worked in Penn State’s Lasch Football Building in 2000 testified about a sexual assault by Jerry Sandusky witnessed in the building’s showers.
There was a legal battle in the courtroom between prosecutors and defense attorneys before janitor Ronald Petrosky was allowed to testify. Prosecutor Joe McGettigan told the judge that another janitor at the Lasch building witnessed the sexual assault of a boy in the showers by Sandusky, but that janitor, Jim Calhoun, has dementia and can’t testify. The judge allowed Petrosky to testify about what Calhoun told him.
Ronald Petrosky said on the stand that he spotted the legs of a man and a boy in the locker room showers. He left the room, not thinking much of it. He said he saw Sandusky and a boy leave the room not long after, wet as if they had just showered. Then he said Calhoun came out of the locker room looking “white as a ghost.”
“He said, ‘I just witnessed something I’ll never forget the rest of my life,'” testified Petrosky.
Petrosky said that Calhoun then told him about witnessing “that man who just came out of the showers” sexually assaulting a boy. He said he saw Sandusky giving the boy oral sex.
Petrosky testified that Calhoun was shaking and crying. Petrosky and other workers took Calhoun into another room to calm him down. Calhoun repeated the story about what he saw. Petrosky testified that the workers told Cahoun who he witnessed was Sandusky. Petrosky said all the workers were concerned about Calhoun because he was so upset.
Petrosky also told jurors that he witnessed Sandusky come driving slowly through the Lasch Building Parking lot two times during that overnight shift.
Petrosky said no one ever told any authorities about what was witnessed that night. Petrosky said he came forward to authorities after hearing about what Mike McQueary reportedly witnessed in that same building in 2001, but Petrosky said he didn’t learn that until last year.
