LACKAWANNA COUNTY -- Jeffrey Sandusky, the adopted son of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, was arrested Monday on child sex charges.
State police in Centre County charged Jeffrey Sandusky, 41, with child sex abuse crimes.
His father Jerry Sandusky was convicted of child sex abuse crimes in 2012.
Jeffrey Sandusky remained silent after he was charged with numerous child sex abuse offenses at a magistrate’s office in Bellefonte.
State police say Sandusky sent text messages to two children, asking for inappropriate pictures of them and making inappropriate comments.
Sandusky is one of six adopted children of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who himself is serving a 30 to 60 year sentence for sexually abusing young boys.
“You don't know what to think. It's just a sad situation,” said Chris Genovese from Scranton. “I mean, it must run in the family, I guess. It's a really sad thing to say.”
“It's pretty sad, the whole saga, right from Sandusky himself,” said Paul Jones from Clarks Summit.
State police say their investigation began last November when a man told them his child received inappropriate texts from Sandusky in March.
Court papers, which do not reveal the gender of either child, say the child also told them Sandusky may have watched the child when the child was in the shower and that the child did not feel safe with Sandusky.
And state police say the second child said that Sandusky texted the child in the spring of 2013 while the child was in the shower, saying he “wanted to know how it felt.”
“These kinds of experiences can occur within the same family system for a variety of reasons,” said Dr. David Palmiter.
Dr. Palmiter is a psychology professor at Marywood University and has worked with victims of sexual and childhood abuse.
“No one can really say these are the two, three things that cause one person to sexually abuse another, but there are some trends that we see.”
Jeffrey Sandusky is being held at the Centre County Prison on $200,000 bail.