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Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer, Joe Amendola, got a 16-year- old client pregnant and later married her
Joe Amendola, the State College, Pa., attorney representing accused child molester Jerry Sandusky, has an interesting back story himself: He got a teen-age client pregnant during the mid-1990s.
Amendola, 63, married the girl several years after the birth of their child, The Daily reported Monday night, citing documents filed at the Centre County, Pa., courthouse.
Amendola represented a 16-year-old girl then known as Mary Iavasile when she filed an emancipation petition in September 1996. The emancipation petition said the girl had graduated from high school in two years with a 3.69 GPA and held a fulltime job at Amendola's law office.
The girl gave birth to Amendola's child when she was 17 years old, her mother, Janet Iavasile, said. Amendola would have been about 49 years old at the time. The age of consent in Pennsylvania is 16.
Janet Iavasile said she didn't know the extent of the relationship between her daughter and the attorney. She thought he was more of a mentor than a paramour.
"She was interested in law," the mother said.
Amendola married the girl in February 2003 and the couple had a second child before they separated. Amendola's estranged wife, now a 32, has retained his last name.
"Joe is a very good father and has loved his two children very much, and that's the most important thing for me right now," Janet Iavasile said.
Joe Amendola did not return calls for comment.
Sandusky is not the only member of the Penn State football community who was represented by Amendola after being accused of a sexual crime.
Amendola also represented Nittany Lions tailback Austin Scott after another student accused Scott of rape in 2007. Centre County prosecutors dropped the case on the eve of trial in 2008 when a judge said the jury could be told that the alleged victim had accused another man of a similar crime four years earlier. The man in the earlier case was acquitted.
In July, a federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed a lawsuit filed by Scott accusing Penn State, police and the alleged victim of conspiring against him.
Defense lawyers across the country are still baffled about why Amedola gave his blessing to Sandusky's appearance on NBC's "Rock Center" on Monday. During the interview with Bob Costas, Sandusky said he was not guilty of the criminal charges he faces, but acknowledged that he did engage with inappropriate behavior with children, including taking showers with boys.
Sandusky's statements will certainly be scrutinized and used by prosecutors as well as attorneys representing victims who file civil suits.
"I didn't go around seeking out every young person for sexual needs that I've helped," Sandusky said. "There are many that I didn't have - I hardly had any contact with who I helped in many, many ways."
Mary Amendola is apparently unconvinced. When Costas asked the lawyer if he would leave his children alone with Sandusky, Amendola said "yes, without hesitation."
"OMG," Mary Amendola wrote on her Facebook page, "did Joe just say that he would allow my kids to be alone with Jerry Sandusky?"
Source: nydailynews.com