Motion seeks to bar transfer of Second Mile assets

Three men who testified against Jerry Sandusky during his child sex-abuse trial are seeking to prevent the former coach's charity from transferring its assets to a Texas youth-services group.

Their motion, filed Tuesday in Centre County (Pa.) Orphans Court, came the same day the Second Mile put its State College headquarters up for sale with an asking price of $750,000.

"The court's first priority must be to preserve [the Second Mile's] assets to maximize its ability to pay current and future liabilities," lawyers for the men known as Victims 3, 5, and 7 wrote in court filings. Travis Weaver, an Ohio man who has also accused Sandusky of abuse but was not part of the criminal trial, also joined their motion. (It is The Inquirer's general policy not to identify victims of sexual abuse, but since Weaver publicly accused Sandusky in a televised interview last week, his name is included in this story.)

Sandusky, 68, was convicted of 45 counts stemming from the molestation of 10 boys he met through the Second Mile, the charity for underprivileged youth he founded in 1977.

None of the men who took the stand at his trial has filed suit yet against the nonprofit, but Weaver sued it, Pennsylvania State University, and Sandusky himself within weeks of the former coach's arrest.

Last month, the Second Mile asked the court's permission to dissolve and transfer its $2.5 million in assets to Houston-based Arrow Child and Family Ministries. President David Woodle has said that the scandal surrounding the organization's founder has made fund-raising too difficult to continue.

Arrow, which has an office in Altoona and serves 300 Pennsylvania children, is run by a sexual-abuse victim raised in central Pennsylvania.

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