Jerry Sandusky's wife: Victims manipulated and 'they saw money'

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., March 12 (UPI) -- The wife of convicted child abuser Jerry Sandusky, who once coached defense at Penn State, says her husband is innocent of the charges that sent him to prison.

"Do I believe him? I definitely believe him," Dottie Sandusky said Wednesday on NBC's "Today Show. "Because if I didn't believe him, when I testified at trial, I could have not said what I said. I would have had to tell the truth."

She said she thought visions of a big payday factored into the trial.

"I think it was, they [the victims] were manipulated, and they saw money,'' Dottie Sandusky said in the interview at her State College, Pa., home. "Once lawyers came into the case, they said there was money."

Sandusky was convicted on 45 of 48 charges of sexual abuse of young boys in June 2012

Dottie said she didn't believe her husband was guilty of inappropriate behavior with some of his accusers.

"I believe he showered with kids. That's the generation that Jerry grew up in," she said. "There were always people coming in and out no matter what time that was."

Asked to comment on a Washington Post column in which the author said it was "a shame" Dottie Sandusky wasn't in prison and that predators "tend to choose spouses who can be counted on to suppress any unpleasant ideas that might occur to them," Sandusky said she wasn't a weak spouse.

"As you know ... they call me 'Sarge' because Jerry said I kept everybody in line," she said on the "Today Show." "If they want to say that, let them say that. I know who I am. And I know who Jerry is. And I know he did not do the horrible crimes that he's convicted of."