Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky is led into a police car in handcuffs after being convicted in his child sex abuse trial at the Centre County Courthouse in Pennsylvania
A US jury convicted former Penn State assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky on 45 of 48 counts in a child sex abuse case that shocked the nation and rocked the university, US media said.
Police led the 68-year-old Sandusky away from the courthouse in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania in handcuffs, television footage showed on Friday, reports AFP.
Sandusky, who stood accused of molesting 10 boys over a 15-year period, allegedly recruited his young victims under the guise of a program he ran for abused and neglected youth.
It was not immediately clear on which three counts Sandusky was found not guilty.
The case has shocked the United States, where many are obsessed by college sports and hold up their American football team's coaches as demi-gods.
The headline-grabbing scandal also has tarnished the legacy of Pennsylvania State University, one of the country's most illustrious college football programs.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly thanked the victims for testifying, saying they had "shown great strength... to not only tell their stories to a packed courtroom, but the entire world."
Prosecutors said Sandusky recruited his victims through his Second Mile charity, which went bankrupt last month after donations dried up in the wake of the scandal.
Sandusky, who did not testify in his own defence, had faced 48 counts of sexually abusing at least 10 boys between 1994 and 2008, with some of the alleged incidents taking place on campus.
Sandusky's lawyer Joseph Amendola told reporters after the verdict was read that he had battled a "tidal wave of public opinion against Jerry Sandusky" and that the verdict was not a surprise.
"I used the analogy that we were trying to climb Mount Everest from the bottom of the mountain. Well obviously, we didn't make it," Amendola said.
Amendola said there were "decent appeal issues" that his team would pursue, but acknowledged: "Essentially, the sentence that Jerry will receive is a life sentence."