A 44-year-old Massachusetts man who last year claimed he was sexually assaulted by Jerry Sandusky in 1988 was arrested Wednesday in Boston for armed assault with intent to murder.
Anthony Spinelli, of Leominster, Mass., publicly claimed in June 2015 that Sandusky had abused him when Spinelli was a 16-year-old attending a Penn State football camp. Prosecutors said his claim had passed the statute of limitations.
He was arrested in connection with the stabbing of Bobby Pirelli, who was having lunch with some of the elderly people in his building Tuesday afternoon when he went upstairs to his apartment to get drinks, his sister told WBZ-TV in Boston. When he was leaving the apartment he was attacked and stabbed multiple times and the assailant escaped.
Boston Police investigated and identified Spinelli as the alleged attacker. At about 1:20 p.m. on Wednesday police found Spinelli behind a shed in Revere, Mass., and arrested him.
Police say the incident allegedly started with a conversation in Pirelli’s kitchen on Tuesday and progressed into an argument in his bedroom. Pirelli suffered stab wounds to the neck, torso, and abdomen but is expected to survive after a lengthy surgery. Spinelli, who also suffered a stab wound to the hand and wore a bandage and cast in court this morning for his arraignment, is being held on $1 million bail. He will return to court on Jan. 17 for a pretrial hearing. He also had bail on an open DUI case revoked.
Spinelli sought to have new charges brought against Sandusky — who was convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse in 2012 — but the Office of the Attorney General initially declined, citing statute of limitations issues. He appealed and went public with his accusation, saying he wanted to be a ‘voice for the voiceless.’
Attorney Steven Passarello said at the time of the appeal that Spinelli had been a promising football player before the alleged abuse. Afterward, he said, ‘His life spiraled into a life of drugs, alcohol and criminal activity.”
Spinelli pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2002 in Fitchburg, Mass., and was sentenced to eight to 10 years in state prison.
In October 2015, Centre County Judge Thomas Kistler ruled that the OAG could pursue the charges. He determined that the statute of limitations has been extended and amended for sexual abuse victims multiple times since the alleged offense in 1988, and as long as the previous statute had not yet expired, any updated statute can be applied retroactively.
Kistler’s decision was reversed by Commonwealth Court and Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to take up Spinelli’s petition.
