tonight on "nightline," breaking news, there is a verdict in the case of the attracted the world of college football, jerry sandusky, former penn state football coach found guilty of sexually abusing young boys he mentored. we'll have the very latest. life behind bars, cheers erupt outside the courtroom as sandusky is convicted of 45 counts of abuse. for the first time, he'll hear the full story from the people inside the courtroom. the other woman, married presidential candidate, his pregnant girlfriend and a web of lives that unrattle before our eyes. tonight, john edward's mistress, rielle hunter tells all about their secret affair and their

little girl. this is "nightline," june 22, 2012. good evening. i'm bill weir. the verdict for jerry sandusky tonight guilty on 45 counts of sexually abusing young men, not guilty on three counts. since the allegations first surfaced, penn state and his football program has been rocked by the horrific accounts or seerlt sexual predation by the once beloved coach. this conviction makes it very likely the 68-year-old will live out the rest of his life in prison. abc's jim avila has been following this story from the very beginning and comes to us from bellefonte, pennsylvania. >> reporter: bill, the emotions have been building in the penn state community for nearly a year. tonight they erupted on the courtroom steps. a huge crowd cheering the

prosecution and cat calls and boos at jerry sandusky as his defense team. inside the courtroom i was five rows behind jerry sandusky, his shoulders were slumped, his hands in his possibility. his shoulders going deeper into his body and the head juror recited the guilty verdict hah 45 times. jerry sandusky, hands cuffed in front of him, on the way to jail tonight and possibly to prison for the rest of his life. while in the front of the courthouse, cheers erupt as the verdict is read. jerry sandusky, guilty on 45 counts of child molestation. the verdict closes the final chapter to a story that has no heroes. leaving the reputation of penn state football, one of america's most loved programs tatters. joe paterno, fired before he died. >> almost more horrifying the abuse itself, the revelation

that officials at penn state, including the beloved pa tern know, told of the allegations. it alenled the only action x paterno and others took was to take away his keys to the locker room and report the incident to second mile, sandusky's charity. no one called the police. known to the public, only by their victim numbers, one by one, his victims told their hart breaking and horrifying accounts of sexual abuse, bringing some jurors to tears. >> the prosecution's case in my view was overwhelming and devastates. >> victim number one, a boy of 13 then, now 18, testifying in tears to three years of sexual abuse. including horrible acts that he was too fearful to report. victim number four, said he was abused as often as three times a week for three years. claiming sandusky even offered him money to continue spending time with him. but perhaps the most devastating testimony came not from a victim but from sandusky's former colleague, mike mcqueary, a

graduate assistant doech. he testified he once saw sandusky pinning a young boy against the wall in the shower with his arm around the boy's midsection. >> here was the man who literally brought penn state to its knees. >> the jury was unconvinced by the spirited testimony of sandusky's wife dottie. she told the jury her husband was too busy to commit these crimes and heard nothing in the family basement where the victim's said the molestations often occurred. >> i saw in dat ti's testimony a loyal wife, but a wife who had to concede the obvious points in the prosecution case which was that these boys were there, in the home, with frequency, and in the basement and being tucked into bed by her husband. >> the story first erupted in the public eye late last year, on the heels of a three-year investigation into the dark side of sandusky's life. the defense famed paterno defense was praying on boys he

encountered through second mile, a charity sandusky established to help needy children. after it came to light that assistant coach mcqueary told paterno what he had seen in the team shower, sandusky attacking a 0-year-old boy. many people made up their mind about him early on, after he agreed to a televised phone interview. >> are you sexually attracted to young boys, underage boys? >> am i sexually attracted to underage boys? >> yes. >> sexually attracted, no. i enjoy young people. i love to be around them. no, i'm not sexually attracted to young boys. >> that clip was played again for the jury. and they did not believe that statement on television or in the courtroom. there's no doubt that they didn't believe that jerry sandusky is a monster. that's what they said in this

skrerkt. he will spend the rest of his life in prison. >> tonight in this courtroom, an ugly chapter in college football history ends, jerry sandusky on the way to jail. his wife, dottie was in the courtroom just behind him. she did not cry tonight. she instead shook her head, cold response as he her knees shook as each of the verdicts were read. >> bill, jim avila. thanks. coming up, we'll hear from his defense lawyer on why they might appeal tonight's stunning verdicts. [ male announcer ] we imagined a vehicle that could adapt to changing road conditions. one that continually monitors and corrects for wheel slip. we imagined a vehicle that can increase emergency braking power when you need it most. and we imagined it looking like nothing else on the road today.

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>> a judge will sentence jerry sandusky 90 days from now, he faces 442 years as a hacks mum. one man still determined to try to stop that is defense lawyer joe amendola. last week he said he would be shocked if his client was convicted. tonight he's thinking about an appeal. why? >> we had a lot of material that we didn't have sufficient time to review prior to start of the trial. and actually, until we go through those materials again and until we have an opportunity to talk with one of our experts who was unable to testify in this case, we really won't know what issues are involved in those particular matters. >> can you give us any sense of what jerry sandusky said to you, his demeanor as he left? >> he was resolved in this case. this is not a surprise. the surprise would have been that jerry sandusky would have been acquitted of all or most of the charges filed against him. we said from the very beginning

that there was a tidal wave of opinion on november 5 of last year when he was first charged that he was guilty. that was from the public among the media. and we were fighting that concept of guilt from first day of the charges being filed against him. i said from the beginning, bill, that we were climbing mt. everest from the bottom of hill. we didn't make it. that's what everyone expected. >> matt sandusky, their adopted son was willing to come out, he announced late thursday, that he had been abused, he had been preyed upon sexually by the man who raised him. how can you deny that as the most damaging evidence of all? >> matt sandusky was supposed to be one of our witnesses. he was on our witness list. matt sandusky sat with his family the first day of trial. according to his brothers and sister, he stopped one of the witnesses for the common wealth,

that jer he abused that person. so, it came as a shock to us when we received the call last thursday night that matt sandusky had talked to the attorney general's folks and told them he had been abused by jerry. from a strategy standpoint, legal standpoint, we convinced jerry, at the last minute, moments before he would have testified, that it was the better part of discretion not to take the stand. jerry denied abusing matt sandusky. the rest of the family, the other four brothers, his sister, and his mother were all prepared to testify that whatever matt sandusky said on the stand was not true. and that matt had had some health issues, mental health issues, had a history of changing stories about what he did or didn't do. and they said this came as no surprise to them that he would turn around and indicate that his father did something to him. we were prepared to deal with that. but, again, at the urging of counsel, he realized, jerry realized that had matt testified

it would have destroyed whatever chance he had in an acquittal of this case. >> to get some reaction from the prosecution side, pennsylvania attorney linda kelly joins us now. we heard the defense team essentially say that the victims in this case are all testifying, looking for a payday. and that this case was essentially rushed into court. your reaction to their possible entertainment of appeal? >> i think i can say that the defense in this given a lot of discovery material. they were made aware of all the charges in this case and what the commonwealth intended to present. so they had an opportunity to prepare this case. we don't believe it was rushed into court. the commonwealth was prepared to go forward. as you know, this was a very complex case involving a lot of different -- in these cases, the defense has to come up with something. and it's not unusual for them to

accuse victims like this of lying, of engaging in conspiracies or doing something for financial gain. obviously the jury in this case didn't agree with the assessment of mr. amendola and were comfortable with the result here. >> i just wonder what your thoughts are after such a monumental verdict, given such a painful, agonizing round of testimony. there are no good emotions in any of this, but what are your thoughts after this verdict? >> well, my thoughts are that this case from the beginning was about the victims in this case. the eight young men. i think that the verdict in this case is very positive for victims everywhere, not in particular the eight young men who came forward and bravely testified in this case and told a packed courtroom in bellefonte, pennsylvania, what happened to them in their childhood when they met jerry sandusky.

so, i think that it's very significant that the national spotlight has been so focused on this case and the issues of victimization that has been paramount in this case. and i hope that there is a positive result from that. >> thanks to attorney general kelly, also to joe amendola, defense attorney for jerry sandusky. gma will have the latest developments. coming up here, he was running for president, she was his secret pregnant girlfriend. john edward's mistress, rielle hunter tells all. my name is marjorie reyes, and i'm a chief warrant officer.

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unlike jerry sandusky, john edwards is a free man tonight after a hung jury ended a trial

that laid bear a scathing scandal, involving an affair on the presidential campaign trail, a mistress with his secret baby and dying wife on the verge of a breakdown. tonight the woman at the center of it all, sits down with chris cuomo to tell her side of the story. >> i don't regret falling in love. i don't regret loving him nor do i regret our daughter. >> she's the other woman in one of the biggest political sex scandals of our time. now rielle hunter is coming out of the shadows, telling her story in a new book called what really happened. >> he rounded the street corner and came out of my mouth, you're to hot. >> it began in 2006 with a chance encounter in new york at a time edwards was seriously considering a run for the white house. >> did you go there looking for john edwards? >> no. >> what would follow is what rial called the most extraordinary night of her life. though she thought it was just a one-night stand. she was now involved with a

married man, and not just any happen ma married man. >> john edwards. >> 0 year marriage to wife elizabeth seemed the stuff of fairy tales. buttee el says what she was told, was very different. >> their marriage was ruined before i got there. years before. >> he tells you there have been other women in his life? >> yes. i was not the first. >> and while edwards is out on the campaign trail keeping up the family man imagine. >> she's the most extraordinary person i've ever known. >> hunter is hiding out in hotels h, waiting for secret meets with the man she calls johnny. eventually she joins him on the trail as his behind the seans vidography. >> edwards is now one of the top candidates for the democrat cattic domination. but soon, things get even more complicated. rielle hunter learns she's

pregnant. and they snap these photos. >> it leads them into an elaborate coverup. she goes into hiding under the care of edward's close aid, andrew young who would claim he's the father of hunt's baby. >> that's my biggest mistake of letting it happen. was my fear that if i said no, if something happen had had, he would blame me. >> she said that need to protect her daughter is the reason for writing this book. frances quinn hunter was born in february of 2008 in santa barbara. on her birth certificate her father's name is left blank. >> where is john edwards. >> he wasn't with me. >> isn't he supposed to be there. >> he knew i was having the baby. he could have comb. i'm not going to say you have to be there. >> it would be a month before edwards would see his daughter, at a secret meeting at this hotel. the same place where months later the enquirer would get its

proof. >> what were you thinking? >> here in 2008, edwards answers the damming evidence with his most brazen lie of all. >> a report has been accomplished that the baby of miss hunter is your baby, true? >> not true. happy to take a paternity test and love to see it happen. >> for hunter the denial, crushing betrayal. >> the difference in pain is, you know, times a million. >> hunter is remarkably fore giving of john edwards. but in your book, she's less sympathetic to his wife elizabeth, describes as an emotionally abusive spouse who seemed unwilling to accept truth, that john was quinn's father. >> what do you think the reaction is when the woman who is sleeping with the husband starts talking about the wife who is now dead from cancer? >> there are lot of people go, wow, i understand. i get it. lot of people already outraged.

i feel for both my daughter and for all the kids involved. their father is not a deemen and their mother is not a saint. i'm not a home recker. we're really human beings and we all made mistakes. >> there's one person in this drama who made no mistakes, little quinn hunter, who is now four years old. >> how is he as a father? >> he's a really great dad. really, really great. >> do you want to see a day where john edwards publicly acknowledges, this is rielle hunter. she's the love of my life. she's the woman in my life? >> um, i don't know the answer to that. i think that i do. i think the answer to that is yes. >> for "nightline," i'm chris cuomo in new york. >> rielle hunter's book what really happened in in stores next week. our thanks to chris cuomo. and wenk