Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has been found guilty of 45 counts and not guilty of just three counts in his child sex abuse case.
The jury's decision was announced Friday night around 10 p.m., after about a day-and-a-half of deliberations.
Sandusky, the 68-year-old former defensive coordinator for the Nittany Lions and founder of the Second Mile charity for troubled children, was later placed in handcuffs and taken to jail.
Slideshow: Sandusky Conviction, Courthouse Reaction
The judge in the case has set sentencing for just about three months from now.
The jury had asked for clarification Friday on hearsay and circumstantial evidence, an indication that they were wrestling with secondhand testimony about an incident in which Sandusky was allegedly seen in a Penn State University shower with a young boy.
The defense portrayed Sandusky as the hapless victim of a conspiracy to convict him of heinous crimes. They explained the 48 charges against him as the result of an investigatory team out for blood and accusers who willingly played along in hopes of securing a big payday.
But after the verdict was read, Sandusky's defense attorney, Joe Amendola, congratulated the prosecution and said the judge had been "fair" and did an outstanding job.
Amendola said his client was "disappointed with the verdict but will live with it," and he said the defense team has some decent appeal issues.
The attorney said he always planned on calling Sandusky to the stand to testify, but that changed when Matt Sandusky, the adopted son of the accused, came forward with allegations of abuse by his father.
Amendola said Sandusky ultimately did not tell his side to the court in order to avoid having his son testify, which in the attorney's words would have "destroyed" any chance of an acquittal.
"We had anticipated Matt would be one of our witnesses, and we were shocked by it," Amendola said of that development.
A crowd that surrounded the podium where the attorneys were speaking booed loudly when, in response to a question, Amendola said that "innocent people all across this country sit in jails."
Later, when the defense attorney said that his client would "essentially … will receive a life sentence" from the judge, the crowd outside the courthouse in Bellefonte cheered.
Then, Attorney General Linda Kelly took the podium and wasted no time calling Sandusky a "serial child predator" and saying that justice had been served. She called the witnesses who came forward to testify brave and said "we cannot comprehend what the victim's went through."
Kelly called the Second Mile a place where Sandusky "trolled for victims."
"We hope this case will help victim's who watched from afar," Kelly said, later adding that "a jury of 12 people did believe 'a kid.'"
She said this is an institutional issue and urged everyone to lift the veil of secrecy, hoping the outcome encourages victims of abuse in other cases to come forward. Kelly said "the eyes of the world were upon us," and commended the media for its coverage of what happened.
None of the jurors decided to grant post-trial interviews, court officials said.
Reaction to the outcome wasn't limited to outside the courthouse, though.
The family of late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno -- who lost his job over the scandal -- issued a statement Friday night, saying, "Although we understand the task of healing is just beginning, today's verdict is an important milestone."
"The community owes a measure of gratitude to the jurors for their diligent service," the Paternos' statement went on to say. "Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the victims and their families."
Corbett said, in a statement posted on his Facebook page, thanked jurors for serving on the difficult case as well as the victims for testifying.
"The agents and prosecutors of the Attorney General's Office, as well as the Pennsylvania State Police, also deserve a great deal of credit for today's verdict," said Corbett, a former A.G. himself. "They pursued every lead, gathering evidence from multiple victims, in order to bring this man to justice."
