This transcript of chapter 4 of “The Mayor of Maple Avenue” is provided for those who need assistance following along with the episode. We encourage you to listen to the episode. It can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. Please refer to the corresponding audio before quoting it in a story.
This chapter contains profanity and graphic depictions of child abuse and sexual assault that some people may find distubring.
In almost every episode of this podcast, the voice of Shawn Sinisi is read by voice actor James Sullivan. But for this episode, the family shared with us an audio tape of Shawn -- what seems to be one of the only remaining recordings of him. It was captured during an interview with his attorney. So in this episode, it is Shawn’s actual voice you will hear.
Andrew Shubin: Okay. So, it’s Jan. 15, 2018. I’m at The Ranch. I’m here with Shawn Sinisi and with Jill Curley, his mental health treatment provider, and we’re conducting an interview, and I just want to make sure it’s okay that I tape this interview, Shawn?
Andrew Shubin: Okay. All right.
Sara Ganin: On Shawn Sinisi’s very last day at The Ranch rehab facility, his attorney Andy Shubin went to visit him—to tape a conversation with Shawn and his counselor. He wanted to get on the record the abuse that Shawn suffered at the hands of Jerry Sandusky. Although it’s hard to know for sure, it appears this is the first documented time that Shawn really opens up about the extent of abuse he endured.
Andrew Shubin: So, I know I’m taking you back to the 2000s when you were eight years old. But do you remember anything of that first time that you went to Second Mile?
Shawn Sinisi: I just remember like jumping off like the swimming pool diving board like high dives and stuff.
Shawn starts at 8 years old when he first met Jerry Sandusky in the year 2000. When the psychologist treating his brother Josh, recommended that his mother get both boys involved in the Second Mile.
Shawn Sinisi: I mean, I knew who he was. He was the old Penn State defensive coordinator.
Shawn Sinisi: And I just kind of looked up to him.
Shawn Sinisi: I admired him, and I was a football player then. I love football.
Shawn Sinisi: So, I just, I don’t know. I just kind of like looked up to him. The next thing I remember was when we were getting invited to the Lakemont Casino, and that’s when I actually physically met him, not inside the program or anything like that, when he asked us to be his guests…
This is the casino night that Shawn and his brother Josh, and their parents were invited to as special guests of honor.
Shawn Sinisi: I remember we got acknowledged and we stood up. I remember him speaking, and then we got acknowledged as his guests. And there was a picture taken of all three of us. Me, my brother and him put in the Altoona Mirror.
Shawn Sinisi: and the newspaper. I’m pretty sure that was the first time I ever stayed at his house, was that night, right afterwards.
Andrew Shubin: So you remember going back to his house from Altoona?
Shawn Sinisi: I’m pretty sure he, I think he picked us up at our house and then drove us there to the Lakemont Casino. And then my parents may have met us there afterwards? I remember my parents being there afterwards.
Shawn Sinisi: After the fundraiser was over. They like, gave us our bags of like clothes and stuff. I don’t remember if they came or if they were just sitting out there waiting. I don’t remember exactly, but I just remember staying at his house that night, afterwards.
Andrew Shubin: Okay, and so you, and when you stayed there, you think you stayed with Josh?
Andrew Shubin: And is it your recollection that that was the first time you were at his house?
Shawn Sinisi: I believe so, yeah.
Shawn Sinisi: I just remember before we went to bed, like he sat there on the bed and like talked to me and then like gave us like bear hugs, as he called them. And then like kissed us on the forehead like goodnight. And like, I just felt like special. Like of all people in his camps, we got picked out to go.
Shawn is describing the grooming that sex offenders often use to manipulate victims and their families. So that when the molestation begins, it’s harder for the victim to report it and harder for people around them to believe it. As the tape goes on, Shawn details many different times and places where he says he was abused. What you’re going to hear is graphic.
Shawn Sinisi: I remember being in the pool with him. I remember him groping me, and then just like, I’d push his hand away, and he’d just be like, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to,’ or something like that. Like, just play it off, like I thought it was an accident.
Shawn Sinisi: It just continuously started happen.
Andrew Shubin: During the camp sessions, it seems like you remember, specifically, the groping in the pool.
Shawn Sinisi: Yeah, and the dorm room, too. I do remember going to the Penn State campus— like locker rooms, the shower rooms, the weight room. We worked out for a little bit, then changed in the locker room and then we got showers in there.
Shawn Sinisi: I know he groped me a couple different times in there.
Shawn Sinisi: And I didn’t really think nothing of it. I always just thought it was like an accident.
Andrew Shubin: Right, right, right.
Shawn Sinisi: I was young. Just like, getting showered, and then like he’d start like goofing off—started whipping like wet towels around. And then, like, he groped me a couple a different times, in the shower.
Andrew Shubin: And so, when you say groped, what do you mean?
Shawn Sinisi: Like, grabbed my penis.
Andrew Shubin: And did he masturbate you?
Shawn Sinisi: He tried to, and like, I like pulled it away and then like, he just stopped.
Andrew Shubin: Okay, so in the showers, you recall him grabbing your penis. Do you recall whether he had erections in the shower?
Shawn Sinisi: I thought it was weird, and I didn’t really know like what to do.
Shawn Sinisi: And then it was kind of, I felt really uncomfortable and like I kind of walked away back into the locker room.
Shawn Sinisi: I got dressed—dried off and got dressed. I remember doing it at his house, like we’d wrestle and stuff.
Andrew Shubin: Right, in his basement?
Shawn Sinisi: Yeah, and then it would always end up in like a bear hug, and he’d start rubbing my thighs and rubbing his hands around my waistline.
Shawn Sinisi: And then, he’d grope me a couple of different times, and like I’d pull his hand away. And like, he’d always tickle us. It was like the same routine. Like, if I stayed in the one, right in the door on the left when you walk in the house, he’d do things, like, as far as like the tickle time, he’d pull me on top of him, feeling the erection. Like, while my brother would be in the shower. He’d pull us, like on top of him. And like you’d face him and then he’d just like hug you really tight. And like, he’d ask you to hug him back. And I just remember like laying there sometimes, and like he would just like start rubbing my thighs, and like slowly going up further. And then, like I’d push his hand away. And then he’d do it again. And there was a couple times that he’d just actually like brought in my waistline and grope me.
Shawn Sinisi: And I think I pulled it away, and then he’d just like try to play it off and like tickle me then.
Shawn Sinisi: And like, I felt uncomfortable, but I didn’t know anything. Like, I felt like it was an accident, but at the same time, IT didn’t feel like it was an accident.
Shawn Sinisi: I didn’t know what to think. Like, I still thought like, I don’t know. Like, it was, I was privileged to be there with him.
Shawn Sinisi: Out of all the other kids, he picked me.
Andrew Shubin: Do you recall anything else?
Shawn Sinisi: No, Not until the football camp that year.
Shawn recalls the football camp, the one where he called his parents to come and get him early. The one that everyone in his life seemed to wonder about for years.
Shawn Sinisi: I was there for a day. I remember getting there and my brother was put in like the coaches section, I guess it was? I don’t know. It was like a different section of like the dorm where the coaches would sleep, and I was on the section for like the campers.
Shawn Sinisi: And I think we got there, like before any of the other people got there yet. And he came in the room that night and, uh, like laid in my bed with me. Like he did like the tickle thing, bear hug thing, and then he groped my penis, a couple different times. And like, I just felt really uncomfortable because I started getting a little older, and I just didn’t feel comfortable with it. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. And I didn’t have my brother there that year in the dorm with me. And I just remember starting to like cry and said, ‘I want to go home.’ And then he let me call home to my mom. And I think I may have stayed through the day, or they may have came that night. I don’t recall him ever saying like, ‘Don’t talk about it, don’t say nothing.’ All the rest of the kids didn’t have that experience.
Andrew Shubin: Right, right. Do you recall after the camps whether you stayed in touch with Jerry?
Shawn Sinisi: I remember him getting like grants or scholarships or something for my brother for school. And that’s when I just stopped going around him, stopped like answering his phone calls. And I don’t ever remember him getting mad or anything, but I was just started self-medicating all the time.
Andrew Shubin: I think they may need this room.
After a while, the recording stops and starts again in a different room. This time it’s just Shawn and his attorney in the room. On the recording Andy Shubin and Shawn talk about how there were things that Shawn didn’t feel comfortable sharing in front of the counselor because she is a woman, but the attorney wants to get them on the record so they pick back up again without her.
Andrew Shubin: All right. So Shawn, we’re gonna go back over parts of the interview. This time it’s just you and me, and we’re in a different room. Is it okay if I continue to record you?
Andrew Shubin: And, you felt uncomfortable, you were, you started by saying you felt uncomfortable because of Jill was in the room for most of it or some of it. And so when we were talking about the sex acts.
Shawn Sinisi: I just felt like embarrassed.
Shawn Sinisi: Because it was in front of a female.
Shawn Sinisi: And I never actually like fully won’t admit like everything with anybody, or talk about somethings but not everything.
Andrew Shubin: Right. Well, I mean that’s fine. So, I think that’s why it’s good that we’re having a few minutes by ourselves. So we were, let’s go back to the shower. So, we’ve already talked about the snapping of the towels and groping you in the showers. So, you were just about to talk to me about the shower head.
Shawn Sinisi: He put soap on like my head and on my back. He washed my back, and then lifted me up like under the shower head, and like let like all like the soap runoff. And like he grabbed my ass, slapped my ass and groped my penis. And I don’t recall him every like making me grab his. I don’t know, like I just remember seeing an erection, him in the shower. Like while he had me lifted up.
Andrew Shubin: Do you recall feeling his penis while he had you lifted up?
Shawn Sinisi: Once or twice, yeah.
Shawn Sinisi: I remember feeling it.
Andrew Shubin: And was that around where your butt was?
Shawn Sinisi: Yeah. I just remember being really uncomfortable, and I just wanted to leave the locker room. I ended up walking out after he put me down.
Shawn goes back over some of the other instances too.
Shawn Sinisi: Just like blowing on my legs and my inner-thighs, and I had shorts on. I had the basketball shorts on or the gym, whatever you want to call them, gym shorts-
Shawn Sinisi: Whatever he gave me. Then we were getting like presents from him.
Shawn Sinisi: Like sweatsuit type things.
Shawn Sinisi: And blowing on my stomach down towards my waistline, and he pulled on like my pants like kinda down like towards like my penis area but not fully down. And just blowing there. And then he groped my penis. And doing like all the normal like stuff that he’d do. Like blowing on my stomach down towards like my penis and my inner-thighs and groping my penis a couple of different times. And I’d feel his like erection in his pants.
Shawn Sinisi: And I was like he’d pull me on top of him, and I’d just feel his erection getting hard.
Andrew Shubin: Right, right. And you were wearing the shorts that he gave you, or?
Shawn Sinisi: I think it said Second Mile on it or something, or I think we had a couple different pairs.
Shawn Sinisi: I think we got one from every camp.
This tape—what Shawn is sharing, it really puts perspective what we know about his life. Why it went the way that it did; what he was dealing with privately in his mind. And his hesitation to tell his story when investigator Anthony Sassano first came to the Sinisi’s home and asked to speak to Shawn.
Shawn Sinisi: I just remember my mom. Like, I don’t know, like Anthony Sassano, somehow, got in contact with, I think, my mom.
Shawn Sinisi: And then, we set up some type of meeting. We met at my church’s like rec hall, not rec hall but like the offices for like the priests and stuff where it would be quiet, and there’s nobody around, nobody would know. And like he asked me questions.
Andrew Shubin: Was it just him or was there someone else with him?
Shawn Sinisi: I’m pretty sure it was just him.
Shawn Sinisi: Like, he asked us if well, he asked me if anything happened. And I just said about like the rubbing of the thigh, and the leg and stuff.
Shawn Sinisi: I never told him anything else happened. At that point in time, I was older, and I was already getting high and stuff.
Shawn Sinisi: When I came out, I was like a year out of high school and I was drinking and drugging. And I knew it was intentional at that point.
Andrew Shubin: So, you would have been about 18 or 19 years old at that point. Right?
Shawn Sinisi: Yeah, and I mean even before that like I knew that it was intentional.
Shawn Sinisi: Like as I got like older into like junior high, high school, and like I started to like self-medicate and experiment with things. I started using to deal with like the emotional pain from it. Like, that I let something like that happen as a kid. And like, I felt like it was wrong but I didn’t want to think it was wrong.
And then he reveals that there was one point in particular after Sandusky’s arrest that was a turning point for him.
Shawn Sinisi: And then I remember, at one point in time, somebody wanted us to testify on Jerry’s behalf.
A moment that none of his family particularly remembered, but clearly affected Shawn in a great way.
Shawn Sinisi: I just remember something being said that he wanted me and my brother to testify on his behalf and say that he wasn’t that type of a person.
Shawn Sinisi: And that just like really fucked me up, mentally, then.
Shawn Sinisi: Like, how could he fuckining do something like that knowing that he fucking did shit to me?
Shawn Sinisi: So then, I just got into drugs even more.
Shawn Sinisi: And then, started getting in legal trouble. I started selling drugs.
Shawn Sinisi: To support my habit and make money at the same time. Couldn’t really keep jobs.
Shawn Sinisi: Because I was getting high for a while. And then, like I’d always like I’d work for awhile then I’d just find myself like wanting to call off work, get high all the time. Just lay around, sell drugs.
Shawn Sinisi: Then, started up. Got put in like my first drug bust and there was always, like doubt. Like people thought that there was an issue, like something happened to me, but I always denied it.
Shawn Sinisi: And like, even like the judges—like my judge always asked like because my mom would write letters to the judge saying that she thought there was something there. She thought that something had happened to me from it, but I always denied it. And the judge even asked me, ‘Did anything happen? Because if something happened, now is the time to do something about it.’
Shawn Sinisi: And, I didn’t want to talk about it.
Andrew Shubin: Yeah, you weren’t ready.
Shawn Sinisi: I just said, ‘No, nothing happened.’ And just buried it even more.
Shawn Sinisi: And took drug court—started going good, stayed clean for a little bit, and then next thing I know I found myself. I was working and ended up getting laid off the day after Black Friday in like 2013 or 2014. Started selling drugs again.
By this time in his life, Shawn has been struggling with addiction for a decade and even his own retelling of the events seem to exhaust him.
Shawn Sinisi: Ended up catching a new drug sale. Went to rehab for part of the SIP program, and started abusing some pills. I was doing heroin again. I would try to beat the system. I’d be able to get high for a little bit, like two or three times. And then I got to the point where I just kind of said, ‘Fuck it.’ I wanted to go back to jail. Got out, stayed clean for two months. Got transferred to another halfway house out of the five other people in there, four of them had needles hanging off their arm, and I relapsed instantly. It was just off to the races there. I blew the levels of the opiates through the roof. They’d never seen that high of a level before on a drug test. And they sent me back to jail. I did my 11.5 months, got out May 30, 2017, and I was out for 23 days. I relapsed within like the first two days, and I failed a drug test for Suboxone, three weeks later.
Shawn talks about the chaos of his life, and how it splintered out and manifested in different ways, not just drug abuse, but his ability to understand healthy relationships.
Andrew Shubin: I mean this may be hard to talk about, but sexually, your first sexual experiences were with, you know, a pedophile. With an abusive, you know, pedophile who attached it to this pretend love. Right? I mean have you ...
Shawn Sinisi: All my sexual relationships has always been with like girls that were like not even worthy of anything.
Shawn Sinisi: They were just like, just like whatevers.
Andrew Shubin: So, so do you, do you.
Shawn Sinisi: I find myself taking advantage of girls and just sleeping with them.
Andrew Shubin: Do you feel like you’ll ever be able to have a healthy sexual life? I mean is that something you’re ...
Shawn Sinisi: I mean I do to an extent, but like all my relationships like I always find myself getting like too attached to them—wanting to just constantly be around them.
Throughout much of this recording, Shawn seems to be recounting his own erratic behavior in a pretty straight-forward manner - almost as if he’s telling someone else’s story. But toward the end of this recording, he interjects something rather reflective.
Shawn Sinisi: We talked about what he did to me, mentally and then ... what came to my drug addiction. Leading in to legal issues, because of my drug addiction. Um, basically stealing like my childhood and like-...
And he connects it to his addiction, to the unexpected trajectory of his life. Of the life of The Mayor of Maple Avenue.
Shawn Sinisi: like up to the edge of now. Like I don’t know who I am anymore.
I don’t know who I am anymore.
Shawn Sinisi: He stole like my childhood from me. Like I never, I didn’t have a life to grow up to.
Andrew Shubin: Do you feel like you’ve addressed some of those issues here?
Shawn Sinisi: Yeah, I mean some. Like I mean, I’m still trying to like figure out like who I am. Like I know like some hobbies that I used to love doing, but I don’t know. Like I’m still just trying to figure out who I am.
Shortly after this, the recording ends.
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