BELLEFONTE, Pa. – Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has been convicted of 45 counts at his child sex abuse trial.

Jurors announced the verdict Friday night after weighing 48 charges accusing him of abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period.

Sandusky showed little emotion as the verdict was read. The judge ordered him to be taken to the county jail to await sentencing in about three months.

The panel had listened to seven days of testimony, including from eight young men who said they were his victims. Jurors also heard about two other alleged victims through other witnesses.

Sandusky didn’t take the stand.

He had repeatedly denied the allegations, and his defence suggested that his accusers had a financial motive to make up stories, years after the fact. His lawyer also painted Sandusky as the victim of overzealous police investigators who coached the alleged victims into giving accusatory statements.

But jurors believed the testimony that, in the words of lead prosecutor Joseph McGettigan III, Sandusky was a “predatory pedophile.”