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Accuser: Former East Stroudsburg University VP Groped, Gave Gifts

SCRANTON, Pa. ― A former state university student told jurors on Tuesday he wishes he had never met the high-ranking administrator whom he had looked to as a mentor, but who he claims molested him when he was a college freshman.

The man, now 26, testified at a federal civil-rights trial stemming from a lawsuit he and two other former students filed against Isaac Sanders in 2009. They allege Sanders took advantage of his position as vice president of East Stroudsburg University in the Pocono Mountains to sexually harass and assault them while they were students there.

Sanders, who has never been charged with a crime, denies wrongdoing.

Taking the witness stand a day after becoming too distraught to testify, the 26-year-old man, the first witness at the trial, described what he said happened to him in the spring and summer of 2007.

Sanders grabbed the teenager’s genitals and asked to give him oral sex while they were driving back from a restaurant, the accuser testified. Sanders also paid for a summer class without being asked and tried to give him underwear as a gift, he said.

“I didn’t want this to happen to me,” said the man. “I did not ask to be touched or groomed. I never gave any hints to Sanders that I was into him or into men at all.”

He said the groping left him “in a shock” and he told Sanders to stop it.

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