The chief executive of the youth charity founded by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky resigned today in the face of mounting pressure from state lawmakers and others, according to a statement on the charity’s Web site.

The Second Mile has been losing donor and political support amid the claims that Mr. Sandusky had used the organization to prey sexually on minors, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Individual and corporate backers of the Second Mile told the newspaper they are withholding further funding. Pennsylvania State senators have called for an investigation of the charity and had asked that its chief executive, John Raykovitz, step down.

The Second Mile, which Mr. Sandusky launched in 1977 to work with at-risk youths, has said it was not aware of the most serious accusations leveled against the ex-coach in a grand jury report. Mr. Sandusky, who was paid $456,000 by the charity as a consultant between 2001 and 2008, was arrested earlier this month on sex-abuse charges.

Mr. Raykovitz testified to the grand jury that he was told by Penn State officials of an alleged incident of inappropriate contact between Mr. Sandusky and an underage boy in a campus shower in 2002 but that the school had found no wrongdoing by the former coach.