Judge denies former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky’s request for new trial

A judge denied convicted child sexual offender Jerry Sandusky’s request for a new trial last week, saying his claims failed to meet the threshold necessary to start new proceedings.

The former Penn State assistant football coach was convicted in 2012 of sexually violating ten minors over a period of several years.

Sandusky’s attorneys filed a nearly 600-page document earlier this year that asked for a new trial and included claims of evidence uncovered after Sandusky’s 2012 trial.

A new trial due to after-discovered evidence can only be rewarded in Pennsylvania if the claims brought to court pass the “four-prong test.” The evidence must have been unable to be acquired prior to trial, it cannot be only corroborative or cumulative, it cannot be used solely to impeach a witness’s credibility, and the evidence must likely result in a different verdict in a new trial.

The decision had previously been deferred by Judge Maureen Skerda in May, when she ordered Sandusky to pay nearly $45,000 to cover trial and hearing costs from his original legal proceedings a decade ago.

At the May hearing, where the 79-year-old Sandusky appeared zia Zoom, his attorney pushed Skerda for an opportunity to present the testimony of license psychologist R. Christopher Barden, who he argued would address the “radical changes” in the testimony of the victims.

In the June 27 court filing, Skerda wrote that Barden’s report addressed recovered repressed memory therapy and was “markedly (similar) to the previously explored testimony” at the time of the trial and Post-Conviction Relief Act hearings.

“Dr. Barden’s scatter-shot hypotheses address various conspiracy theories but do not advance any argument that was not previously explored at the PCRA proceedings in 201 7,” Skerda wrote in the June 27 court filing.

Skerda wrote that since the evidence failed to satisfy three of the four requirements to award a new trial, “no further evidentiary proceedings will be held.”

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Sandusky was also denied a new trial in 2017, when a judge struck down his claims of sub-par legal work by his trial attorney, Joseph Amendola, and two other lawyers.

Sandusky’s attorney, Al Lindsay, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sandusky’s 2011 arrest led to the firing of Hall of Fame head coach Joe Paterno. He is serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence at Laurel Highlands state prison in southwest Pennsylvania.