Court Denies Sandusky's Petition for New Trial

Jerry Sandusky’s petition for a new trial regarding the Penn State University sexual abuse scandal will not be addressed.

“We are unconvinced that (the Sandusky defense) acted promptly,” the Superior Court’s opinion reads, according to the Lewistown Sentinel. “Due to the nature of our holding, we do not address the merits of his (Sandusky’s) allegations.”

The Sentinel reported that a three-judge panel said Thursday that the petition for a new sexual abuse trial was denied because Sandusky’s defense team “dithered for one-half of a year before raising these issues in a petition to this court.”

Sandusky’s attorneys, Philip D. Lauer and Alexander H. Lindsay, petitioned for a new trial after claiming new evidence would have altered the way they defended the former Penn State football coach in the 2012 trial. The 77-year-old Sandusky was convicted of 45 charges involving the sexual abuse of 10 minor victims.

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Lauer and Lindsay claimed the new evidence includes a diary kept by a member of Louis Freeh’s team, which was hired by the Penn State Board of Trustees to investigate the abuse. The attorneys also discovered emails between the attorney general’s staff and Freeh’s group.

The defense received the Freeh investigation diary in November 2019 and the email summaries in February 2020. They were reviewed in March 2020, but a motion for a new trial wasn’t filed until May 2020.

According to Superior Court judge Mary Jane Bowes, Pennsylvania’s Rules of Criminal Procedure require a motion for a new trial based on after-discovered evidence to be filed “promptly after such discovery.”

Related content: Sandusky Denies New Trial, But Will Be Re-Sentenced