He was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing 10 boys, as eight of the victims testified against him during the first trial.
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Jeff Johnson, a spokesman for Attorney General Kathleen Kane, herself on trial this week for perjury and leaking grand jury information in an unrelated case, said state prosecutors are ready for Sandusky.
That Sandusky did not testify at his 2012 trial is one of several claims of ineffective counsel his attorneys will seek to address at the hearings, which begin at 9:30 a.m. today and are scheduled to continue August 22 and 23.
Sandusky said his legal team was in a state of chaos. “I’ve been me. I’ve been loved, I’ve been hated”. “I didn’t expect anything that happened”.
Unlike his original trial, Sandusky planned to take the stand at the hearing in Bellefonte, Pa.
Sandusky also claims his trial attorneys were ineffective in not making a motion to preclude Matt Sandusky from testifying as a rebuttal witness and failing to advise Sandusky about any strategy that would be pursued if he was permitted to testify after the Commonwealth indicated it would call Matt Sandusky.
Excerpts showing Sandusky struggling to answer questions about his alleged attraction to young boys were shown at his 2012 trial.
The 72-year-old Sandusky is disputing the allegations, saying he’s never had oral or anal sex with anyone and finds the thought disgusting.
Sandusky, his lawyers wrote, “will testify regarding each accuser and deny that he committed the crimes alleged”.
“I believe there are two sides of this story”.
Sandusky told the court that he was “not in a very good emotional state” when he Amendola pressed him on short notice to give an interview to NBC’s Bob Costas.
The hearing before the Court of Common Pleas of Centre County is to start at 9:30 a.m. and Sandusky’s filing attacks the previous attorneys for a number of trial decisions, perhaps most notably for not calling Sandusky to testify and for not seeking a court ruling to block his adopted son Matt Sandusky from testifying against him to rebut his testimony if he took the stand. If Sandusky is successful his charges could be dismissed, but that’s less likely than the chance the judge could order a new trial.
Sandusky was convicted four years ago for sexually abusing 10 boys and was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison.
Sandusky founded a charity for at-risk children where prosecutors say he recruited victims.
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The Sandusky charges originally led to the firing of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, and the NCAA slapping the university with a $60 million fine, a reduction in football scholarships and a four-year ban from bowl games.
