STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Lawyers for former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky asked Thursday to cancel a court date for a hearing over a claim that an accuser wants to recant allegations that Sandusky sexually abused him years ago.
The hearing was scheduled for Sept. 8 in the latest bid by Sandusky’s lawyers to secure a new trial for him. The judge in the case scheduled a status conference Friday to discuss it with defense lawyers, who suggested in a court filing that they want first to appeal the judge’s refusal to hear other claims besides the accuser’s recantation.
Sandusky, 82, has been serving a decades-long prison sentence since he was convicted of 45 counts of sexual abuse in 2012, after eight young men testified about what happened to them as boys. He has repeatedly lost efforts to get a new trial.
The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General has said that the supposed recantation is “highly suspect.”
The accuser, identified in court documents as R.R., said he was coached extensively by authorities.
“I was told — both directly and indirectly — that trauma may have fragmented my memory, and that I could safely affirm details I did not fully recall. I was assured this was common and even expected,” R.R. said in an affidavit filed by Sandusky’s attorneys.
R.R.’s allegations were “based on suggestive leading questioning, prosecutorial coercion and influence, confirmatory bias and memory manipulation, which permeated throughout each of the accusers as well,” the defense said.
