BELLEFONTE — A Pennsylvania judge will announce later this week whether he’ll grant a new trial to former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, according to reports by the Associated Press and other news outlets.
Judge John Foradora posted an announcement online Monday that said he’ll issue an order and an opinion on Sandusky’s Post Conviction Relief Act appeal at noon on Wednesday.
Sandusky is arguing he did not receive adequate representation by his lawyers during his trail for child sexual abuse. He also argued that prosecutors failed to turn over information about victims changing their stories.
Sandusky, 73, was convicted in 2012 of 45 counts of abuse involving 10 boys, including attacks that occurred on Penn State University property. He is serving a 30- to 60-year term in state prison.
Foradora, a common pleas court judge in Jefferson County, was brought in by the state Supreme Court to handle the appeal in February, four months after the trial judge, John Cleland, stepped aside from the case because Sandusky’s lawyers had criticized a meeting between Cleland, a district judge and lawyers in the case before Sandusky waived a preliminary hearing.
In an order removing himself, Cleland said his integrity had been impugned.
Cleland also said, in a footnote in the November order, that he had reviewed the 34 issues Sandusky raised and concluded “no grounds raised in the petition merit relief.”
Sandusky previously lost a round of appeals to the state Superior and Supreme courts.
Pennsylvania’s Post-Conviction Relief Act is limited to claims of constitutional violations, newly discovered evidence or ineffective counsel.
