By Robert Moran, The Philadelphia Inquirer –
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Attorneys for Jerry Sandusky, who was sentenced last week to prison for molesting 10 boys, filed motions Thursday in Centre County Court arguing that the verdict should be overturned and that the former Penn State assistant football coach should get a new trial.
The lawyers argued that Senior Judge John M. Cleland violated Sandusky’s due process by not giving his defense team more time to prepare for his trial, which ended in June when a jury convicted him on 45 counts of child sex abuse.
Cleland sentenced Sandusky to 30 to 60 years in prison. Sandusky, 68, proclaimed his innocence in a statement before the judge.
Joseph Amendola and Karl Rominger, Sandusky’s attorneys, told reporters after the sentencing that they intended to contest the conviction. Philadelphia lawyer Norris Gelman also is representing Sandusky.
In the 31-page filing to Cleland, the lawyers said that there was insufficient evidence to find Sandusky guilty of the charges and that the statute of limitations had expired on certain victims.
Cleland erred in not sequestering the jurors, who were potentially exposed to the media frenzy surrounding the trial, including late-breaking allegations that Sandusky sexually abused his adopted son, the lawyers wrote.
The sex-abuse scandal exploded when Sandusky, the longtime defensive coordinator under revered football coach Joe Paterno, was arrested in November.
Since then, Penn State has spent more than $19 million in legal bills and related expenses, including the cost of an independent investigation led by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.
The Freeh report, released July 12, said that Paterno, who died in January, former university president Graham B. Spanier, and other top administrators had conspired since 1998 to conceal child-sex-abuse allegations against Sandusky.
The NCAA sanctioned the university with a $60 million fine, imposed a four-year postseason ban on the football team, and vacated all Penn State football wins from 1998 through 2011. Scholarships for football players also were cut.
