PENNSYLVANIA RECORD

Lawyers for convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky late last week filed a motion

seeking to have the judge overseeing the case schedule an evidentiary hearing relating to a defense request for post-trial relief.

Attorneys Joseph Amendola and Norris Gelman filed their motion Dec. 13 at the Centre County Court of Common Pleas.

The filing relates to the post-sentencing motions that Sandusky’s defense team filed back in late October that seek to have the former Penn State assistant football coach’s conviction overturned and a new trial ordered.

Amendola and Gelman contend that the trial court erred when it denied the various motion for continuances.

The lawyers assert that Common Pleas Court Judge John M. Cleland abused his discretion and violated due process of laws guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment by interfering with Sandusky’s Six Amendment right to counsel when the jurist denied defense motions for continuance based on Sandusky’s alleged inability to “integrate the vast amount of material turned over by the prosecution to the defense when trial was imminent which resulted in the lack of time to prepare and utilize such materials to forward a defense or defenses to the charges filed against him,” the latest filing reads.

Essentially, Sandusky’s lawyers claim they were not given enough time to properly prepare his defense.

The defense attorneys wrote in the motion that they believe an evidentiary hearing is needed in order for them to present testimony and exhibits in support of the defense claim that the earlier denial for the continuance motions was improper.

The lawyers claim it will only take about two hours to present the testimony and evidence in support of their contention.

Sandusky, who is in his late 60s, was arrested in November of last year and charges with a slew of child sex-abuse counts.

He was found guilty on 45 of those counts following a two-week jury trial in June and subsequently sentenced to between 30 and 60 years in state prison.

Sandusky is currently serving out his sentence.

The Penn State child sex-abuse scandal, which gained worldwide media attention, led to the firing of iconic Nittany Lions football coach Joe Paterno, who died soon after he was let go.

The scandal also led to the firing of the former university president, Graham Spanier, who currently awaits trial on charges that he engaged in a cover-up relating to the Sandusky investigation.

Two other former higher-up officials, Gary Schultz and Tim Curley, also await trial on criminal charges in connection with the scandal.

Spanier’s attorneys recently filed court papers signaling he intends to sue Penn State’s former general counsel, Cynthia Baldwin, over allegations that Baldwin, as the university’s in-house counsel, violated attorney-client privilege when she provided testimony to state prosecutors bringing charges against Schultz, Curley and Spanier.

Spanier asserts that Baldwin was technically representing him as legal counsel at the time because she was Penn State’s top lawyer at the time Spanier was the school’s head official.