BELLEFONTE — Jerry Sandusky is returning to Centre County next week.

Well, for a few hours anyway.

Sandusky will make the trip from the state prison in Waynesburg to the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte for a court hearing Jan. 10, and the judge overseeing the case ordered Thursday that county sheriff’s deputies transport him.

The hearing is over Sandusky’s defense attorneys’ claims that they did not have enough time to prepare for the trial. They want Judge John Cleland to throw out the verdict and the 30- to 60-year sentence Sandusky is serving in Greene County, a rural area in the southwest corner of the state.

Because of safety concerns, prison officials put Sandusky in solitary confinement, meaning he’s surrounded by the four walls of his cell for 23 hours a day with limited visitation.

Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of child abuse but has maintained his innocence despite the trial testimony from eight young men who said the former coach molested them when they were children.