Jerry Sandusky Scandal
AG’s office: No knowledge of possible deals by Sandusky victims
Pennsylvania’s Office of the Attorney General says it does not know anything about any deals that may have been made by victims in the Jerry Sandusky case.
McKean County Senior Judge John Cleland ordered a document unsealed by the Centre County prothonotary Monday.
That document was the Nov. 19 letter from the OAG answering Cleland’s Nov. 12 order in Sandusky’s appeal of his 2012 conviction on 45 counts of child sexual abuse.
Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Peterson affirmed in the letter that her office had no information about one of the questions at the heart of Sandusky’s Post-conviction Collateral Relief Act petition: Did any of the witnesses have a monetary motivation?
Peterson’s response was that this question had already been asked and answered during the course of the retired Nittany Lions defensive coordinator’s legal troubles.
She wrote that a review of the OAG’s files and discussions with staff revealed “no such documents are within the possession of, or under the control of” her office.
She took it further, however, saying that the request by Sandusky’s counsel was not new. In fact, she attached copies of a similar request made in December 2011 by attorney Joe Amendola, one of the lawyers the latest petition argues was incompetent in his representation.
A follow-up request was made in May 2012.
Amendola’s request asked about any considerations witnesses might receive, including money but also including pardons, paroles and other requests for assistance from the commonwealth “or any other entity in any jurisdiction” which could “reveal an interest, motive or bias.”
In the recent filings and an October hearing in Bellefonte, Sandusky’s attorneys were more specific, asking for information about book contracts or contingency agreements with private legal representation.
Penn State had paid out $59.7 million to 26 men who stepped forward as Sandusky victims as of October 2013. Additional settlements, with undisclosed terms, were approved by the university’s board of trustees in a telephone meeting in April.
Sandusky remains incarcerated at Greene state prison in Waynesburg.
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