Jerry Sandusky Victim to Recant Testimony as Disgraced Penn State Coach Pushes for New Trial: Report

FILE – In this Nov. 22, 2019, file photo, former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, center, arrives at the Centre County Courthouse to be resentenced in Bellefonte, Pa. Jerry Sandusky’s legal effort to have his decades-long child molestation sentence reduced will be the subject of a hearing Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, in a Pennsylvania courtroom. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

One of the eight victims who testified during the sensational 2012 child sex abuse trial of Penn State assistant football Coach Jerry Sandusky now intends to recant, according to reports.

The man, known during the trial as Victim 10, claims prosecutors at the time attempted to direct his testimony and said in a sworn affidavit that “[t]hroughout the pretrial process, I was told — both directly and indirectly — that trauma may have fragmented my memory, and that I could safely affirm details I did not fully recall. I was assured this was common and even expected,” ABC News reported.

An evidentiary hearing has been set for Sept. 8, as the now 82-year-old Sandusky pushes for a new trial.

Sandusky was found to have abused up to 10 boys associated with his charity, The Second Mile, and was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in state prison. The abuse, which included a range of behavior from grooming to violent attacks, was said to have taken place between 1994 and 2008.

Sandusky has long denied wrongdoing.

The scandal sent shockwaves through Penn State’s legendary football program and led to the November 2011 firing of head coach Joe Paterno, who died in January 2012 at age 85, months before Sandusky was convicted. The school’s then-president, Graham Spanier, was also fired and Penn State paid millions in legal fees, fines, and settlements to other purported victims, according to TribLive.

The disgraced coach’s defense team said in court papers that Victim 10’s wife, from whom he is now estranged, would now tell the court she believed he was not abused by Sandusky, according to ABC.

In their own court papers, prosecutors slammed the woman’s assertion as “irrelevant and inadmissible.”

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