Judge to rule on Sandusky visitation rights, jury selection motions next week

Attorneys for the former Penn State defensive coordinator facing dozens of child sex abuse charges asked a judge to ease his bail restrictions so he can visit friends and grandchildren on Friday.

During the 70-minute pretrial hearing, prosecutors and defense attorneys also argued motions requesting that Jerry Sandusky should be allowed to leave his home to work with private investigators on his case and whether the jury for his anticipated trial should be composed of Centre County residents.

Authorities charged the 68-year-old with dozens of charges of child sex abuse involved eight boys in November, followed by a second arrest and brief incarceration after additional charges involved two additional accusers in December.

During the hearing, Centre County Probation Director Tom Young was sworn and addressed concerns that Sandusky was pushing the envelope with the rules of his home confinement.

Young said that Sandusky did have permission to leave his Grandview Road home to help shovel snow from his driveway and that he is allowed to spend time on his backyard porch attached to his house.

Attorney General Agent Anthony Sassano later testified that prosecutors received calls of concerns from several neighbors, as well as a day care worker inside Lemont Elementary School.

According to Sassano, Christie Williams reported that after-school K-6 students repeatedly saw Sandusky from classroom windows and outside recess and were alarmed.

State College Area School District Public Information Specialist Julie Miller told 6News that district officials have not received direct reports of concern from parents during school hours.

“Mr. Sassano provided testimony on behalf of a number of individuals, including one individual identified as a teacher/day care worker. This individual is not employed by State College Area School District, but rather by Child Development and Family Council, which runs an after-school program at Lemont Elementary,” Miller said in a written statement. “This program is in the building after regular school hours, therefore any testimony of classroom disruption is referring to that time frame. Lemont Elementary Principal Scott Deshong can attest to the quality of instruction taking place in the school during the regular school day, and has received no direct parental or faculty/staff complaints about the school day or classroom instruction.”

Sandusky was briefly sworn in and testified from the stand that he agreed with his defense team’s motion to request a jury selection of Centre County residents.

Following the hearing, Sandusky told reporters that he maintains his innocence.

“All of a sudden these people turn on me when they’ve been in my home with their kids, when they’ve attended birthday parties, when they’ve been on that deck, when their kids have been playing in my yard, and when their kids have been sled riding, when they’ve asked to sled ride at our home. It’s difficult for me to understand to be honest,” said Sandusky.

Deputy Attorney General Mark Costanzo said prosecutors are requesting a venire change because of all the pretrial publicity and concerns that vetted local jurors might recognize anonymous accusers once they take the stand.

“We’re trying to avoid as many as those problems as possible by asking for an out-of-county jury because we want to get the case tried as soon as possible and we want the verdict to not only be an actually valid verdict, but one perceived to be so as well,” said Costanzo. “Both the school, the football program, the coaches. We’re going to have witnesses that are coaches. We’re going to have victims from the Second Mile. There’s just too many areas for potential for information in the hands of a jury before they even get here that may somehow slant their and sometimes they don’t even mean it to happen, but it may slant their perception of the evidence.”

Defense attorney Joe Amendola said it would be easier for Sandusky’s grandchildren to visit him if were incarcerated than under his current house arrest agreement.

“He’s being treated exactly the same way by the system.  Unfortunately, however, he’s being treated much worse by the outside folks involved in the community,” said Amendola.

Assistant defense attorney Karl Rominger told 6News that the recent death of legendary head football coach Joe Paterno appears to be impacting the prosecutors plans.

“In Centre County, people can be fair,” said Rominger. “The government, for some reason, wants to get out of Centre County. I suspect that all comes back to how they treated Joe Paterno throughout this entire case.”

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