Jerry Sandusky is appealing his conviction on 45 counts of sexual abuse of young boys.
In his most recent filing, the former Penn State football coach made a slew of discovery requests, essentially asking for documents from a number of sources and a wide array of subpoenas.
The first discovery request is related to Victim 2, who graduate assistant Mike McQueary claimed to have seen Sandusky having sex with in the Lasch Building locker room.
In the filing, Sandusky attorney Alexander Lindsay states that his client’s trial counsel failed to demand a retrial when “the prosecutor made a blatantly false statement to the jury in his summation.”
The filing quotes that statement from the prosecutor: “I don’t want to tug at your heart strings. I want to remind you of what the substance of this case is about, because it’s about what happened to those boys,” he said. “You know what? Not just those boys, to others unknown to us, to other presently known to God but not to us, but we know what the defendant did to them because adults saw them and adults told you about them.”
The filing argues that this statement is a lie, because the only potential victim it could apply to is Victim 2, who is allegedly a staunch supporter of Sandusky. As such, the discovery request asks for subpoenas to officers who interviewed Victim 2 to take statements under oath, along with Victim 2 himself. The filing cites interviews between an investigator hired by Sandusky and Victim 2, in which the latter reportedly states that “nothing occurred that night in the shower.”
Sandusky is requesting that state police officers Joseph Leiter and James Ellis, Inspector Corricelli, Victim 2, and prosecutor Joseph McGettigan be subpoenaed.
The second discovery request involves any agreements signed between six witnesses and their private civil attorneys. Lindsay argues that the testimony of those witnesses, who are Sandusky victims, could be tainted if it’s proven that they retained attorneys for free with the agreement that they receive a portion of settlement money from Penn State University after the trial.
The filing essentially argues that this would show a financial motive for the witnesses to testify, which the jury should have been informed of. A number of quotes from the witnesses at trial are provided in which they stated during cross-examination that they signed paperwork with their attorneys or that they were being represented at no charge.
The third discovery request delves into a report from attorney James Reeder, who was appointed to investigate and prosecute leaks coming from the grand jury that eventually recommended charges be filed against Sandusky. That report, as Lindsay admits in the filing, may not exist.
The filing requests that subpoenas be issued to any individuals who had access to the proceedings before the grand jury and access to all records between members of the judiciary and members of the Office of Attorney General from the timeframe in which the Sandusky investigation was before the grand jury.
The filing alleges that “not only [was Sandusky] a victim of malicious behavior on the part of the Attorney General’s Office in leaking information from the investigating grand jurys in question to further their investigation, he is alleging that these leaks were part of the systemic break down of the grand jury process.”
It appears that attorneys for Sandusky are attempting a wide-reaching appeal, ranging from ineffective assistance of counsel to potential grand jury leaks to information withheld from the jury. It is now in the court’s hands to determine whether or not the discovery requests be granted as the appeal process continues and Sandusky attempts to have his conviction overturned.
