Jerry Sandusky changes his legal strategy to try to overturn his sex abuse convictions. A judge wants him to explain why

Gene J. Puskar/AP/File

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains graphic descriptions of alleged sexual abuse.

As he was approaching the end of his career, Jerry Sandusky told his legendary boss Joe Paterno he wanted to find a way to maintain “visibility” with Penn State University even after leaving the storied college football program. Sandusky’s name would end up having far more visibility than either he or the school ever imagined.

The coach who called himself the “ Great Pretender, ” now 82 years old, was given what amounted to a life sentence in 2012 for sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period. Many of them were connected to The Second Mile, a charity Sandusky started in 1977 as a group foster home, which had grown to encompass a broad range of programs for disadvantaged young people.

Sandusky’s legal team has spent most of the last year arguing he deserves a new trial, citing the sworn statement of one of his accusers recanting his allegations.

“I now regret my role in facilitating what I have come to view as a deeply flawed prosecution,” wrote Ryan Rittmeyer, known in the trial as Alleged Victim No. 10, in a 2025 affidavit. Now nearly 40 years old, he was scheduled to publicly recant his allegations in court on Tuesday.

Rittmeyer is the only victim of Sandusky who has recanted, and he is connected to only six of the 45 counts against the coach.

With only five days to go until Rittmeyer was scheduled to change his testimony in a courtroom, Sandusky’s defense attorneys unexpectedly withdrew the request for a new trial, with the defendant saying he thinks Pennsylvania judges’ minds are already made up, and he wants to spend his time instead trying to move his legal arguments to federal court.

“Every one of those issues can be heard together by judges who have not already made up their minds about me,” Sandusky said Wednesday in an audio statement from prison provided to CNN.

Centre Daily Times/MCT/Landov

Jerry Sandusky’s ‘make-believe world’

“I’m innocent. I intend to be alive when the truth is heard.”

After a closed conference with attorneys over Zoom on Friday, the judge decided against canceling Tuesday’s hearing, but a spokesperson for Sandusky says Rittmeyer will not appear. Instead, Sandusky will appear remotely from prison to confirm he stands behind the decision to drop his latest petition, an assurance demanded by prosecutors.

“There should be a record of defendant informing the Court that he has discussed withdrawing the claim with counsel, that he understands the consequences of that, and that he agrees with that decision,” wrote lawyers with the state attorney general’s office.

Hunter Martin/Getty Images

The case Penn State has tried to put behind it with over $109 million in legal settlements paid by the school to individuals who had made sexual abuse allegations – one that meant jail time not only for Sandusky but also for former school President Graham Spanier and two other university officials who failed to stop him – is returning to the spotlight in the same courthouse where a jury said “guilty” 45 times.

The allegations against Sandusky – a man so closely tied to the football program that had united State College, Pennsylvania, for decades – shocked the state.

“This is a case about a sexual predator accused of using his position within the community and the university to prey on numerous young boys for more than a decade,” Pennsylvania’s then-Attorney General Linda Kelly said as charges against Sandusky were announced in 2011.

Sandusky has tried almost nonstop since his sentencing to have his June 22, 2012, conviction overturned, arguing first that his lawyers bungled the case. The state Superior Court denied his request for a new trial in 2019, but ordered him to be resentenced. A lower court ultimately gave him the same sentence as before: 30 to 60 years in prison.

Patrick Smith/Getty Images

Jerry Sandusky resentenced to same prison term

Sandusky’s trial included graphic and disturbing testimony from the man then known as Alleged Victim No. 10. But now, the affidavit from Rittmeyer submitted by Sandusky’s attorneys says he doesn’t really remember the abuse he described on the stand.

In their earlier petition for a new trial, Sandusky defense attorneys said lead prosecutor Joseph McGettigan relied on the heavily debated theory that the trauma of abuse can cause memories to be repressed by sexual assault victims.

“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,” Rittmeyer said in his affidavit. “I was assured this was common and even expected.”

Rittmeyer never had any formal therapy sessions to recover repressed memories, he said in his affidavit, but later discovered “many accusers, like myself, were encouraged to reconstruct traumatic narratives despite significant memory gaps.”

At the trial in 2012, Rittmeyer testified he and Sandusky had oral sex multiple times at The Second Mile, a program he had been referred to while in foster care. He testified Sandusky threatened that Rittmeyer would never see his family again if he told anyone.

Although he denies he committed any deliberate perjury, Rittmeyer now says he was “induced” to say on the witness stand what prosecutors wanted.

“I was led to believe that failing to testify in the manner prosecutors expected would allow a dangerous man to escape justice,” he wrote. “I internalized their version of events to the point of confusion between memory, suggestion, and expectation.”

Rittmeyer did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment on his sworn statement and whether he had any reaction to Sandusky’s efforts to drop the matter in state court.

“McGettigan failed to disclose that the accusations were changing and that the men were now ‘remembering’ information never before disclosed,” Sandusky’s defense attorneys argued in a court document.

CNN exclusive: Joe Paterno may have known of earlier Jerry Sandusky abuse claim, police report reveals

Days after his arrest in an interview with NBC Sports’ Bob Costas , Sandusky denied abusing young boys or having a sexual attraction to them, but acknowledged some alarming details in the allegations against him were true.

“I have horsed around with kids. I have showered (with them) after workouts,” he said. “I have hugged them and I have touched their leg without intent of sexual contact, so if you look at it that way, there are things that would be accurate.”

Sandusky’s attorneys at the law firm of Tucker Arensberg did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the hearing.

The shadow of Penn State’s influence in this borough in the center of the commonwealth continues to hang over the case. Every single judge in Centre County recused themselves ahead of Sandusky’s original trial because of ties to the university, The Second Mile charity, or Sandusky himself. For the upcoming hearing, a semi-retired judge from several counties away, Maureen Skerda, will hear from Sandusky Tuesday to confirm he wants to drop his efforts to have Rittmeyer’s affidavit considered in state court.

Skerda already excluded other claims from Sandusky that one victim profited from a trust set up with prosecutors’ help after the trial and that Sandusky’s trial attorneys were ineffective.

At the trial, victims described in detail multiple instances of oral sex when they were teenagers – sometimes in a basement, sometimes in a shower.

“He got real aggressive and just forced me into it,” the man identified as Alleged Victim No. 9 testified. “And I just went with it; there was no fighting against it.”

One man who later said he also had been sexually victimized was Matt Sandusky , who first met the coach through The Second Mile program and was later adopted by him. He came forward after Sandusky’s trial had already started, and charges were never filed in his case.

University officials got involved – reluctantly, an investigation would later find – when then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary told Paterno and other athletics officials he had witnessed Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy in a shower at Penn State’s football training building in February 2001, after Sandusky had officially retired from the university but still had nearly unfettered access to campus. Leadership, including Paterno, did not report the allegation to police, despite state law requiring them to do so, the investigation said.

Brian Bahr/Getty Images/File

The grand jury later discovered a janitor had previously said he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a boy in the same building months earlier but hadn’t reported it at the time out of fear all of the janitors might be fired. Sandusky had also been confronted about showering with an 11-year-old boy in 1998, prior to his retirement, but said nothing sexual had happened, and the district attorney’s office declined to prosecute him.

After Sandusky’s conviction, Penn State hired former FBI director Louis Freeh to conduct its internal investigation into how the school responded to McQueary. His 267-page report, which involved more than 430 interviews, blamed senior leadership of the university and its athletics program – including the revered coach known as “JoePa” – for not following up on allegations of abuse by Sandusky.

“These men concealed Sandusky’s activities from the Board of Trustees, the University community and authorities,” the report said.

The university did not formally accept the conclusions of the Freeh Report, and Paterno’s widow Sue said in a statement she considered it “deeply flawed, reached unsupported conclusions about Joe and unjustly criticized the culture of Penn State.”

The Paterno family sued the school in 2014 but dropped that suit in 2020 after the chairman of Penn State’s board of trustees put out a statement saying it “takes great pride in the many contributions made by Joe Paterno” and “the extraordinary contributions of Sue Paterno.”

University audits in 2016 and 2017 revealed Penn State had paid more than $109 million in settlements to at least 33 people who said they were sexually assaulted by Sandusky, some of which was covered by insurance. Rittmeyer said he received a $5.5 million civil settlement with the university, with over $2 million of it going to his attorneys.

The idea that money was at the heart of the accusations against Sandusky was brought up by the defense at trial, and McGettigan dismissed it during closing arguments.

“The great thing about conspiracy theories is you just let them go on and on, until they collapse under their own weight,” he said at the time.

Sandusky’s attorneys originally planned to call McGettigan to testify at the hearing over “his role in shaping the testimony of (Rittmeyer),” but he died in December. Another prosecutor in Sandusky’s case, Frank Fina, is still on the witness list.

More than a decade after accounts about Sandusky’s abuse resulted in his conviction and sanctions decimated the football program, the university community has tried to move on.

Christopher Weddle/Centre Daily Times/TNS/Getty Images/File

Although the greater-than-life-size statue of Paterno was taken down in the wake of his firing remains in storage and out of public view, Penn State announced last week it was opening a new section of its athletic museum called the Paterno Family Football Experience Room, funded in part by an anonymous donation.

“Coach Paterno’s original office desk and workspace” are included, the athletic department announced .

But Sandusky has vowed never to move on, hoping to get his case heard in federal court.

“I need to get there as fast as possible,” he said last week. “I’m 82 years old.”

CNN’s Lauren del Valle contributed to this report.

吉恩·J·普斯卡/美联社/档案照片

编者按：本文包含对涉嫌性虐待的详细描述。

在职业生涯接近尾声时，杰里·桑达斯基告诉他传奇老板乔·帕特诺，他希望找到一种方法，即使离开宾夕法尼亚州立大学这所历史悠久的大学橄榄球队，也能继续保持与该校的“联系”。最终，桑达斯基的名字获得的关注度远远超出了他本人和学校的想象。

这位自称“伪装大师”的教练，现年82岁，因在15年间性侵10名男孩，于2012年被判处相当于终身监禁的刑罚。其中许多男孩都与“第二英里”（The Second Mile）慈善机构有关。该机构由桑达斯基于1977年创办，最初是一个集体寄养家庭，后来发展成为一个涵盖众多弱势青少年项目的综合性机构。

过去一年来，桑达斯基的法律团队一直在辩称他应该获得新的审判，并引用了他的一名指控者的宣誓证词，该证词撤回了他的指控。

“我现在后悔当初参与了这场在我看来存在严重缺陷的起诉，”瑞安·里特迈耶（Ryan Rittmeyer，在审判中被称为“第十号受害者”）在2025年的一份宣誓书中写道。现年近40岁的他原定于周二在法庭上公开撤回他的指控。

里特迈尔是桑达斯基案中唯一一个翻供的受害者，他只与该教练的 45 项指控中的 6 项有关。

距离里特迈尔在法庭上更改证词仅剩五天之际，桑达斯基的辩护律师出人意料地撤回了重审请求。被告表示，他认为宾夕法尼亚州的法官们已经下定决心，他想把时间花在将他的法律论点转移到联邦法院上。

桑达斯基周三在狱中向 CNN 发表的一段音频声明中表示：“所有这些问题都可以由尚未对我做出决定的法官们一并审理。”

中心日报/MCT/兰多夫

杰里·桑达斯基的“虚构世界”

“我是无辜的。我希望在真相大白之时还能活着。”

周五，法官与律师们通过Zoom举行了闭门会议，决定不取消周二的听证会。但桑达斯基的发言人表示，里特迈耶法官不会出庭。桑达斯基本人将从监狱远程出庭，确认他坚持撤回最新请愿的决定，这是检方要求的保证。

州检察长办公室的律师写道：“应该有记录表明被告告知法庭，他已与律师讨论过撤回诉讼，他理解撤回诉讼的后果，并且他同意这一决定。”

Hunter Martin/Getty Images

宾夕法尼亚州立大学曾试图通过向提出性虐待指控的个人支付超过 1.09 亿美元的法律和解金来摆脱这起案件——这起案件不仅让桑达斯基锒铛入狱，也让前校长格雷厄姆·斯潘尼尔和另外两名未能阻止他的大学官员锒铛入狱——如今，这起案件又回到了同一个法庭，陪审团曾 45 次裁定桑达斯基“有罪”。

桑达斯基与宾夕法尼亚州立大学的橄榄球项目有着数十年的紧密联系，而针对他的指控震惊了全州。

“这是一起性侵犯者利用其在社区和大学中的地位，对众多年轻男孩进行长达十多年的性侵犯的案件，”宾夕法尼亚州当时的司法部长琳达·凯利在 2011 年宣布对桑达斯基的指控时说道。

自2012年6月22日被判刑以来，桑达斯基几乎不间断地试图推翻该判决，他最初辩称其律师办案不力。2019年，州高等法院驳回了他重审的请求，但下令重新量刑。最终，下级法院维持了之前的判决：判处30至60年监禁。

Patrick Smith/Getty Images

杰里·桑达斯基被重新判处相同刑期。

桑达斯基的审判中，当时被称为“第 10 号受害者”的男子提供了令人震惊和不安的证词。但现在，桑达斯基的律师提交的里特迈尔的宣誓书称，他并不真正记得他在证人席上描述的那些虐待行为。

在他们早前提交的新审判申请中，桑达斯基的辩护律师表示，首席检察官约瑟夫·麦克吉蒂根依赖于备受争议的理论，即虐待创伤会导致性侵犯受害者压抑记忆。

里特迈尔在宣誓书中说：“有人直接或间接地告诉我，创伤可能导致我的记忆支离破碎，我可以放心地确认一些我并不完全记得的细节。他们向我保证，这种情况很常见，甚至在意料之中。”

里特迈尔在宣誓书中表示，他从未接受过任何正式的治疗来恢复被压抑的记忆，但后来发现“许多像我一样的指控者，尽管存在严重的记忆空白，却被鼓励去重构创伤性叙事”。

在2012年的庭审中，里特迈尔作证说，他和桑达斯基在“第二英里”（The Second Mile）项目多次发生口交，该项目是他寄养期间被推荐参加的。他还作证说，桑达斯基威胁里特迈尔，如果他告诉任何人，就再也见不到家人了。

尽管里特迈尔否认自己犯有任何故意伪证罪，但他现在表示，他是被“诱导”在证人席上说了检察官想让他说的话。

他写道：“我当时被误导，认为如果我不按检方预期的方式作证，就会让一个危险人物逃脱法律制裁。我完全接受了他们对事件的描述，以至于记忆、暗示和预期之间出现了混淆。”

里特迈尔没有回应 CNN 对其宣誓证词的置评请求，也没有回应他对桑达斯基试图在州法院撤销此案的任何反应。

桑达斯基的辩护律师在一份法庭文件中辩称：“麦克吉蒂根没有披露指控内容正在发生变化，这些人现在正在‘回忆起’以前从未披露过的信息。”

CNN独家报道：警方报告显示，乔·帕特诺可能早已知晓杰里·桑达斯基早前的性侵指控。

在被捕几天后，桑达斯基在接受 NBC 体育频道鲍勃·科斯塔斯的采访时否认虐待年轻男孩或对他们有性吸引力，但他承认对他的指控中一些令人震惊的细节是真的。

“我和孩子们一起玩耍过。锻炼后，我和他们一起洗澡，”他说。“我拥抱过他们，也摸过他们的腿，但并没有性接触的意图。所以，如果从这个角度来看，有些说法是准确的。”

桑达斯基的律师，来自塔克·阿伦斯伯格律师事务所的律师，没有回应多次关于听证会的置评请求。

宾夕法尼亚州立大学在这个位于联邦中心地带的自治市镇的影响力，仍然笼罩着这起案件。在桑达斯基最初的审判之前，中心县的每一位法官都因为与该大学、“第二英里”慈善机构或桑达斯基本人存在关联而回避了此案。在即将举行的听证会上，一位来自几个县之外的半退休法官莫琳·斯克尔达将于周二听取桑达斯基的证词，以确认他是否希望放弃在州法院审理里特迈耶的证词。

斯克尔达已经驳回了桑达斯基的其他指控，包括一名受害者在审判后在检察官的帮助下设立的信托基金中获利，以及桑达斯基的审判律师不作为。

在庭审中，受害者详细描述了她们十几岁时多次遭受口交的经历——有时在地下室，有时在淋浴间。

“他变得非常咄咄逼人，强迫我这么做，”被指认为第九名受害者的男子作证说。“我只能顺从，根本没有反抗。”

马特·桑达斯基后来也声称自己曾遭受性侵犯。他最初是通过“第二英里”项目认识了这位教练，后来被他收养。桑达斯基在桑达斯基的审判开始后才站出来，而他的案件最终也没有被提起诉讼。

事后调查发现，大学官员介入此事并非出于自愿。起因是时任研究生助理迈克·麦克奎里（Mike McQueary）告诉帕特诺（Paterno）和其他体育官员，他亲眼目睹桑达斯基（Sandusky）于2001年2月在宾夕法尼亚州立大学橄榄球训练馆的淋浴间强奸了一名10岁男孩。当时桑达斯基已正式从大学退休，但仍几乎可以自由出入校园。调查显示，尽管州法律要求他们向警方报案，但包括帕特诺在内的校方领导层并未这样做。

Brian Bahr/Getty Images/文件

大陪审团后来发现，一名清洁工曾表示，几个月前他曾在同一栋楼里看到桑达斯基性侵一名男孩，但当时因为害怕所有清洁工都被解雇而没有举报。桑达斯基在1998年退休前也曾被问及与一名11岁男孩一起洗澡一事，但他否认发生过任何性行为，地区检察官办公室也拒绝起诉他。

桑达斯基被定罪后，宾夕法尼亚州立大学聘请前联邦调查局局长路易斯·弗里对学校如何应对麦克奎里事件进行内部调查。弗里长达267页的报告涉及430多次访谈，报告指责该大学及其体育项目的高层领导——包括备受尊敬的教练“乔·帕”——没有对桑达斯基的虐待指控进行后续调查。

报告称：“这些人向董事会、大学社区和当局隐瞒了桑达斯基的活动。”

宾夕法尼亚州立大学并未正式接受弗里报告的结论。帕特诺的遗孀苏在一份声明中表示，她认为该报告“存在严重缺陷，对乔得出了未经证实的结论，并且不公正地批评了宾夕法尼亚州立大学的文化”。

帕特诺家族于 2014 年起诉了宾夕法尼亚州立大学，但在 2020 年撤回了诉讼。当时，宾夕法尼亚州立大学董事会主席发表声明称，学校“为乔·帕特诺做出的诸多贡献”和“苏·帕特诺做出的非凡贡献”感到“非常自豪”。

2016年和2017年的大学审计显示，宾夕法尼亚州立大学已向至少33名声称遭到桑达斯基性侵的受害者支付了超过1.09亿美元的和解金，其中部分费用由保险公司承担。里特迈耶表示，他与该大学达成了550万美元的民事和解协议，其中超过200万美元支付给了他的律师。

辩方在审判中提出了金钱是针对桑达斯基的指控的核心这一观点，但麦克吉蒂根在结案陈词中驳斥了这一观点。

“阴谋论最棒的地方就在于，你可以任由它们不断发展，直到它们自身崩溃为止，”他当时说道。

桑达斯基的律师原本计划传唤麦克吉蒂根出庭作证，指控他“在影响里特迈尔的证词方面发挥了作用”，但他已于12月去世。桑达斯基案的另一位检察官弗兰克·菲纳仍在证人名单上。

在桑达斯基的虐待行为被定罪并受到制裁，导致橄榄球项目遭受重创十多年后，大学社区一直在努力向前看。

Christopher Weddle/Centre Daily Times/TNS/Getty Images/档案照片

尽管帕特诺被解雇后，他那尊比真人还大的雕像被拆除，目前仍存放在仓库中，不对外公开。但宾夕法尼亚州立大学上周宣布，将在其体育博物馆开设一个名为“帕特诺家族橄榄球体验室”的新展区，部分资金来自一笔匿名捐款。

体育部门宣布，其中包括“帕特诺教练最初的办公桌和工作区”。

但桑达斯基誓言绝不放弃，希望他的案件能在联邦法院审理。

“我必须尽快到达那里，”他上周说。“我已经82岁了。”

CNN的劳伦·德尔·瓦莱对本报道亦有贡献。