The disgraced former assistant football coach at Penn State charged with 52 counts of sexually molesting 10 boys he met through a charity he ran, waived his right to a preliminary hearing this morning.
As the proceedings began in a Bellefonte, Pennsylvania courtroom, Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer approached the bench and told Judge Robert E. Scott that his client had chosen to waive his right to the hearing. The case will now enter the trial phase and Sandusky is scheduled to be arraigned on January 11.
“We fully intend to put together the best defense we can,” Sandusky told reporters as he left the courtroom. “We’re going to stay the course, and fight for four quarters.”
Absent a preliminary hearing, Sandusky’s accusers will now only have to testify publicly once, at trial.
“This development we believe provides maximum protection to most importantly the victims in this case,” Deputy Attorney General E. Marc Costanzo told reporters after the hearing. “It avoids their having to testify for a second time.”
Sandusky has admitted in interviews that he showered and wrestled with young boys as a mentor who treated the youths like extended family, but has said he never sexually abused them.
He posted a $250,000 bond and was released from jail last week after facing charges by two additional accusers. He is confined to his home and must wear an ankle monitor.
Sandusky’s legal strategy is not yet clear.
He has rejected a plea bargain and may believe he has nothing to lose with a high-profile trial, although by waiving a preliminary hearing prosecutors did not have an opportunity to say whether they were willing to drop any charges.
Legal experts have said they are baffled that Sandusky has given interviews, which they say locks him into a defense based on what he said during those interviews.
The molestation charges have resulted in what is being called the greatest college sports scandal in history and the top news story of 2011.
Longtime football coach Joe Paterno and the university president, Graham B. Spanier, were forced out, while Athletic Director Tim Curley and the university vice president Gary Schultz, who was in charge of the campus police, have been accused of lying to a grand jury.
Penn State, 24th ranked in the major college polls, will play No. 20 Houston on January 2 in the Ticket City Bowl in Dallas.
University President Rodney Erickson and interim coach Tom Bradley said the team still deserved to play in a bowl game because the players had nothing to do with the scandal, while the university will donate its share of conference bowl proceeds this year — about $1.5 million — to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. The revenue usually goes back to the athletic department.