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Jerry Sandusky

February 11, 2012 by · Comments Off on Jerry Sandusky 

Jerry Sandusky, Before he even got out of the car, Jerry Sandusky was smiling.

The former Penn State assistant football coach chatted up sheriff’s deputies as they escorted him from his attorney’s car through a gaggle of media members to the courthouse door.

View full sizeJOE S-EX-RMITT, The Patriot-NewsJerry Sandusky, along with his attorney Joe Amendola, enters the Centre County courthouse for a hearing on several issues, including two requests: one, from the prosecution, for an out-of-county jury; the other, from the defense, for loosened bail conditions for Sandusky.
He laughed several times while trying to answer questions from the judge when he took the stand during a hearing Friday to hash out pretrial issues between his attorney and prosecutors.

The hearing was about pretty serious issues:

Can the 68-year-old accused child molester see his grandchildren and drive around with his private investigator?

Should the judge tighten his bail conditions so that he’s kept from going outside his house, which borders a school?

Should the trial — which his attorneys say could be as early as May — have 12 jurors from another county? And should his attorneys be allowed to get an early peek at grand jury testimony?

On all those issues, Judge John M. Cleland said he will rule later.

But the biggest moment of the day did not come when Sandusky publicly addressed news outlets at length for the first time.

Or even when reporters swarmed his wife, Dottie, to ask about an incident caught on tape in which she sped past a Pittsburgh news reporter near her driveway. The biggest moment in the courtroom was more subtle, when prosecutor Joe McGettigan was describing the impact this case has had on Centre County.

“What these allegations demonstrate is that defendant used his role in The Second Mile to victimize, locate and target victims,” McGettigan said of the children’s charity Sandusky founded.

Sandusky, leaning back in his chair in between his two attorneys, had a wide grin on his face.

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