Sandusky Lawyers Pull Accuser's Recantation Claim in State Court, Pivot to Federal Appeal

Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach serving 30 to 60 years for child sexual abuse, appeared by video from State Correctional Institution Laurel Highlands on Tuesday and told a Centre County judge he agreed with his lawyers' decision not to pursue an accuser's recantation in state court.

"I'm making this decision on advice of counsel," Sandusky, 82, told Judge Maureen Skerda, according to The Associated Press, as reported by NBC News. Skerda then dismissed his Post Conviction Relief Act petition.

The about-face caps more than a year of legal maneuvering tied to a man identified in court records as R.R., who was called Victim 10 at Sandusky's 2012 trial. According to court documents cited by CBS News and Fox 29 Philadelphia, R.R. signed an affidavit in June 2025 recanting his trial testimony to a private investigator working for Sandusky's family.

What R.R. Claimed

In the affidavit, R.R. said he had been told "both directly and indirectly" that trauma "may have fragmented" his memory and that he "could safely affirm details I did not fully recall," adding he "was assured this was common and even expected," according to court filings reported by Fox News and Breitbart. Sandusky's attorneys also submitted an affidavit from R.R.'s estranged wife, Jasmine Rittmeyer, and said they intended to call private investigator Frank Parlato and former trial prosecutor Frank Fina, per Fox 29 Philadelphia.

If true, a convicted man's team saying investigators pressured a child abuse witness into affirming memories he wasn't sure of is a serious allegation.

Why the Defense Walked It Back

A Centre County judge had granted Sandusky an evidentiary hearing for Sept. 8, 2026, to examine the recantation, after an earlier dismissal of his petition was vacated over what Fox News described as a procedural misstep. But at Tuesday's hearing, Sandusky's attorney, Jerry Russo, told reporters that Pennsylvania courts treat witness recantations as "inherently unreliable" and see little chance of winning a new trial on that basis in state court, according to WHYY.

"If that's the only issue that remains for us to litigate, there's no purpose being served litigating it here in state court," Russo said, per WHYY.

Skerda warned Russo and Sandusky that withdrawing the claim meant it could not be relitigated in state or federal court. Russo agreed that was "technically" true. He argued other witnesses could still testify about R.R.'s recantation in a future federal proceeding, WHYY reported.

The State's Response

The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, which represented the Commonwealth through Senior Deputy Attorneys General Cari Mahler and Jaime Keating, had already labeled the recantation "highly suspect" and said it was prepared to rebut it with what Attorney General Dave Sunday called "voluminous evidence" debunking the claim.

"This was yet another attempt by a convicted child predator to avoid accountability and escape punishment for years of abuse he perpetrated under the veil of a child-empowerment program," Sunday said in a statement from his office.

A Risky Legal Path

Arthur Hellman, an emeritus law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies federal courts, told NBC News it is unusual for a defendant to bypass all state court remedies before heading to federal court. Federal habeas judges generally require claims and evidence to first be presented in state court, and may simply refuse to consider new material that wasn't.

"If [Sandusky's legal team] expects to present new evidence in a federal habeas proceeding that was not part of the state court record, he's in for a very unpleasant surprise," Hellman said.

Coverage published ahead of Tuesday's hearing, including reports from CBS News on Aug. 28 and Fox 29 Philadelphia, described R.R. as "expected to recant" his testimony in court. That didn't happen. Instead of putting R.R. on the stand, Sandusky's team pulled the claim entirely rather than risk a state court ruling against it. They preserved what Russo called a path to federal review instead.

The Underlying Case

Sandusky was convicted in June 2012 on 45 counts of child sexual abuse spanning 1994 to 2009, after eight young men testified he abused them as boys, according to NBC News and Breitbart. Prosecutors said he used his standing at Penn State and his charity, The Second Mile, to find and groom victims. The scandal led to the firing of Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno, and Penn State has paid more than $100 million to people who said Sandusky abused them, per Breitbart.

Sandusky has repeatedly denied guilt. "I apologize that I'm unable to admit remorse for this because it's something that I didn't do," he said at a 2019 resentencing hearing, according to Breitbart.

Russo has said one more procedural appeal will play out in Pennsylvania state courts before the case moves to federal court. Whether a federal judge will even look at the recantation evidence Sandusky's team just declined to argue in Bellefonte remains uncertain.