Judge Rules Statute of Limitations Hasn’t Expired for Alleged Sandusky Victim

It’s now up to the attorney general’s office to determine whether or not additional charges should be filed against Jerry Sandusky.

Anthony Spinelli, an alleged Sandusky victim who claims to have been sexually abused at a 1988 football camp, is asking the attorney general to charge the former Penn State football coach with involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, sexual assault, indecent assault, corruption of minors.

His criminal complaint was initially denied by the attorney general’s office, which argued that the statute of limitations had expired, but Spinelli’s attorneys thought otherwise.

And apparently, so did Centre County judge Thomas Kistler, who ruled on Wednesday that the complicated statute of limitations situation still allows for charges to be filed against Sandusky in this case. 

The statute of limitations has been extended and amended for sexual abuse victims multiple times since the alleged offense in 1988. As long as the previous statute had not yet expired, any updated statute can be applied retroactively.

The attorney general’s office thought that Spinelli’s interpretation “stacked” the public employee exception — which adds eight years to the statute of limitations if the alleged abuser is a public employee — essentially applying it twice. Kistler disagreed, ruling that the exception can be applied multiple times as the amendments and changes are retraced, as long as it’s not applied more than once to the same statute. 

“The exception period, although applied twice, was never applied twice under the same applicable statute of limitations,” Kistler wrote. “This court finds that the application of the employee exception to the second amended statute of limitations is not prohibited by the statute as written.”

After retroactively applying the multiple changes to the statute of limitations, Kistler ruled that it doesn’t expire until the victim turns 50 years old, which is the current law. In other words, the previous statutes never expired before the new ones became effective, allowing them to apply to Spinelli. 

“We are very pleased with President Judge Kistler’s decision,” said Daniel Kiss, Spinelli’s attorney. “We think it was the right decision and it gives Anthony an opportunity for justice. We are hopeful that the Attorney General’s Office will fight for justice for Anthony going forward as hard as he fought for himself to get to where the case stands.”

The criminal complaint is back in the hands of the attorney general’s office, which now needs to determine whether or not to file charges based on the merits of the complaint itself, not the statute of limitations. 

Sandusky will be in court on Thursday morning in Bellefonte for an unrelated court hearing at the Centre County Courthouse. A number of outstanding motions will be argued related to Sandusky’s appeal of his conviction on 45 counts related to child sexual abuse.