Senior Judge John Cleland on Tuesday denied a motion that he recuse himself from Jerry Sandusky’s appeal to gain a new trial.
The McKean County judge has been specially presiding over the Sandusky case since the former Penn State assistant coach and Second Mile founder’s 2011 arrest and 2012 trial, where he was convicted on 45 counts related to child sexual abuse.
Sandusky attorneys Al Lindsay and Andrew Salemme filed a motion for Cleland to remove himself from further proceedings because he was present at a meeting out of court when Sandusky’s trial attorney Joe Amendola reached an agreement with prosecutors for Sandusky to waive his preliminary hearing in December 2011.
Amendola’s decision to waive the preliminary hearing is part of Sandusky’s claim that he received ineffective counsel at his first trial, which is one of his central arguments for seeking a new trial.
But in his ruling, Cleland said he was only present at the meeting to address any administrative issues that might arise. He said the meeting was conducted by Magisterial Senior Judge Robert E. Scott, who was appointed to specially preside over the preliminary hearing.
Cleland was eating dinner at the Hilton Garden Inn on East College Avenue in State College on Dec. 12, 2011 when he was notified Amendola and prosecutors Joseph McGettigan and Jonelle Eshbach wanted to meet with him and Scott.
At the meeting, Cleland wrote, Amendola said he approached prosecutors about waiving the preliminary hearing if there was an agreement the state would not ask for an increase in bail should new charges arise. Amendola said Sandusky feared he would not be able to pay an increased bail and would be incarcerated until his trial. An agreement was reached and the next morning Sandusky waived his preliminary hearing.
Cleland wrote that the information he is aware of regarding the hearing waiver did not come from a source beyond the proceedings for which he was presiding and so is not extrajudicial. He also dismissed a concern about being a potential witness because he is not the only source of the information and the facts do not appear to be in dispute.
Sandusky, who is currently serving a 30-60 year sentence at the State Correctional Institute at Greene, will be back in Centre County Court on May 20 for further arguments to gain an evidentiary hearing as he seeks a new trial under the Post Conviction Relief Act
