Former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky appeared in a state court on Friday for a resentencing hearing seven years after he was convicted on child sex abuse charges, but the court chose to sustain his 30-60 year sentence.
Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of child sex abuse in 2012. He abused 10 boys over a period of 15 years. The scandal rocked Happy Valley and led to the firing of Penn State’s hall of fame coach Joe Paterno, staining his 45-year legacy at the school. Sandusky has maintained that he is innocent.
The Friday hearing in a Pennsylvania courtroom was not expected to significantly alter Sandusky’s sentence. He will return to the State Correctional Institution at Laurel Highlands to continue serving what will likely be a life sentence for the 75-year-old.
A state appeals court ordered the hearing after ruling that the mandatory minimum sentence applied to Sandusky’s case was improper. The court declined to schedule a new trial.
In the fallout from Sandusky’s 2012 trial, Penn State paid more than $109 million to settle claims from victims of Sandusky’s abuse. The NCAA cracked down on the university’s football program, barring the team from competing in bowl games for four years and levying a $60 million fine against the university.
A 2012 report by former FBI director Louis Freeh, who Penn State hired to investigate the case, concluded that it is “reasonable” to think leadership at the university and in the football program disregarded Sandusky’s abuse out of “reverence for the football program.”
