for Bigtrial.net
Jailhouse Lawyer
Sandusky has previously been represented on appeal by lawyers Alexander Lindsay of Butler, PA, and Philip Lauer of Easton, and more recently, E. J. Rymsza of Williamsport. But after a decade of unsuccessful appeals, Sandusky is still in prison and running out of legal options. In calls to this reporter from prison, the former defensive coach at "Linebacker U" has openly expressed frustration with his lawyers for not being aggressive enough.
As a result, at the State Correctional Institute at Laurel Highlands, Sandusky has taken to writing his own briefs and affidavits. In his motion for a new trial, filed last week in the Centre County Court of Common Pleas, Sandusky cited as newly discovered evidence a Jan. 15, 2018 interview conducted by Shubin with the late Shawn Sinisi.
Sinisi, who died of a drug overdose in 2018, is currently the subject of a current and highly bogus podcast, "The Mayor of Maple Avenue," hosted by Sara Ganim. She's the useful idiot of a reporter who, during the Penn State scandal, functioned as the press agent for corrupt prosecutors in the state attorney general's office. The bad actors included former deputy attorney general Frank Fina, who had his law license suspended because of his unconstitutional acts against other defendants in this very same case.
In his motion for a new trial, Sandusky requests an evidentiary hearing where he can present the "expert testimony of licensed psychologist Christopher Barden Ph.D on the taint issue." Besides being a licensed psychologist, Barden, of Plymouth, Minn., is also a scientist, attorney, and as an expert witness has testified in multiple malpractice lawsuits against therapists who practiced recovered memory therapy.
Every alleged victim in the Sandusky case drastically changed their stories, which were never vetted by anyone at Penn State. But in this newest case, Sinisi might have set a new standard by proving that when it comes to allegations of sex abuse, you don't even have to still be alive to be able to collect from Penn State.
'A Good Man'
After Shubin asked what he meant by that, Sinisi allegedly responded, "like grab my penis."
According to Sandusky, Shubin asked, "Did he masturbate you," and Sinisi allegedly replied, "He tried to. I like pulled away, then he just stopped."
"Shubin's interview technique is highly suggestive and tainted the memory of Sinisi and caused him to recall events that never took place," Sandusky wrote.
"The new evidence obtained in discovery in the civil case is relevant in this matter because it demonstrated the techniques used by Shubin to influence the testimony of Sinisi and other young males, who, like Sinisi, had previously given statements that denied any wrongdoing on Sandusky's part, but had later made accusations against Sandusky and, in some cases, testified against him in his criminal case," Sandusky
In his motion for a new trial, Sandusky states that he wasn't served with Sinisi's complaint until last year.
Last November, on the tenth anniversary of the Penn State sex abuse scandal, Ganim's new podcast asserted that Shawn Sinsisi was the first alleged victim of Sandusky's to die as a result of the alleged abuse.
"He began to escape his pain and bury his memories of abuse with drugs and alcohol," Ganim said. "He became an addict. And when his addiction led him down a darker path, he was given yet another label: criminal."
A year later, Sandusky wrote, another good friend died instantly in another car accident.
"I have had so many fucked up things happen to me at such a young age," Sandusky recalled Shawn telling him.
"Just before going to jail in December 2012, one of [Shawn's] other best friends died of an overdose Shawn blamed himself for starting him on drugs," Sandusky wrote.
Penn State Rolls Over
In the Sinisi case, Penn State, according to a knowledgable source, has agreed in principle to pay the Sinisi family, but hasn't parted with any cash yet.
This is what Penn State did with 36 of Sandusky's 41 accusers. The university's trustees have previously paid out a total of $118 million to 36 accusers, an average of $3.3 million each, without deploying any of the usual methods to vet their stories, such as having the alleged victims questioned by private investigators, deposed by lawyers, personally examined by forensic psychiatrists, or subjected to polygraph tests.
“It appears as though Penn State made little effort, if any, to verify the credibility of the claims of the individuals,” Eric Anderson, a Pittsburgh lawyer who was an expert witness in the case, wrote on October 5, 2015.
In his motion for a new trial, Sandusky discloses as his second piece of newly discovered evidence statements made by A.J. Dillen on the 14th episode of John Ziegler's podcast, "With the Benefit of Hindsight."
In 2014, A.J. Dillen, a 31-year-old former Second Miler who didn’t believe any of the alleged victims were telling the truth, purposely made up a ridiculous story -- he’d been raped by Sandusky in a park behind Joe Paterno’s house -- and then Dillen decided to see how far he could get with it.
Dillen went to see Shubin, who took him in as a client. But according to Dillen, who recorded his private meetings with Shubin on his cell phone, the lawyer radically altered Dillen’s original story to make it more compatible with a possible Penn State settlement. Then, Shubin referred Dillen to a therapist who sent him to a psychotherapist, who certified Dillen as having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Finally, after more than three years of legal counsel and about 100 paid therapy sessions, Shubin informed Dillen that he couldn’t pursue his claim because it was past the statute of limitations. Shubin referred Dillen to the state attorney general’s office, where Dillen could file a possible criminal complaint against Sandusky, which, if successful, might have cleared the way for Dillen to get paid in a civil claim.
But rather than go any further with the charade, Dillen decided to out himself. He never wanted money, he just wanted to prove a point. As Dillen told myself and John Ziegler in 2017, “Hopefully, people will start to realize that this whole case stinks.”
In his affidavit, Sandusky writes that "in recorded meetings with Dillen, Shubin 'corrected' Dillen's version of his encounters with Sandusky, to substantially enhance their settlement value by, for example, moving the location of events to Penn State, from a public park."
On Ziegler's podcast, Sandusky wrote, Dillen stated his reaction to what Shubin did was shock.
"I am immediately thinking this entire thing is BS," Dillen stated on the podcast, according to Sandusky's motion for a new trial. "I came as a fake accuser, and he [Shubin] has changed my story. What makes me think he did't do this with everyone?"
Other Accusers
In his motion for a new trial, Sandusky writes that initially, Shubin clients Jason Simcisko and Dustin Struble "told the OAG and state police investigators that Sandusky had never molested them but gave very different testimony at trial."
On July 19, 2011, Jason Simcisko told police that Sandusky never did anything inappropriate to him, and "I don't believe any of this stuff is true and hope he is found not guilty," Sandusky wrote.
But "after six meetings with Shubin and therapy with McNabb," Sandusky wrote, Simcisko changed his story to testify in court that Sandusky "touched his penis, washed his butt, and kissed his shoulders."
In 2004, Dustin Struble wrote on an application for financial aide in 2004, "Jerry Sandusky, he has helped me understand so much about myself. He is such a kind and caring gentleman, and I will never forget him.
But after Shubin and therapist McNabb met with Struble some 10 to 15 times, Struble claimed that through counseling, he recalled instances of inappropriate touching.
"That doorway that was closed, has since been opening more," Struble testified at Sandusky's criminal trial. "Through counseling and different things I can remember a lot more detail that I had pushed aside then."
Another alleged victim who initially claimed he was never molested by Sandusky was Allan Myers, the alleged boy in the showers that Mike McQueary allegedly saw being raped as a 10-year-old boy by Sandusky.
On Nob. 9. 2011, Myers told investigator Curtis Everhart, "Never in my life did I ever feel uncomfortable or violated . . . never did Jerry do wrong by me . . . I will never have anything bad to say about Jerry."
"Investigator Sassano asked Myers if he ever told Shubin the specifics of the sexual conduct between him and Sandusky and he indicated he never told them," Sandusky wrote.
Then, Sandusky quotes Sassano as saying, "This is in contrast to what Shubin told me on Feb. 10, 2012. Furthermore, Sassano rejected a three-page document given to Inspector [Michael] Corricelli that was purported to be Myers's recollection of sexual conduct because Corricelli indicated he suspected Shubin wrote it," Sandusky wrote.
Regarding Allan Myers, his "earlier statements exonerated Sandusky," Sandusky wrote. But Myers "was prevented by Shubin from being called as a witness in Sandusky's defense by being hidden at an undisclosed location," Shubin wrote.
Regarding Ryan Ritttmeyer, Sandusky wrote in his motion for a new trial that Rittmeyer was a friend of Dustin Struble's, and that Rittmeyer "incorporated what [Struble] had been told by Shubin to say in his trial testimony."
According to Sandusky, "numerous accusers and their families responded to Shubin's request, and potential solutions and came upon large amounts of money and justification for failures through alleging sexual abuse by Sandusky."
"Without Shubin's influence and the lure of financial gain, they may not have come forward, or if they did, would not have presented a compelling story," Sandusky wrote in his motion for a new trial.
"The social contagion crated by Shubin spread to others, accusers, families, attorneys and the public," Sandusky wrote." If Shubin's effort had been eliminated, there is a high probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different."
Full Disclosure: In Sandusky's motion for a new trial, Ralph Cipriano of bigtrial.net filed an affidavit affirming that Penn State secretly paid six accusers represented by Andrew Shubin more than $32 million in confidential settlements.