Judge rejects Sandusky motion for delay; trial to commence next week

Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant coach for Penn State’s football team who is now facing child rape charges, is set to go to trial next week after a Pennsylvania judge on Wednesday denied his attorneys’ bid for a delay.

Sandusky’s attorneys had argued they needed more time to prepare their case.

Sandusky, 68, has been under house arrest since being charged with sexually abusing 10 young boys over a 14-year period.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Related allegations that university officials failed to act on a complaint about Sandusky led to the November firing of the school’s president and of legendary Penn State head coach Joe Paterno, who died of lung cancer three months later.

Tim Curley, Penn State’s former athletic director; and Gary Schultz, a former university vice president who oversaw campus police, have been charged with perjury and failing to report an alleged 2001 sexual assault of a child.

Both of them have pleaded not guilty, and their attorneys have said that the prosecution “charged this case before it knew the facts.”

On Friday, ex-president Graham Spanier filed a lawsuit against Penn State to get access to copies of e-mails – generated between 1998 and 2004 – considered relevant to the Sandusky investigation.

Spanier said the e-mails would “refresh his recollection significantly and allow him to assist the university fully in its investigation.”

The university has refused to make the material available on the basis that they could compromise the ongoing investigation.

InSession’s Mayra Cuevas contributed to this report