One of the 10 victims who accused former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky of abuse is set to recant his testimony, according to court documents obtained by multiple outlets.
Sandusky, 82, is reportedly set to appear in court in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, next month for an evidentiary hearing that will review the victim’s recanted testimony. The hearing will take place on Sept. 8.
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According to a signed affidavit from June 30, 2025, the accuser known as Victim 10 in the trial alleges that he was “misled repeatedly” by prosecutors.
“I now regret my role in facilitating what I have come to view as a deeply flawed prosecution,” Victim 10 wrote.
In the statement, Victim 10 called out prosecutor Joe McGettigan as someone who influenced his testimony; McGettigan, who was the lead prosecutor on the case, died in December.
Victim 10 wrote that he was “repeatedly encouraged” to believe that he had been abused by Sandusky, despite a “lack of clear or certain memory of any such conduct.” The accuser said that he was “coached” during pretrial meetings, including one that lasted around six hours, and asked to “reframe” his account “until my responses aligned with what appeared to be desired by the prosecution team.”
“Throughout the pretrial process, I was told — both directly and indirectly — that trauma may have fragmented my memory, and that I could safely affirm details I did not fully recall. I was assured this was common and even expected,” he wrote. “Over time, my story changed. My testimony evolved. This evolution was not deliberate deception but the result of emotional strain, repeated exposure to leading questions, intense investigative pressure, and psychological manipulation.”
Victim 10 said that he did not commit perjury, saying that his statements “were not willfully false, but induced under extreme psychological and institutional pressure.”
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Victim 10 said that he received $5.5 million in the civil settlement from the trial. He also said that he was promised that his identity would be kept confidential, which he said did not end up being the case.
In a motion to seek a new trial obtained by multiple outlets, Sandusky’s defense team said that Victim 10’s now-estranged wife would testify that Victim 10 initially denied that he had been abused by Sandusky.
However, in a statement to ABC News, prosecutors with the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office dismissed the opinion of Victim 10’s ex “thirteen years after defendant’s trial, pondering what she thinks may or may not have really happened to [Victim 10] when he was 10 years old” as “irrelevant and inadmissible.”
Sandusky, a former Nittany Lion defensive end, coached at Penn State from 1969 to 1999. The accusations of abuse are related to Sandusky’s charity, The Second Mile, which he founded in 1977.
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Sandusky was arrested in 2011 and convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse in 2012. He was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison, a sentence that was re-affirmed in 2019 after his lawyers’ bid for a new trial was denied.
The scandal had wide-ranging effects on the university’s football program as a whole. Legendary head coach Joe Paterno was fired in the wake of the accusations; he died in January 2012, and a statue of him outside Beaver Stadium was taken down the following July.
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