STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – A judge on Thursday granted a request by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky that the court return to his wife the $50,000 she put up for his bail before he was convicted this summer of sexually abusing nearly a dozen boys.
Judge John Cleland signed the order that refunded the bail to Dottie Sandusky and released the court's hold on the couple's home, as a promissory note against the home had been put up as $200,000 collateral.
Jerry Sandusky, 68, has been in a county jail since his June conviction on 45 counts of child sexual abuse against 10 boys, some on campus. He is expected to get a lengthy state prison term when sentenced next week, but he maintains his innocence, and defense attorney Joe Amendola has said he will appeal.
Before the conviction, Sandusky had been confined to his suburban State College home. As an inmate at the Centre County Correctional Facility, he has been isolated from the general population of inmates.
Sandusky was convicted of a range of abuse of the boys, from grooming and fondling to oral and anal sex. Prosecutors say he met most of the boys, if not all of them, through The Second Mile, a charity he founded in 1977 for at-risk youths.
One young man testified that when he was a boy his muffled screams from the basement of the Sandusky home went unanswered as Sandusky attacked him.
Sandusky didn't testify at his trial, but his wife testified that she never saw him doing anything inappropriate with boys he took to their home.
Two Penn State administrators were charged with failing to properly report suspected abuse and lying to a grand jury that investigated Sandusky. Athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz are scheduled to go to trial in Harrisburg in January.
Curley, who is on leave, and Schultz, who has retired, deny the charges against them.
Receive your weekly recap of all the happenings around the world of sports.