\u201cThe defense will be requesting a new trial during these proceedings, based primarily on a highly-suspect recantation that was offered by the defense,\u201d the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General told Onward State. <\/p>\n
During the 2012 trial, Rittmeyer testified that he had multiple nonconsensual sexual encounters with Sandusky starting before a football game in the fall of 1997.<\/p>\n
However, in a document dated June 30, 2025, Rittmeyer now claimed he had no \u201cclear or certain\u201d memory of Sandusky sexually abusing him when he was first interviewed by the Pennsylvania State Police. He said that when investigations began, investigators told him his role was \u201ccritical to stopping a predator.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey emphasized that other alleged victims were reluctant to come forward and repeatedly encouraged me to believe that Mr. Sandusky had molested me,\u201d Rittmeyer said in the signed affidavit.<\/p>\n
Rittmeyer said investigators questioned him multiple times about his experience with Sandusky and encouraged him to reconsider his recollection of the interactions. Rittmeyer said he was told that trauma could cause fragmented memories.<\/p>\n
Rittmeyer also claimed he was \u201ccoached extensively,\u201d asked to \u201creframe\u201d his allegation, and felt he was \u201cmisled repeatedly\u201d throughout the 2012 trial, particularly by Joe McGettigan. <\/p>\n
McGettigan, who passed away on December 31, 2025, was a senior deputy attorney general when he served as a lead prosecutor during the Sandusky trial. <\/p>\n
\u201c[Rittmeyer\u2019s] account establishes that his allegations were based on suggestive, leading questioning, prosecutorial coercion and influence, confirmatory bias and memory manipulation, which permeated throughout each of the accusers as well,\u201d Sandusky\u2019s legal team wrote in a Petition for Post Conviction Collateral Relief.<\/p>\n
Sandusky, Rittmeyer, and Frank Fina, another prosecutor on the case and formerly employed by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, are expected to be present for the September 8 hearing.<\/p>\n
Fina did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publishing.<\/p>\n
Sandusky has claimed innocence throughout the entire process<\/a> and did so again when on the phone with Action News Investigative Reporter Chad Pradelli<\/a> on Friday. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is the worst experience of my life. I am an innocent man, and I have been convicted by so many people with their own personal agendas, and this was an opportunity to take advantage of a tremendous financial gain,\u201d Sandusky said.<\/p>\n \t Collin is a fourth-year majoring in digital\/print journalism. He lives in Basking Ridge, New Jersey and enjoys TAYLOR HAM, egg, and cheese. As a New York Giants and Chelsea FC fan you can normally find him yelling at his TV screen on the weekends. Please follow him on X(formerly Twitter) @wardcollinz for Penn State football stuff. You can email him at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General has responded to the Jerry Sandusky accuser, who is expected to recant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9940,2376,87903,139,23973,3743,28,30,29,23985,115729,16086,3315,115730],"class_list":["post-275880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-attorney-general","tag-breaking-news","tag-jerry-sandusky","tag-news","tag-onward-state","tag-penn-state","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-psu","tag-ryan-rittmeyer","tag-sandusky","tag-students","tag-victim-10"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_5083-500x500.jpg\")
\t<\/p>\n