Frank Parlato
WARREN COUNTY, Pa. — On February 27, 2026, Senior Judge Maureen Skerda dismissed Jerry Sandusky’s post-conviction petition without holding a hearing. She is the third judge assigned to the matter.
A post-conviction proceeding exists to allow evidence to be heard. None of the three has permitted the evidence to be heard.
The evidence in this case is never examined. Testimony exists — but it is never heard.
There is a reason for that: The Pennsylvania judiciary is committed to preserving the conviction, no matter what the truth is.
This I believe, will come to be known as a historic example of dishonesty.
Sandusky was convicted in 2012. The prosecutors were Frank Fina and Joseph McGettigan. Among the witnesses, of whom there were eight accusers, the one with the most horrifying tale is then 18-year-old Sebastian Paden, whom court records identify as S.P.
Three years later, Paden walked away with a $20 million civil settlement, less the attorney’s cut, he netted about $12 million.
The Prosecutors Who Cashed In
During the three years between the conviction and the settlement, the prosecutors had arranged to lend Paden more than a million dollars at 27 percent interest with a lien on his award. They knew he would win, and he paid them back about $2 million. The lender, US Claims, got paid out of the award as did the prosecutors.
They cashed in on Paden from the get-go.
After he got his award and paid the attorneys (of which McGettigan was one), the two prosecutors who secured the Sandusky conviction took control of the witness’s money.
Frank Fina joined the Trust Protective Committee, which oversees Paden’s settlement fund. Gay Warren — described in Judge Skerda’s ruling as Joseph McGettigan’s “paramour” — joined the committee as well.
There were three on the committee that controlled Paden’s more than $10 million. They were McGettigan and Fina and Paden’s therapist, the one they got for him. So they controlled his money, every dime of it.
McGettigan had been the lead prosecutor in the case against Sandusky. Fina was his boss at the AG’s office.
They controlled Paden’s $12 million settlement obtained after the Sandusky prosecution they led.
Their committee possessed unusual authority: the power to veto large payments Paden might want to make and to prevent Paden from firing them or dissolving his trust and taking control of his own money.
And they held the power to collect as many fees as they chose.
Skerda Sees Nothing
In another courtroom, other than Senior Judge Skerda’s, such an arrangement might prompt inquiry.
But evidence is never welcomed in the Sandusky case.
An email dated October 15, 2020, titled “Family Meeting,” shows Frank Fina coordinating matters related to Paden’s affairs eight years after the trial.
Another document appears in the record, a document wholly ignored by the protector of the conviction, Skerda: Paden’s mother, Marie, signed a sworn declaration stating that her son told her Sandusky had never abused him.
She also recounts a remark she attributes to McGettigan, who told her son:
“You will never have to work a day in your life.”
With a $10-12 million settlement locked inside a trust — and the prosecutors overseeing it — that promise turned out to be remarkably prescient.
The Testimony That Doesn’t Hold Together
By the time he got to the stand, Paden, 18, testified that Sandusky anally raped him over three to four years, beginning around age 13. He said it caused him to bleed. He never sought medical attention.
He screamed during the abuse. Jerry Sandusky’s wife, Dottie, was upstairs. “I think the basement is soundproof,” Paden told the jury. “I don’t know. It’s a big basement.”
Still he came back the following weekend. And the weekend after that, 150 times over four years. He testified he rarely ate at the house.
As Paden described it on the witness stand, Sandusky picked him up, brought him to the basement for the weekend, raped him, and on Sunday night he went home, went to school on Monday, told no one — not his mother, not a teacher, not a doctor. Not even a friend.
He said nothing for three years while bleeding from repeated rape.
You’re My Lawyer
During direct examination by McGettigan:
Q: Well, do you have a lawyer now?
A: No.
Q: Did you ever go looking for a lawyer?
A: No.
Q: Did your mom tell you she was going to get a lawyer?
A: No, you’re my lawyer.
Q: Are you going to pay me?
A: Yeah, I’m going to try.
Q: Are you working now, Mr. Paden?
A: No.
On telling his full story:
Q: And did you tell the grand jury everything that happened to you?
A: Yeah.
Q: Are you sure? The grand jury, do you remember talking to the grand jury?
A: Yeah — no. You’re the first person I told everything to.
On being coached:
Q: Did anybody tell you to say anything other than the truth?
A: No.
Q: Did I ever tell you to say anything in particular?
A: No. You just told me to tell you the truth.
Q: Did anybody force you to come here today?
A: No.
Q: Did you want to?
A: No.
A Mother’s Sworn Word
Paden told the jury he visited Sandusky’s house virtually every weekend for four years — approximately 150 times.
Marie Paden was his mother. She knew where her son was on weekends. Her sworn declaration states he went no more than 15 to 20 times. And he was not alone. Other boys were present.
Judge Skerda dismissed this in a word: hearsay.
She dismissed the prosecutors’ financial corruption with a sentence. Skerda wrote that “there is no evidence that any of the prosecutors were actively engaged in the civil litigation nor had a financial interest while prosecuting the defendant in 2012.”
The trust, she noted, was created three years after the trial.
From this, she concluded, without an evidentiary hearing, that no pre-trial misconduct occurred.
The Questions She Would Not Ask
Judge Skerda did not care to examine why the prosecutors controlled the witness’s money. She did not look at the evidence that the prosecutors took control of Paden’s life the moment they got him as a witness.
Skerda would not consider whether the post-trial arrangement might illuminate the relationship between prosecutors and the witness before the trial.
The ruling dares not explore their earlier relationship with Paden, the loans, or when McGettigan’s promise was made. Skerda knows where that would lead. To likely disbarment of Fina (McGettigan died recently).
These questions never made it into the ruling. Skerda saw to it that no one asked.
Jerry Sandusky remains in prison. Judge Skerda was assigned to examine the truth, or so they say.
She chose not to look. She knows what a hearing would reveal — Sandusky’s innocence and the corruption of the men who convicted him.
Maureen Skerda is protecting the conviction and the corrupt prosecutors who produced it. Jerry Sandusky is 82. He is running out of time. She knows that, too. Hell is made of such as she.
And …
See also:
Judge Skerda’s Lawless Dismissal of Sandusky PCRA
Judge Skerda Said She Had No Jurisdiction
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
They certainly look like they’ve just rolled the wrong number and are fleeing the scene in style. unnamed-2.jpg
Jerry will die in prison. Just is served.
Why are these brain dead women aloud to destroy children’s lives. Everyone needs a hooker with a golden puss
Following this link jerry-sandusky-307208710
Sandusky is clearly innocent
How much on that interest? 12 mill plus interest would be larger than the witness.
Skerda Won’t Look at the interesting Witness
Word is James McGibney has already slipped into this young mans DMs and is virtually sucking him off like he did Danesh. Meow. Also Mark Zuckerberg said he was bad ass 🤥
I hear that the Second Mile group home was shady too, Jerry and his Director used the home for profit. Now you write articles about profititing from the dirty county that ran the corrupt. Say it aint so
Feleings about you thinking about it makes me think about thinking? So big deal.
I received this comment by email from a reader – it is worth posting for the public –
“Also, in writing about the legal argumentation, there is no reason to exclude the context that Sandusky is factually innocent, and to look at jury reasoning.
“I haven’t even read the trial transript about this but the conviction about Konstas is interestig as Konstas does not testify that he was abused, but if the press reports are accurate, and match the transcript (sorry to be so lazy) we look at a situation where a jury says ‘We know he has no witness report of being abused, but he recovered memories of being *asked* to go to a PC and look at pictures, and this is a crime if the pictures are pornographic.’
“Then one can ask, well if somehow the jury forgot or weren’t told that there were no pornographic pictures, ought not that conviction be vacated?
“And, to explain this point, in the Salem witch trials we can nowadays see errors the jury had made just as here we can see errors the jury must have made.
“But the properness of legal procedure is that even while we may keep these in mind and understand them, we must not condemn a jury to having made an error unless we can back up and fully understand what *legal* and *procedural* misconduct led to such an error.
“It is a big task.
“It is important not to write as though there were any chance that JS may have committed sex abuse on anyone. There is no question of that,he just didn’t.
“And there is no question that the jury was in a state of confusion, saying to NY times that the ‘unifying moment’ for them was when the press told the deliberating jury that shubin had claimed that one of the adopcted children had claimed two things 1) that please would the media respect him and not report his concerns, and 2) that he has concerns. and Shubin added this is painful because the adopted child was a victim of sex abuse.
“I am saying,the jury clearly drew wrong conclusions and was confused. We have to look at how yes we have to assume they obeyed the sequester instructions.
“But what DID go wrong.
“Pls don’t pussyfoot around about ‘the jury might have been right’ or ‘sandusky may have been guilty’. The jury DID commit a clearly defined and proven miscarriage of justice, but what legal procedures were done wrong.
“What can we learn about principles of law.
–
“The Sandusky case has led to changesin law in that precedent was set by some judge decisions.
“It is quite alarming when precedent was set by a case where the verdict was a miscarriage of justice.
“Please, just be truthful and honest about this.”
MY REPLY: I think Jerry Sandusky is innocent!
Everyone dumb in that town. Jerry and the Jews are law Biden grand juries that wank it or maybe rub it.. My take is that jews r aped first.