Amendola said that prior to the judge’s decision to allow Sandusky, a former Penn State defensive coordinator, to have contact with his grandchildren and have a list of twelve adult visitors, Sandusky felt like he was a prisoner.

Sandusky, who is charged with 52 counts of sexual abuse, could only see his wife and his adult children before the ruling — and since many of them lived out of town, Sandusky did not have many visitors, Amendola said.

Now on house arrest, Sandusky will be leaving his home April 5 and will be attending the hearing in his case, Amendola said. Senior Judge John Cleland will listen to arguments that day regarding Amendola’s motion to dismiss many of the charges against Sandusky.

Amendola said he is unsure what the outcome of the hearing will be, but he hopes the judge will drop at least some of the charges.

“The judge is the umpire,” Amendola said.

Amendola said he believes he has legitimate legal issues for the judge to consider, but he thinks the Commonwealth will argue that the reasons he wants to dismiss charges is not justified.

Though Sandusky’s defense team’s request for a trial date later than May 14 was denied, Amendola said the team will be ready for trial.

“We have to be,” he said.

The defense team has plenty of information to sift through before the trial, Amendola said, since Sandusky received his first set of pretrial discovery materials in mid-January and the Commonwealth has been investigating for more than three years.

“We’re just trying to even out the playing field,” he said.