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November 12, 2011

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Victim's mom says right to fire coach

PENN State University was right to fire football coach Joe Paterno for not telling police that his former assistant coach had been accused of child sex abuse, an alleged victim's mother said yesterday.

Paterno, 84, was told in 2002 that his former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky allegedly raped a young boy in a campus locker room. While Paterno told his boss, he did not call the police.

"He had any inclination of this, he may have done what he legally needed to do, but there's got to be some moral bearing, in my opinion," the mother, whose son is identified as Victim 1 in court papers, told ABC's "Good Morning America."

"The people that hid this need to pay for their actions. They allowed this to happen to a lot of kids," she said.

Sandusky was charged last Saturday with sexually abusing eight young boys for over a decade and former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and former finance official Gary Schultz were charged with failing to report an incident.

Sandusky, Curley and Schultz have all denied the charges.

Paterno - who was fired by the university's board of trustees on Wednesday - met his legal obligation by reporting the abuse allegation to Curley, legal experts said.

Victim 1's mother, who was not identified, said her son was 11 years old when he met Sandusky in 2005 through the former assistant coach's Second Mile program for at-risk youth.

She said her son had feared speaking out against Sandusky, telling her: "I didn't know what to do ... you just can't tell Jerry no."

But she said he is "doing OK" and felt a sense of relief when Sandusky was charged.

Prosecutors said Sandusky met all his alleged victims through the Second Mile program.

 

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