(NECN: John Moroney) - Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian represented an alleged victim of Jerry Sandusky. He's not one of the victims who helped put the former football coach behind bars. He's a onetime Massachusetts high school football star who was asked to spend a week at Penn State.
"He met Joe Paterno. He participated in a football camp and he was sexually molested by Jerry Sandusky, twice in the course of one week. And after that his life went down the drain," Garabedian said.
The 68-year-old Sandusky is expected to spend the rest of his life behind bars. He sentenced to at least 30 years for molesting 10 boys.
"I think it's on the light side. But it's a life sentence, and many victims will be satisfied that he's to receive the life sentence," Garabedian said.
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At his sentencing, Sandusky denied all the charges. Not a surprise to Garabedian, who helped expose the Catholic Church's clergy abuse scandal in Boston.
"I've represented well over a thousand victims of sexual abuse, and so often you hear the perpetrator saying, ‘not me. This is a misunderstanding. It really didn't happen. It really wasn't like that. Please understand I'm not at fault here. I love children.’ You hear it all the time."
Garabedian says the Sandusky case and other cases like it are helping to raise awareness about the problem of child sexual abuse. But as a society and culture, we still have a long way to go.
"Whether it's the Catholic Church, whether it's Penn State, whether it's the Boston Red Sox, whether it's the Boy Scouts of America, whether it's the Fessenden School,” Garabedian said, “sanctions have to be put in place, meaningful sanctions."
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