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  Principal Says She's Being Made 'Scapegoat' in Priest Abuse Case

WQAD
December 20, 2006

http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=5837193&nav=1sW7

Chicago Barbara Westrick says the boy was sobbing as he told her a Roman Catholic priest who taught and coached at her school had molested him since he was in the fourth grade.

The principal at Our Lady of the Westside School says she also told Chicago police, the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Department of Children and Family Services of the student's allegations right after hearing them in January 2006.

The Reverend Daniel McCormack faces charges of five counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in the alleged fondling of five boys at the school's two campuses and the nearby St. Agatha Catholic Church. He's pleaded not guilty.

But Westrick is angry that a letter being placed in her personnel file chastises her for her handling of an earlier incident. In a statement today, she says the archdiocese is making her a scapegoat to deflect the truth about the archdiocese's poor handing of the McCormack case.
 
 

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