State Rep. Mark Rozzi chosen as Reading Eagle Local Newsmaker of the Year

By Liam Migdail-Smith
Reading Eagle
January 8, 2017

http://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/state-rep-mark-rozzi-chosen-as-reading-eagle-local-newsmaker-of-the-year

State Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Muhlenberg Township Democrat and a victim of sexual abuse as a teen, has led a passionate effort to revamp criminal and civil penalties for such crimes. His efforts were blocked in the Senate last year but Rozzi has vowed to restart them when the time is right.

Mark Rozzi's defining moment of 2016 didn't come in the halls of the state Capitol, where his signature piece of legislation was suddenly propelled into the spotlight.

It came at the supermarket deli counter.

Rozzi, a state lawmaker, had championed a plan to reopen a window for people sexually abused as children to sue those responsible. For the Muhlenberg Township Democrat, it was a chance to channel his struggle with the memory of being raped by a priest as a teen into fighting for his fellow victims.

The proposal gained momentum, drawing long-silent victims out of the shadows to tell their stories. But when it was defeated in June, victims were devastated. And after a victim from Cambria County took his life, Rozzi began to question whether he was doing more harm than good.

That brief meeting at the deli counter in August changed his mind. An elderly man approached, put his hands on Rozzi's and said: "I'm watching everything you're doing. Please do not stop fighting for all of us."

Then the stranger was gone. And Rozzi went back to work with renewed determination.

He decided he wasn't going to settle for a watered-down version of his plan that would expand protection for victims abused now or in the future but not offer relief for those who have been struggling for decades.