State Senate Panel Advances Reform of Child-sex-abuse Law

By Tom Kacich
The News-Gazette
March 8, 2017

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2017-03-08/state-senate-panel-advances-reform-child-sex-abuse-law.html

Legislation that would remove the statute of limitations for felony sex crimes committed against minors, such as the recent case involving former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, sailed through an Illinois Senate Committee on Tuesday.

SB 189, sponsored by Sen. Scott Bennett, D-Champaign, was approved unanimously by the Senate Criminal Law Committee.

Among those testifying in favor of the bill were Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Scott Cross, one of Hastert's victims when the former Republican Party powerhouse was a wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in the 1970s.

Hastert was never charged with any state crimes because the statute of limitations — generally 20 years after a victim's 18th birthday — had run out. But he was convicted of violating federal banking laws for paying hush money to one of four victims who prosecutors had identified.

"When I was abused, I knew exactly what was happening. As a young man, the challenge that you deal with and the suffering, the pain and torture, I still deal with that almost 38 years later," Cross, now a banker in Wheaton, told committee members. "It's not something you talked about. You didn't do anything about it. It was an awful situation.

"I'm here today because I'm trying to move forward and have other voices move forward, that it's OK, don't keep that silence."

Cross said that he doesn't believe justice was served in the federal case against Hastert, whom he called "a monster."

"Hastert inflicted unbelievable pain on the lives of the youth he was entrusted to care for. Instead, he got a slap on the wrist," he said. "As hard as it is to continue to live through the events of the past, the laws in Illinois and across the country have to change."

He said the statute of limitations should be deleted.

"There's no good reason to provide a legal loophole to protect sexual predators from prosecution," he said. "The Illinois General Assembly should provide sexual predators no safe harbor under the law based on arbitrary deadlines established by the stroke of a pen.

"It should offend everyone's faith in the judicial system that Illinois' laws today would still allow child molesters to avoid prosecution for heinous acts of sexual abuse because survivors didn't come forward in time. It took me 36-plus years to come forward."

On average, Cross said, it takes a victim 42 years "before they're able to deal with this."

Madigan said that for most child sex abuse victims, coming to terms with the abuse "is a long difficult and painful process. Even for most adult survivors of sexual assault, coming forward to report their crime is daunting, and it often proves impossible. For children, it can be unimaginable."

The federal government and 36 states have eliminated the statute of limitations for all or some sexual offenses against children, she said.

Steve Baker of the Cook County public defender's office was the only opponent of the legislation to offer testimony. He said that prosecutors already have no statute of limitations in some sexual abuse cases.

And he warned that the time limit was useful in restricting wayward prosecutors.

"Past legislators have thought perhaps of the rare prosecutor who prosecutes not for reasons of justice but for reasons of personal aggrandizement," he said.