Berks Lawmaker : Sex-abuse Legislation Still a Priority

69 News & Associated Press
January 28, 2019

http://www.wfmz.com/news/berks/berks-lawmaker-sex-abuse-legislation-still-a-priority/993392354

With a new legislative session now underway in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania state Rep. Mark Rozzi said he is ready to continue his fight on behalf of child sexual abuse survivors.

The Berks County Democrat, a Catholic clergy abuse victim himself, has been leading efforts to reform the state's statute of limitations.

"There are definitely different avenues that we should make available to these victims to be able to not only receive compensation, but to get justice," Rozzi said.

Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati led the resistance to House legislation giving now-adult victims a two-year reprieve from time limits that bar them from suing perpetrators and institutions that may have covered it up.

A bill failed to come up for a vote in the Senate late last year, three months after the state attorney general's grand jury report on child sexual abuse in Pennsylvania's Roman Catholic dioceses.

Scarnati said he has no plans to restart legislation and is satisfied by how Pennsylvania's dioceses have moved to set up victim compensation funds.

"We need to get Sen. Scarnati and Sen. [Jake] Corman to realize that this isn't going away," Rozzi told 69 News. "This grand jury -- the grand jurors -- they made recommendations. They made four key recommendations that said, if we do anything, this is the least that we can do in Pennsylvania to protect children: eliminate the criminal statute, implement a two-year window to a court of law, expand the mandate reporting, take care of the confidentiality reports."

Despite what actions the Senate leaders take during the current two-year session, Rozzi said he and others are pressing ahead with new legislation.

"I have talked to many members who are interested in passing legislation, especially in the House, and we plan on proposing some type of legislation, probably by early spring," Rozzi said Monday.

Rozzi said it hurts to see other states moving forward with legislation to protect child sex abuse victims while some of Pennsylvania's legislative leaders "continue to sit on their hands."

"Here we are the epicenter for child sex abuse -- Pennsylvania -- and we have New York to the north of us that's going to pass legislation today that will move their civil statute from age 23 to age 55 and implement a one-year window for public and private institutions," Rozzi said.