Nys Lawmakers Pass Child Victims Act

By Ryan Brady
Queens Chronicle
January 31, 2019

http://www.qchron.com/editions/queenswide/nys-lawmakers-pass-child-victims-act/article_0ef44fb9-3f43-5cb6-a3c3-1ca41638c9c1.html

Gov. Cuomo is expected to sign the Child Victims Act into law.

New York is finally set to make the Child Victims Act law.

The legislation was passed by the state Legislature on Monday and is expected to soon be signed by Gov. Cuomo, who included the bill in his fiscal year 2020 budget proposal.

The Child Victims Act would extend the statute of limitations for victims to bring civil legal actions against sexual abusers and organizations thought to have allowed the abuse to occur, giving victims until they turn 55 years old to bring a case.

The bill also seeks to extend the statute for prosecutors to bring criminal charges. Those would be brought until the victim of the abuse turns 28 years old in felony cases; for misdemeanors, it would be 23 years old.

Additionally, the legislation would create a one-year “lookback window” during which civil actions could be started over abuse cases with expired statutes of limitations.

It aims also to change the law so civil claims against public institutions over sexual abuse do not require a 90-day notice of claim.

Many Capitol observers were moved by the remarks of four female legislators, including Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz (D-Jackson Heights), who spoke on the floors of their chambers about sexual abuse they’d personally experienced.

“I know all too well the everyday pain, the trauma and the despair of survivors,” Cruz said.

The assemblywoman spoke of being sexually abused as a child by a family member, something she said she’d never publicly discussed before.

She extolled the Child Victims Act as one measure to help victims achieve justice.

“This is about the safety of little boys and little girls everywhere,” Cruz added. “Our job is to protect them, not to protect an institution or any institution that has frankly done too little, too late.”

The legislation, first pushed by former Queens Assemblywoman Marge Markey, passed the Assembly 130-3 and the Senate 63-0. Both bodies are controlled by Democrats.

In past years, a previous version of the bill would get killed by the Republicans who then held sway in the state Senate. The GOP was sympathetic to the concerns of the state Catholic Conference, which represents bishops in New York State. The group had felt the bill unfairly made only private organizations, like the Church, liable for the new lawsuits that the bill would allow.

But the bill was changed to treat both public and private institutions equally. The Catholic Conference dropped its opposition.

“The legislation now recognizes that child sexual abuse is an evil not just limited to one institution, but a tragic societal ill that must be addressed in every place where it exists,” the group said in a prepared statement on the bill.

In Albany on Monday, Cuomo joined survivors of child sexual abuse who had long advocated for the Child Victims Act. He criticized the bishops for their longtime opposition to the bill, implying that their stance had been at odds with Pope Francis’ position that the Church must punish abusive priests and do right by their victims.

“The only sin, I believe, greater than abusing a child, would be protecting those who abuse a child,” said Cuomo, who is a Catholic. “That’s my view of Catholicism and truth and justice.”

Laura Ahearn, an attorney who has represented hundreds of people sexually abused by priests across the state, told the Chronicle that the Child Victims Act “is going to give an opportunity for adult victims of sexual abuse to finally have justice.”

Clients she has represented include victims in Queens abused by priests from the Diocese of Brooklyn, which covers both boroughs.

“The Brooklyn Diocese, along with the rest of the dioceses, had sexual predators that were in positions of trust where they had unfettered access” to children, Ahearn explained.

For many victims who file claims against people who abused them as children, she added, the process is in many ways more about healing from trauma than financial compensation.

“It’s not an easy decision to come forward and to file a claim but at the same time it does give them ... an opportunity to talk to somebody and to understand that that one trauma has had a significant impact on the trajectory of their life,” Ahearn said.