Advocates Push Connecticut Legislators to Eliminate Statute of Limitations for Certain Sexual Assault Cases

By Christopher Keating
Hartford Courant
April 1, 2019

https://www.courant.com/politics/hc-pol-sexual-harassment-judiciary-committee-20190401-uv32xjwaebcgnltruonxfdvmde-story.html

Victims of pedophile priests and others urged lawmakers Monday to pass a sweeping overhaul of Connecticut’s laws on sexual assault and harassment that would eliminate the statute of limitations for major sex crimes in the future.

Marci A. Hamilton, founder and chief executive officer of Child USA and a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, said adults who come forward about sexual assaults decades later are virtually always telling the truth.

"False claims don’t come in on child sexual assault,'' Hamilton told the judiciary committee, which held a public hearing on the bill. “It just doesn’t happen. False claims are extremely rare.”

Lewis Chimes of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association testified later that false reports in sexual assault cases are actually between 4 percent and 11 percent, but he added the general public believes the total is 40 percent.

Currently, a five-year statute of limitation applies to crimes such as forced rape, rape involving drugs and sex under a false medical pretense. Under this bill, there would be no statute of limitations for those felony crimes.

The proposed statute of limitations would be increased to 25 years in cases of forced sexual contact, which are Class D felonies and also currently have a five-year limit.

For misdemeanor cases such as unwanted sexual contact, the limit would be boosted to five years, up from the current one year.

The bill would also change a state law that prohibits anyone older than 48 from filing a civil lawsuit alleging they were abused as minors. Several adults came forward Monday and said they had been sexually abused as children by Roman Catholic priests.

Joan Lattin Carpenter, who now lives in Delaware and whose husband became a deacon in the Catholic Church, said she was abused by the Rev. Francis D. McKenna in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport. She said McKenna was a close friend of her family and had visited her home in those days. He died in 1989.

“I was abused by ... McKenna on the church grounds in an old barn after helping him plant a garden,” Carpenter told lawmakers. “I was too young to really know what he was doing, and I never said a word. ... I knew that what he did was bad, really bad, but I thought I was strong enough to handle it. ... I never reported a claim about this because I was too young and didn’t know anything about child abuse.”

Duane Michael Gray, 57, told legislators he was abused by the Rev. Daniel McSheffery when he was serving as an altar boy in Guilford in the mid-1970s. McSheffery, who died in 2014 in Florida, had multiple abuse claims filed against him involving millions of dollars. Gray said he had never spoken publicly about his case.

"Because of the abuse I suffered at the hands of ... McSheffery and the anger in me it caused, I made a conscious decision later in life not to have children,'' Gray testified. “I could not trust myself in how my anger would manifest itself. I now find myself alone — my entire family has passed on. Through all of the baggage this abuse has created, I have fought to lead a good, honorable life.”

The Connecticut Catholic Public Affairs Conference opposes the legislation, saying that proving long ago actions is difficult.

“Witnesses may die, memories fade, trauma may distort information over time, and documents are lost,” the conference said in written testimony. “If victims, with no incentive to come forward promptly, hesitate to make a timely claim, others may be abused in the interim. Unfortunately, the possibility of fraudulent, yet nearly indefensible, claims cannot be dismissed.”

After a bitter setback last year, Democratic legislators are again trying to strengthen Connecticut’s laws on sexual assault and harassment. At the peak of the #MeToo movement, a bill to toughen the laws passed the Senate with bipartisan support but failed to receive a vote in the state House of Representatives after prosecutors and defense attorneys raised concerns about eliminating the statute of limitations on felony sexual assault crimes, including rape.

Sen. Mae Flexer, a Killingly Democrat who is the bill’s chief proponent, says Connecticut has fallen behind other states in its criminal statutes and harassment policies.

Nationally, 25 states have no statute of limitations for rape. Another 20 states have longer time limits than Connecticut. Only two states are shorter than Connecticut, at three years each, officials said.

Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, a New Haven Democrat who is pushing strongly for the legislation, said this year’s bill is just as important as last year’s version that did not pass in the House. Unlike other crimes, sexual assaults are often delayed or sometimes never reported at all, he said. Advocates said as many as two out of three sexual assaults go unreported.

“Most victims will never talk to the police,” Looney said.

Besides the statue of limitations, the bill would sharply increase the number of employees statewide who would have to receive sexual harassment training. Currently, training is limited only to supervisors and managers at companies with at least 50 employees. The bill would require two hours of training for all employees at companies with at least three employees. A free video would be available online for the training, officials said.

Connecticut is one of only three states that requires sexual harassment training for private companies, according to the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com