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Few abusers are sued as Child Victims Act lawsuits target institutions

By Jay Tokasz
Buffalo News
February 16, 2020

https://buffalonews.com/2020/02/16/child-victims-act-lawsuits-target-institutions-but-few-abusers-sued/

Thomas Skowronski.

Twenty-five years after being sent to prison for sexually abusing his 10-year-old daughter, Thomas D. Skowronski faces more legal fallout over his crimes.

Andrea D’Alimonte, now 35, recently sued Skowronski, her father, under the state’s Child Victims Act. D’Alimonte also named her mother, Patricia L. Saar, as a defendant. D’Alimonte said suing her parents gives her a chance finally to set the record straight about the abuse and its lifelong impact on her.

“I don’t want the pity. I am who I am because of what happened, but I want to be the voice to it,” she said.

D’Alimonte’s case is a rarity.

Halfway into a one-year window under the Child Victims Act that allows victims of childhood sex abuse from decades ago to press their claims in court, more than 95% of the 350 lawsuits filed in Western New York have targeted institutions such as the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, school districts and the Boy Scouts of America.

D’Alimonte’s lawsuit, filed in January by attorney Steve Boyd, is among just 14 that have targeted only an individual or individuals.

The ratio of cases where defendants are institutional or individuals is similar across the state, said Gary A. Greenberg, founder of the Fighting for Children PAC, which pushed for passage of the Child Victims Act.

“Victims are disappointed. I hear from them all the time. They’re disappointed because they thought the Child Victims Act was going to benefit them and then they go try 10 lawyers and they get turned down. It’s frustrating, especially in a situation where it’s affected their life and they thought they were going to get justice and some healing, and the door is shut on them again,” said Greenberg. “All over the state this is a problem.”

Greenberg and other advocates for sex abuse victims said lawyers often turn away cases against individual defendants because they’re difficult to win in court. Even if a case against an individual is winnable, the defendant may have few financial resources and insurance policies don’t cover “intentional acts” by an abuser, so it might not be worth a lawyer’s time to pursue it.

“No lawyer is going to go to civil court and spend the time and effort without a financial reward. And that’s understandable,” said Greenberg.

Some lawyers were asking as much as $25,000 as a retainer fee for a noninstitutional case, he said.

“They’ll gladly take a case to sue the church. And most of the cases are against the church, Boy Scouts, school districts. They don’t charge anybody for that, because they know at the end, they’re going to get something from the church or the Boy Scouts,” he said.

Greenberg and other advocates are now pushing for the state to extend the Child Victims Act at least for another year and for the creation of a fund that would help childhood sex abuse victims find lawyers or connect them with therapists. State Sens. James Gaughran (D-Long Island) and Alessandra Biaggi (D-Bronx/Westchester) recently introduced a bill that would require anyone convicted of a child sex abuse crime to pay a $1,000 fee that would be turned over to child victim foundation fund to aid victims.

At least a third of perpetrators of child sex abuse are related to their victims, so there should be many more cases against individuals, said Marci A. Hamilton, founder and chief executive officer of Child USA and University of Pennsylvania law professor.

Victims often either don’t know they can sue or can’t find a lawyer, said Hamilton, an expert on the impacts of child sex abuse who is urging state bar associations to steer pro bono work and family law attorneys toward Child Victims Act cases.

“I refer to the family cases as some of the last frontier, because it’s very hard to empower yourself to be able to stand up to your entire family, which is often what’s against you, and to get the bar to step up for these victims,” she said. “It’s a matter of the legal culture catching up to the reality that this was never just about institutions. It was never just about the church. It was always about every single victim out there. We continue to live in this land of denial about family sex abuse, but it’s rampant, and these victims deserve ... justice.”

The individual defendants in the 14 Child Victims Act cases in Western New York include neighbors, stepfathers, a tutor, a nurse and an uncle.

Babysitter sues couple

In one case, a woman sued a formerly married couple who employed her from 1979 to 1984 to babysit their children. Julie Butkowski alleged in the lawsuit that William J. Croker sexually assaulted and raped her multiple times when she was between the ages of 12 and 17 and babysitting his kids at his Town of Tonawanda home. Butkowski also alleged that Barbara Landon, Croker’s wife at the time, knew or should have known about the abuse and was negligent in not stopping it.

Croker could not be reached to comment. He denied sexually abusing Butkowski in court papers filed by attorney Charles S. Desmond II. Landon admitted that Butkowski began babysitting in 1978, but she denied she knew about alleged abuse or neglected to prevent it, according to court papers filed by her attorney, Steven M. Cohen.

Butkowski declined to be interviewed for this story, but her lawyer Christopher J. O’Brien said she was “thankful she finally has a chance to get justice.”

“She recognizes that everybody has a right to their day in court and that’s what we’re looking for,” he said.

O’Brien represents more than 30 clients in Child Victims Act cases against the Kenmore-Tonawanda school district alleging abuse by former science teacher Arthur Werner. He acknowledged that winning damages for Butkowski might be more difficult because “there is no insurance coverage provided for an intentional act, which is what sexual abuse is.”

Nonetheless, he said, “there are some cases where the availability or unavailability of money doesn’t matter.”

“To have a license to practice law, to me that means that every so often you get a chance to really change the world for the better, and you ought to really think about doing that,” he added. “Obviously, you can’t do it on every case. We can’t take on every case.”

'My daughter hates me'

D’Alimonte said she had to go no further than contacting Boyd about her case, and Boyd did not ask for a retainer fee.

If the case gets to trial, D’Alimonte won’t have trouble proving she was abused: Her father was convicted in 1995 of first-degree sexual abuse and received a state prison sentence of up to seven years.

Skowronski’s arrest and conviction received media coverage, in part because he was a Cheektowaga town employee at the time. Even though the victim’s name was not included in the stories, many people in the town found out the victim was his daughter, said D’Alimonte.

“Everybody knew who I was,” she said. “It’s just [crappy] having your story told and not being able to make it be your story.”

D’Alimonte said her parents still haven’t properly apologized to her for the abuse, which occurred over several years, beginning around 1991 when she was 5 years old.

“It’s always, ‘I’m sorry, there’s a reason. I’m sorry, but,’ ” she said. “Neither of them has ever apologized without like a five-minute explanation of how horrible everything was for them.”

D’Alimonte said she believes her mother knew that her father had abused another girl years before, and she blames her mother for not having protected her.

Skowronski declined to comment, other than to say he had not hired a lawyer. Saar said it was “too emotional to talk about.”

“My daughter hates me,” she said. “It’s a very touchy thing ... I have medical issues because of this. I’m not guilty of anything.”

D’Alimonte said she doesn’t expect to receive a lot of money, but she does want the truth to be known.

“I know that they’re still not going to take responsibility for it, but then at least I have the validation,” she said. “I know there’s a possibility there never would be any sort of monetary settlement. But it’s more so doing it for myself.”




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