NEW JERSEY
NJ.com
[A2405]
By Susan K. Livio/Statehouse Bureau
TRENTON — Todd Kostrub said his seventh birthday was “a big deal” because that was the day he became an altar boy, just like all his classmates at Holy Assumption Elementary School in Roebling.
But later that day, a priest led him to a back room and told him to take off his clothes. “I asked why. He said, ‘You’re becoming an altar boy. This is part of the procedure,’” said Kostrub, 47, who solemnly described to the Assembly Judiciary Committee in Trenton Thursday the sexual abuse he endured until he turned 18. “I was so confused and shook up I went home and climbed into a closet and stayed there for 10 hours.”
When Kostrub was 31 and ready to tell his story, he learned New Jersey law set a maximum of two years to sue from the point victims realize sexual abuse has damaged them. The law prevented him from suing the priest and the church leaders who protected him.
The Surf City resident was one of more than a dozen victims of childhood sexual abuse who begged the committee to approve a bill (A2405) that would allow them to file suit no matter how much time has passed, against individuals and institutions — public, private, for-profit and non-profit. The committee cleared the bill 5-2.
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