NEW JERSEY
Courier-Post
Written by
Jim Walsh
Courier-Post
A federal judge won’t change his ruling in favor of a woman alleging childhood sex abuse by a South Jersey priest.
U.S. District Judge Noel Hillman Friday denied a request for reconsideration by the Diocese of Camden, which is being sued over alleged abuse by a former priest, Thomas Harkins.
The suit was filed by Lisa Syvertson Shanahan, a North Carolina woman who says she was molested in the early 1980s by Harkins, then her parish priest at St. Anthony of Padua in Hammonton.
Hillman initially ruled in June 2013 the lawsuit could continue under the state’s Child Sex Abuse Act, which can delay for decades the normal two-year statute of limitations.
He accepted Shanahan’s argument the clock began ticking on her claim in October 2009, when she says she realized she had a legal basis for a lawsuit.
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