MASSACHUSETTS
Wicked Local Waltham
By Bill Whelan
wwhelan@wickedlocal.com
Posted Dec. 16, 2015
WALTHAM
A Waltham native scored a major victory in her fight against child sex abuse laws last week when the Massachusetts Supreme Court reaffirmed a 2014 law extending the statute of limitations for lawsuits filed by victims of child sex abuse.
The ruling is just the latest development in years of legal battles fought by Rosanne Sliney, a Waltham native who lives in Burlington, and her supporters.
“This is a victory for literally thousands of people in Massachusetts,” said Sliney’s lawyer Carmen Durso, who has been fighting to change the statute of limitation laws since 2003.
With the help of her lawyers and the non-profit organization Massachusetts Citizens for Children, Sliney helped convince the state legislature to amend the child sex abuse statute of limitations in 2014. Previously, a civil lawsuit had to be filed within three years of the victim’s 18th birthday, or three years since the abuse could have reasonably been discovered. The amendment changed the law to 35 years after the victim’s 18th birthday or seven years after the abuse was discovered, instead of three.
Sliney filed a lawsuit in 2012 that alleges she was sexually abused hundreds of times by her uncle, Domenic Previte Jr., as a child, starting when she was 5 years old in 1968 and until she was 14 years old. The abuse allegedly went on at Previte’s home in Waltham and at businesses he owned in surrounding towns.
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