NEW YORK
Raw Story
TRAVIS GETTYS
27 MAY 2016
A wealthy New York businessman has made it his personal mission to defeat state lawmakers who won’t pass a bill to allow child sex abuse survivors to sue their abusers.
Gary Greenberg, a minority owner of the Vernon Downs racetrack, has pledged $100,000 of his own money to unseat state Sen. John DeFrancisco (R-Syracuse) and other lawmakers who oppose a bill that would eliminate the civil and criminal statute of limitations for child sex abuse crimes, reported The Post-Standard.
DeFrancisco is the Senate deputy majority leader and an attorney who specializes in malpractice litigation, said he won’t bow to political pressure and back a bill that would grant victims a one-year window to sue abusers and their employer for abuse that happened decades ago.
“To go back forever, witnesses die, recollections get worse as time goes on,” DeFrancisco said. “I think it’s something that should not be done because statute of limitations have a purpose. The purpose is to make sure there is a proceeding based upon fact.”
The 57-year-old Greenberg, who is the victim of childhood sexual abuse himself, has formed the new Fighting for Children PAC seeded by his own six-figure contribution.
He said DeFrancisco’s argument against lawsuits involving decades-old claims ignore the fact that victims must still prove their claims to win their cases.
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