‘My pepetrator sighs with relief’: child sex abuse victim on senate committee vote

PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com

Victims who were sexually abused as children decades ago have long looked to a change in the law for a shot at justice.

Those hopes were dashed on Tuesday with one swift vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee: By a 9-4 vote, the committee voted in favor of an amendment that eliminates from House Bill 1947 a measure that would have allowed victims of past sexual abuse to sue the perpetrators.

“My perpetrator sighs with relief knowing he got a free pass to continue to molest children. He will sleep well tonight,” said Kristen Pfautz Woolley, a victim of child sex abuse and founder of Turning Point Women’s Counseling & Advocacy Center in York. “The responsibility for every child that my perpetrator violates from this day forward lies squarely on the shoulders of the Senate Judiciary Committee members. I hope they can sleep tonight.”

The measure was widely one of the last hopes for victims of clergy sex abuse in Pennsylvania. With few exceptions, most victims out of the abuse scandals in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese have timed out of the legal system due to expired statutes.

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