UNITED STATES
New York Times
By SYDNEY EMBER and GRAHAM BOWLEY
NOV. 6, 2016
Lise-Lotte Lublin started a petition and testified before lawmakers in Nevada last year, part of a successful effort to extend that state’s statute of limitations for sexual assault.
In Colorado, where lawmakers made a similar change this year, legislators had been lobbied hard on the bill by Beth Ferrier and Heidi Thomas.
In California, it was Lili Bernard, Victoria Valentino, Linda Kirkpatrick and Janice Baker Kinney who helped organize a campaign, EndRapeSOL, and rallies as part of a movement that this fall eliminated that state’s statute of limitations for rape altogether.
The seven women live in different places and have different lives. But they were all stirred to activism, they say, by a shared history: They all say they were sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby. And in each case, by the time they decided to come forward, many years after they say they were attacked, their ability to press for criminal charges was precluded by a statute of limitations.
None of the women will benefit directly from changes in the laws, but they said they still felt compelled to get involved.
“If I’m going to be attached to him the rest of my life, then I would like something good to come out of it,” said Ms. Ferrier, who says Mr. Cosby drugged and assaulted her in the mid-1980s.
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