NEW YORK
Daily Gazette
If state legislators don’t want to extend the statute of limitations on sex crimes, then let them volunteer to put their child or grandchild in a room with Louis VanWie.
VanWie will be getting out of prison at the end of the month after serving 20 years for sexually abusing three children.
He actually admitted to abusing more than 300 children from the 1960s until his conviction in 1996. But because of short statutes of limitations on sex crimes in New York, only three of his victims were allowed to press charges.
Had the law allowed prosecutors to charge him with sodomizing and sexually abusing more children, he’d likely have not been able to abuse as many children as he did. And he’d likely be in prison the rest of his miserable life, unable to take advantage of the state’s early-release laws and unable to prey on more children.
Instead, just four days after Christmas, he’ll be out walking around our streets again. Maybe he’ll be working in a fast-food restaurant or as a volunteer somewhere. More likely, the 74-year-old — who was denied parole fi ve times — will just be lying around all day, waiting for the next wave of urges to overcome him.
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