NEW YORK
Riverdale Press
By Alexandra Hutzler
It’s happened in our own backyard.
Oftentime, Riverdale can seem like a leafy oasis separate from outside chaos and corruption, with its stately red-brick homes and charming stony sidewalks built for raising families and hosting students.
But the community was rocked in 2012 with the revelation that Horace Mann School was the site of decades of sexual abuse. Then, in 2015, others claimed a rabbi at the Riverdale Jewish Center was taking naked boys as young as 12 into the sauna after games of racquetball or squash, though he was never accused of overt sexual acts.
As New York state law now stands, victims of child sex abuse have five years to bring forward a case once they turn 18. This means they have until they are 23 to confront their abusers — the same age many young adults graduate college or move into their first apartment.
The only other states with such a statute of limitations are Mississippi, Alabama and Michigan — all of which rank among the worst in the nation in terms of how their criminal justice laws treats victims, according to the National Association for the Prosecution of Child Abuse.
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