BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News
March 2, 2018
By Tom Precious
Albany – If Rev. Norbert F. Orsolits had sexually abused what he’s described as “several dozen” teenage boys in Connecticut or Utah or even Guam instead of New York, the victims he molested four decades ago would today have a path in civil court to seek financial damages and perhaps some sense of justice.
But New York is one of the most restrictive in the nation when it comes to allowing victims from long-ago abuse to file lawsuits against their alleged perpetrators, and so neither the former priest or the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo is liable for the acts he told The Buffalo News he committed long ago.
Now, people who say they were abused as children are pointing to the Orsolits case as the latest evidence for the need of a long-stalled bill called the Child Victims Act. It is a measure that would expand the criminal and civil statute of limitations in abuse cases. But it’s most controversial provision – and one that has stopped it from becoming law so far – would and create a one year “look back” period to allow victims over the age of 23 to file lawsuits against alleged perpetrators or the institutions where they worked or volunteered for incidents of sexual abuse dating back potentially decades.
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