HARRISBURG (PA)
Pennsylvania Capital-Star
April 10, 2019
By Elizabeth Hardison
From Jerry Sandusky and Bill Cosby to clergy in the Catholic church, Pennsylvania is “ground zero” in a nationwide reckoning over how to support victims of sexual abuse.
That’s according to the state’s Victim Advocate Jennifer Storm, who appeared with a cadre of Senate Democrats and sexual assault survivors Wednesday to renew calls to reform Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations for sex crimes.
A bill Senate Democrats introduced Wednesday would eliminate the criminal and civil statute of limitations for sexual assault, abuse, and misconduct, and a create a two-year window for victims to bring civil suits in cases where the statute of limitations has passed.
The bill, which backers say is informed by a proposal that died in the Senate last year, is lawmakers’ latest attempt to implement a key recommendation of a 2018 grand jury report that detailed decades of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and a subsequent cover-up in six Pennsylvania dioceses.
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