ALBANY (NY)
Times Union [Albany NY]
April 11, 2022
By Michelle Del Rey
Despite widespread publicity, some alleged victims of abuse were unaware of Child Victims Act
After years of advocacy and support from lawmakers, the Child Victims Act was passed in Feb. 2019.
Touted as a momentous piece of legislation that granted what turned into a two-year window for survivors of child sex abuse to file time-barred civil claims, it also increased the statute of limitations for the crime.
Survivors were able to file suits until the age of 55 and press criminal charges until they were 28. Before the law’s two-year deadline closed in August, more than 10,000 complaints were filed, including claims against the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts of America.
Still, some individuals were shut out of their day in court, either due to a lack of knowledge about the look-back window, an inability to obtain legal representation, or because their circumstances didn’t allow for them to file a claim.
In the Orthodox Jewish community in New York City, where the internet is banned, individuals continue to approach Asher Lovy, director of ZA’AKAH, an organization that connects local survivors to services, about filing a claim.
“There are people who are finding out now that there was a law like this and they’re hoping for a way in,” Lovy said. “There isn’t.”
They include an alleged victim, who asked to remain anonymous, who recently reached out to Lovy about filing a claim after saying they were raped at a religious summer camp when the person was 15-years-old. The person said they had only learned about the Child Victims Act within the last six months.
In an interview, the person said they had no recollection of local advertisements referring to the legislation when the look-back window was opened in 2019. It was initially supposed to last one year, but was extended another year when the coronavirus pandemic shut down the state’s court system.
“There was no real place to let us know that this was happening,” the person said. If the look-back window were to reopen, the person said they’d file a claim against the the institution where the alleged abuse took place.
Advertising the legislation in that community was complex, Lovy said, because of the reluctance of local newspapers to publicize the information and the leadership’s control of additional ad space, including at bus stops.
Government letters alerting members about the law could have been beneficial, he added. “There’s a giant population of people in New York who don’t have internet and TV.”
Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that one in four girls and one in 13 boys across the country experience sexual abuse at some point in their childhoods.
When the look-back window opened, Mary Ellen O’Loughlin, a Saratoga Springs resident, wanted to file a claim against a relative, whom she alleges abused her and her siblings.
She had difficulty finding an attorney willing to represent her due to the small cash pay out sometimes tied to suing a private individual. Shortly after, she found legal counsel that agreed to represent her pro bono, but the relative died, mooting her efforts to hold the person accountable for the alleged crimes.
“I never intended to make any money,” O’Loughlin said. “My intention to sue (the person) was to give myself and my brothers and sister a voice in a very public way. But because it took 13 years for CVA to pass, (the person died by the time it passed).”
The legislation was introduced in the state Assembly in 2006. It’s unclear how many individuals who wanted to file a civil claim under the Child Victims Act were unable to do so.
Michael Polenberg, vice president of government affairs at Safe Horizon, the nation’s leading organization that assists survivors of abuse, maintains that everything was done to spread awareness about the legislation, which for years was one of the most widely covered issues in state government.
“We had billboards all across Times Square, we created a public service announcement that was viewed thousands and thousands of times, that was shown in movie theaters, that was all over social media, all over Twitter,” Polenberg said. “To let folks all across New York know that the law had changed.”
Advertisements were run in different languages, he added, including English, Spanish, Mandarin and Haitian Creole.
Despite this, he said, “There could have been a larger effort from the state. But inevitably in a state of 20 million people, there were survivors who didn’t know that the law had changed, maybe didn’t know what it meant, what the process was.”
Michelle Del Rey is a Capitol Bureau reporter for the Times Union and a member of the 2021-2023 Hearst Fellowship class. Before joining the Times Union, she worked as a freelance reporter, writing for national publications including the Guardian, BuzzFeed News and Kinfolk Magazine. In 2020, she graduated with honors from the University of Westminster in London, England, where she studied journalism. She is originally from Long Beach, California and speaks Spanish. You can reach her at Michelle.DelRey@hearst.com.