CALIFORNIA
Mercury News
By Tracey Kaplan
tkaplan@mercurynews.com
Posted: 06/05/2013
More determined than ever to punish child molesters, the Bay Area man who admitted punching a priest he claimed sexually abused him as a child — but who was acquitted anyway by a sympathetic Santa Clara County jury — has launched another seemingly quixotic crusade.
Fed up with politicians in the state Legislature, Will Lynch intends to do the very complicated work of putting a measure on the California ballot. His intent is to eliminate the statute of limitations on the criminal prosecution of child molesters. The amount of time prosecutors now have to file charges against molesters depends on when the sexual abuse occurred and how severe it was.
Lynch wants Californians to eliminate the restrictions entirely as eight other states have done. Another 27 states have scratched the deadline for victims of a certain age, or for certain crimes.
“Survivors should be able to come forward when they’re able and get justice,” said Lynch, who claims he and his younger brother were molested by the Rev. Jerold Lindner when they were 7 and 4 on a religious camping trip in the Santa Cruz Mountains more than 35 years ago. Without acknowledging wrongdoing, the Jesuits paid Lynch and his brother about $187,000 each after legal fees to settle a lawsuit they filed claiming that Lindner, in the mid-1970s, raped Lynch and made him have oral sex with his brother.
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