PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review
BY BRAD BUMSTED | Monday, March 14, 2016
HARRISBURG — Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Tuesday will announce criminal charges related to a “major investigation” in Johnstown about two weeks after a statewide grand jury report detailed child sex abuse by priests and cover-ups by bishops in the Altoona-Johnstown region.
Kane attended a news conference Monday in Harrisburg to advocate for legislation that would extend the amount of time prosecutors have to bring charges in sexual abuse cases. She would not say whether the upcoming charges are related to the grand jury report, but she told reporters her office has received 150 calls on a hotline established to collect tips about the grand jury’s allegations.
The report said hundreds of children had been abused by priests during four decades.
“I can’t comment on any further cases we might have,” Kane said when asked whether secret archives detailing abuse and seized by search warrant in the Altoona-Johnstown case would be available from other diocese offices.
Pennsylvania’s statutes of limitations are “mediocre” compared with other states, a legal expert said.
Marci Hamilton, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School and at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said legislators in Pennsylvania and New York haven’t made it a priority to eliminate criminal and civil statutes of limitation and allow a two-year “window” to file lawsuits from the date a bill is passed.
“It’s primarily the effect of the Catholic Conference (lobbying against changes),” said Hamilton, who has studied statutes in abuse cases.
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