On a November day in 2014, Carole Trickett had just spent an hour testifying before a grand jury about a part of her childhood she spent most of her 79 years trying to put out of her mind, when a Bucks County prosecutor posed one last question to the 1954 Solebury School graduate.
How did she think the alleged sex abuse she experienced as a child at the hands of one of the school’s founders affected her life?
The Maine resident answered, but only after she took two minutes to compose herself, she said during a recent phone interview. She doesn’t recall her exact answer, but does remember the question left her astonished.
“They need to understand this is not just having your appendix out. It’s affected me in many ways,” said Trickett. “It doesn’t go away.”
While the painful memories of child sex abuse don’t expire, the time limits for victims to take court action against their abusers does.
For example, only one of the reportedly dozens of alleged sex abuse victims over decades at Solebury School, a private boarding school, falls within the legal time frames for pursuing criminal and civil action, according to sources close to the now 18-month-old grand jury investigation.
Trickett and others want to see that changed. It’s why she will appear, along with other alleged Solebury School sex abuse victims and statute of limitations reform supporters, at the Pennsylvania Capitol on Wednesday for an event to bring attention to proposed legislation that would extend — in some cases eliminate — those time limits.
House Bill 1947, the first piece of legislation since 2002 addressing the statute of limitations on child sex abuse claims both civilly and criminally, was passed out of the House last month.
The bill seeks to add 20 years to the current civil deadline for alleged victims who are now under age 50, extending it until their 50th birthday. It also would waive sovereign immunity for state and local public institutions in cases of “gross negligence,” meaning that abuse victims could file civil suits against them, as well as their perpetrators.
It also would eliminate the criminal statute of limitations for certain sex crimes — such as rape — against children. Currently, prosecutors can pursue criminal charges of sex abuse until a victim’s 50th birthday, but only if the victim is now under age 40, said attorney Marci Hamilton, a senior fellow for research on religion at the University of Pennsylvania and academic chair of CHILD USA, a new think tank focused on child abuse and neglect. Pennsylvania’s current criminal statute of limitations already has expired for victims over age 40, she said.
“The problem that we face is that perpetrators get all those decades to prey on children and we have shut people out of the court system so they can’t identify who those predators are,” Hamilton said. “So unless we push back the SOL, it just is not possible to get the predators before they get that next victim.”
Hamilton, a nationally recognized advocate for children, represents a 2005 Solebury School graduate who alleges she was sexually abused by a former faculty member during her senior year.
“We’re seeing institution after institution being named. We’re seeing victims coming forward,” Hamilton said. “We have an epidemic and a cover-up and the trick is how do you get adults to protect children rather than just protecting their own interests.”
Hamilton believes that extending the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims is critical, since many struggle into adulthood about whether to disclose abuse, citing fear, shame or embarrassment. They are reactions that institutions and pedophiles count on to delay action and protect reputations, but they also allow the abuse to continue in secret, she said.
In states where the statute of limitations has been extended for sex abuse cases, such as Massachusetts, more individuals are coming forward, she said.
The bill’s opponents include the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania. Critics contend it would expose public schools — and taxpayers — to potentially expensive lawsuits and settlement awards.
The bill is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee headed by Montgomery County Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-12, the author of two earlier laws that amended the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims in 1985 and 2002.
Greenleaf said his office is gathering information about how the proposed changes compare with statutes of limitations in other states. He plans to hold a committee hearing on the bill sometime in June, and afterward the committee could vote to move it to the Senate floor.
“We want to be fair about this, but the facts are I don’t think anybody disputes what the facts are,” Greenleaf added.
Fairness is all that Trickett wants.
She was a 14-year-old freshman floundering in Algebra 1 when Robert Shaw, a founder of the school in Solebury, offered to tutor her, she said. Soon the two were having sex, which continued through her senior year, she said.
“It was such a mythology he gave me. I was a young girl very much in need,” she said. “I thought I was being saved. I was so taken in by him. It took me a long time to understand what happened.”
It wasn’t until she was 60 years old that Trickett successfully started to deal with her childhood abuse in therapy, she said. The breakthrough has led her on a near two-decade quest for validation.
Along her journey, she confronted her former headmaster, who was 90 at the time, with her allegations, which she said he didn’t deny. She hired a lawyer and confronted school officials and turned down their offer to pay for her continued therapy and a promise to raise money to cover the counseling for other alleged abuse victims.
Trickett said she continued pursuing school officials with her abuse allegations, even writing to the alumni magazine. In 2012, she received a letter from Tom Wilschutz, the school’s headmaster since 2008, asking if he could come to Maine to meet with her, she said. She agreed and the subsequent meeting ended with Wilschutz apologizing to Trickett for what happened to her decades earlier, she said.
“He spoke with warmth and respect,” she said, adding, “his main responsibility, however, of course, is to protect the school.”
In a second meeting in 2013, Trickett said that Wilschutz showed her a letter he wrote disclosing the allegations of past sexual abuse of students by former school faculty and apologizing to victims. He also told Trickett that he had a portrait of Shaw removed from the school dining hall, eliminated a student award in his name, and no longer allows donations in Shaw’s name, she said.
In July 2014, Wilschutz released the letter to the community, posting it on the school’s website and mailing it to alumni. In a subsequent letter, Wilschutz revealed the abuse allegations involving school founder Shaw, but did not disclose the name of his alleged child victim. He also outlined the steps to remove Shaw’s legacy from the school.
Trickett said that she considers the headmaster’s efforts as validation to her claims.
“I was grateful for those steps, but I didn’t want to let him off the hook altogether,” she said. “I’m still pursuing this (by telling her story) because there are a lot of people who need to be honored.”
They include Hamilton’s client, a 28-year-old former Solebury day student who alleges she was sexually abused by a former faculty member during her senior year in 2005. The women asked that she not be identified because, in part, she has not told most friends and family about the alleged abuse.
In a telephone interview this week, the woman said the inappropriate conduct was a poorly kept secret on campus and the surrounding community that haunted her then, and now. The school’s headmaster at the time confronted her about the rumors, but she denied it. The faculty member remained at the school until he was let go for an unrelated reason and never criminally charged.
After she learned that the school and county prosecutors were looking into the allegations of sexual abuse on the campus, the woman said, she contacted the DA’s office seeking more details. She was unsure if she wanted to disclose her alleged abuse at that time, but wanted to know more about her options, she added.
The woman eventually was directed to Wilschutz, from whom she learned that six other people had given him her name as a possible abuse victim, she said.
“It’s taken me a very long time to talk about this. It’s something I didn’t emotionally deal with for a long time,” the woman said. “It was a very dark time in my life. Even now, 10 years later, I’m still mortified, still embarrassed by it and ashamed by it.”
In an email request seeking comment on the woman’s claims, Wilschutz said he has had conversations with a “number” of former students who have come forward, but declined to identify any specific individual.
The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office acknowledged the investigation into the sexual abuse allegations at the 91-year-old private middle and high school started nearly two years ago, when claims of abuse surfaced.
While attorneys, court employees and jurors, by law, are prohibited from revealing the existence of a grand jury or of any of its proceedings, witnesses, like Trickett, are not.
Assistant District Attorney Monica Furber, who is overseeing the investigation, Solebury Police Detective Cpl. Jonathan Koretzky, who inherited the case from former Detective Roy Ferrari after he was convicted of unrelated theft charges, and Wilschutz all declined comment on the grand jury.
Koretzky did confirm that no open police investigations are underway outside of the 2014 investigation.
Wilschutz said the school continues to cooperate fully with the district attorney’s office. He added that staff are “well trained” to prevent, identify and report abuse, all employees undergo full background checks at time of of hire and follow up checks.
“We continue to make every effort to have policies, procedures and training in place to prevent any harm to our students and we have a ‘zero tolerance’ practice should something occur,” he added.
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Christian faith community leaders are adding their voices to the growing cry for reform of PA’s Statutes of Limitations to support access to justice for survivors, accountability for those who harm, and protection of children. A “sign-on” letter to Senator Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery/Bucks), chair of the Judiciary Committee, is circulating to religious leaders across the state, and I am encouraged by many who indicate they are signing. The link for sign on is open until May 27 at http://www.pcar.org/communities-faith-support-reforming-pas-statutes-limitations-child-sexual-abuse-cases
The letter, initially drafted by SafeChurch as part of a coalition of organizations convened by the PA Coalition Against rape, encourages the Judiciary Committee to act swiftly to move HB 1947, passed by the House last month, in its current form to the Senate for a vote. We also call on Senator Greenleaf to champion the legislation in the Senate. As it stands, the bill will:
1. Eliminate the criminal statutes of limitations for certain child sexual assault cases
2. Extend the civil statute of limitations from at 30 to age 50 to give survivors additional time to attempt to seek damages
• By the time many survivors of child sexual abuse in Pennsylvania begin to deal with their abuse, they are well past their 30th birthday and the window for justice is closed by the civil statute of limitations.
3. The extension of the civil statutes would be “retroactive” for survivors older than 30 but younger than 50 – in other words, those people would now have until age 50 to file.
How we got here
Many people have worked for years to extend or eliminate the statutes for child sexual abuse in PA. But significant reform of the Statutes remained stalled, despite the Sandusky scandal, and the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, revealed through a grand jury investigation in 2005 and followed in early 2011 by a new grand jury report of extensive new charges of abusive priests active in the archdiocese. Opposition to reform from the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference was, until recently, largely unchallenged in a public way by religious leaders from other denominations.
A survivor of abuse by a priest, Rep. Rozzi powerfully gave voice to survivors, opening his colleagues’ eyes and hearts to why there should never be a statute of limitations on prosecuting sexually-based crimes against children and also why it remains so important to give survivors extended time to pursue a civil action. He spoke of several friends, also survivors, who have killed themselves.
We are standing on the shoulders of many allies who have gone before us. Those of us who are survivors know all too well the devastation sexual abuse causes, and how hard it is to tell anyone. To learn more about why delayed disclosure is common, and the importance of retroactivity for the Statutes, visit the SafeChurch reading room at http://scclanc.org/clergy-congregation-care/safechurch/safechurch-resources/articles
Is this the tipping point?
The last straw seemed to be the horrific abuse and cover up in Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown detailed in the Grand Jury report released by PA’s Attorney General Kathleen Kane in March 2016. The report may be downloaded at the link below, and comes with a warning of “graphic content”. Fifty priests and other religious leaders molested hundreds of children and the church, aided by deference and loyalty of secular authorities to church leaders, covered it up. http://www.pennlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/03/grand_jury_accuses_priests_in.html
The report revealed that church officials kept a payout chart based on levels of abuse. Victims of Level 1 abuse, which included above-clothing genital fondling, could receive $10,000 to $25,000. Victims of Level 4 abuse, the highest level, which included sodomy and intercourse, could receive $50,000 to $175,000 from the diocese.
As details about what happened in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese continued to make national news, and pressure within PA grew, House members who had refused to move legislation forward began to reconsider.
House Judiciary Chair Ron Marsico (Republican, Dauphin County), previously a reform opponent, had what could be described as a “Saul – Paul” like conversion, sponsoring the new bill, HB 1947, which was overwhelmingly passed by the House with a vote of 180 to 15 and is now is in the hands of the Senate Judicatory Committee, chaired by Senator Stewart Greenleaf.
Although we do not know if the letter to Chairman Greenleaf from religious leaders that is now circulating will have any impact, we can say that for the many survivors of child sexual abuse who have been longing to hear the voices of pastors, bishops and other religious leaders speak up for justice – a prayer has been answered.
– See more at: http://scclanc.org/blog-safechurch/samaritan-safechurch-religious-leaders-step-up-to-support-reform-of-pa-statutes-of-limitation-for-child-sexual-abuse/#sthash.IaqmI2K0.gKAxsv2F.dpuf
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has dodged repeated entreaties from advocates against child sexual abuse to support legislation that would enable many victims of this crime to seek justice from their abusers.
In a May 9 statement, Cuomo sidestepped pointed questions from the advocates, and from the press, about his willingness to push the state Senate to pass the Child Victims Act before the current legislative session ends June 16. The bill would eliminate New York’s statute of limitations for sexual abuse, which is one of the shortest in the nation.
“Those guilty of sexual abuse need to be held accountable,” a spokesman from Cuomo’s office wrote in an email to the Forward. “We would support changes to help ensure victims have their day in court and maintain due process.”
The Cuomo spokesman declined to clarify what kind of changes the governor supported or to state where he stood on the only bill now being considered, which is currently stalled in the state Senate.
Leaders of the Democratic party-ruled state Assembly have promised a vote on the measure before the end of the legislative session and have a strong majority of supporters lined up to pass the bill. Advocates of the bill and a companion piece of legislation consider it their best chance so far to extend the state’s narrow time frame for prosecuting child sex abusers criminally and for holding abusers and institutions that effectively protect them accountable through civil suits.
But the Republican-ruled Senate has so far declined to schedule a vote on the bill. Cuomo’s refusal to publicly pressure the Senate to do so provoked scorn from anti-abuse advocates, including a significant contingent who claim to have been abused as children by rabbis, teachers and staff in yeshivas that ignored their pleas for help.
“Governor Cuomo cannot continue to ignore the cries of children and survivors,” said Chaim Levin, a child abuse survivor and community activist in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. “There is no room for neutrality on an issue like this… The governor’s silence on this issue makes one wonder who he is really protecting.”
The Child Victims Act was first introduced by Margaret Markey, a New York State Assembly Democrat, in 2006, and has taken various forms over the years. Senator Brad Hoylman, a Democrat, co-sponsored the latest version.
While the legislation has been adopted in the Assembly four times, it has never made it to the floor of the state Senate.
“More than a third of the Assembly members are already co-sponsors of my bill in [the Assembly],” Markey said, “which will ensure its passage, I believe.”
Under current state law, someone who is abused as a child has until the age of 23 to bring a civil lawsuit to court, as do prosecutors who want to press criminal charges. But experts say it can take decades — often, well into adulthood — for someone who has been abused as a child to understand what has been done to him, come to terms with it and come forward publicly.
In addition to lifting time limits for child victims to file civil suits against their alleged abusers, and against institutions that failed to act against abuse under their roofs, the current bill would provide a one-year window during which past victims who have already exceeded the statute of limitations could go to court.
A companion bill would eliminate the current statute of limitations for criminal prosecutions of alleged child sex abusers.
In past years, Agudath Israel of America, an ultra-Orthodox umbrella group, and the Roman Catholic Church, have lobbied against Markey’s efforts, voicing fear of a potential flood of claims, including some from long ago via the one-year window.
But this time more than 150 rabbis and Jewish leaders from other branches of Judaism signed a letter in support of the Child Victims Act. Some also participated in a two-day lobbying event in Albany on May 3 and 4.
“There hasn’t been religious support like this before,” said Manny Waks, who helms Kol v’Oz, an umbrella group for Jewish organizations dealing with sex abuse.
Still, it remains unclear whether the religious counterweight of groups like Kol v’Oz will be enough to shift the political balance in Albany.
Surveying what has worked in other cases involving tough social issues, Christopher Anderson, executive director of MaleSurvivor, a support network for male abuse victims, said that support from Cuomo could be instrumental.
“Look how the push for gay marriage succeeded here in New York,” he said, referring to the Marriage Equality Act of 2011, whose passage was widely credited to a strong push in the Senate by Cuomo. “When Governor Cuomo pushed for those reforms, it snowballed. We need to hear from Governor Cuomo on this issue.”
Anderson also cited the importance of “a powerful, dynamic voice in one of the houses of state legislature — like we have now with Markey — who has a strong partnership with grassroots groups.”
Markey’s office told the Forward that Cuomo had “personally told [Markey] that he is fully prepared to sign the bill when it passes both houses. But the challenge, Markey noted, remained getting the bill to the Senate floor, where senators are opposed to or indifferent to the bill.
John DeFrancisco, the Senate deputy Majority leader, has previously defended the statute of limitations. As reported in the New York Daily News, DeFrancisco pleaded a schedule conflict as he brushed past several victims of child abuse who sought to see him during a May 4 lobbying blitz in the state capitol. He then went on to attend a previously arranged pizza party for a women’s basketball team from Syracuse, which is part of his district. He told advocates they needed an appointment.
DeFrancisco later told the website syracuse.com, “There has to be some kind of statute of limitations. I do not think you should eliminate the statute of limitations going forward for every single case or allow people to sue someone for forever for something that happened years ago.”
Agudath Israel declined to comment on its position on the current bill; however, the organization referred to a 2013 letter to Markey from its leaders about an earlier form of the legislation.
“Agudath Israel fully acknowledges the horrors of child sexual abuse,” the letter stated. It added that the group had “no objection” to legislation that would extend or eliminate the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution or civil claims against individual abusers.
“However, we cannot support legislation that would also eliminate the statue of limitations for civil claims against schools and other communal institutions for abusive acts of onetime employees,” the letter stated.
The 2013 version of the legislation, Agudath Israel wrote, “could subject schools and other vital institutions in communities like ours to ancient claims and litigation and place their very existence in severe jeopardy.”
In previousl public statements, the New York State Catholic Conference has said it supports increasing the statute of limitations, both criminally and civilly, going forward, but opposes legislation that would reopen claims from decades ago.
Michael Polenberg, vice president of government affairs at Safe Horizon, a New York organization for victims of abuse, said that the experience of other states that have reformed their statutes of limitations, such as Delaware and Minnesota, should allay such concerns. “That doesn’t always take place,” he said. “Of course there is litigation, but institutions don’t immediately become bankrupt.”
Contact Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com or follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
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Please Let Albany Know You Want the Child Victims Act to Become Law in 2016
Call, write, fax, email to tell these government leaders to support A2872A/S63A to reform statute of limitations for child sex abuse crimes. We need to protect children not predators.
GOVERNOR
The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo Governor of New York State Executive Chamber
Albany, NY 12224
(518) 474-8390
Alphonso David Counsel to the Governor Executive Chamber Albany, NY 12224
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Did Joe know? News accounts indicate that a Penn State insurer claimed “in 1976, a child allegedly reported to PSU’s Head Coach Joseph Paterno that he (the child) was sexually molested by Sandusky.” Apparently the victim depositions are under seal. What else is new?
The biggest thing that jumps out to me is this allegation was in 1976. The Second Mile was founded in 1977. If true, Paterno knew an abuser was founding a charity for kids and it would be on the campus and facilities of Penn State University.
The family’s response is predictable. “An allegation now about an alleged event 40 years ago, as represented by a single line in a court document regarding an insurance claim, with no corroborating evidence, does not change the facts. Joe Paterno did not, at any time, cover up conduct by Jerry Sandusky.”
Did Joe know? Who knows? But the pattern and practices of institutional-based abuse and cover-up is never-ending, with the way our statute of limitation laws protect pedophiles and the organizations that shield them.
Pennsylvania has the distinction of conducting the most grand juries in the country with respect to child sex abuse. Three were empaneled out of the Philadelphia Archdiocese alone. Anyone reading those reports got an education in how priests’ abuse histories, locked in the so-called “secret archives” along with the unmitigated mismanagement of the diocesan hierarchy, added up to catastrophe for hundreds, maybe thousands of children.
The now-familiar shuffling of priests among parishes after decades-old reports of abuse and the callousness of the bishops was brought out when Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced the devastating facts and conclusions in March from the Altoona-Johnstown diocese grand jury report. We’re told there’s more to come.
I’ve called on the district attorneys to pursue cultures of abuse where multiple allegations have been reported and children are at risk. The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office should be releasing its grand jury report on the investigation into the serial abuse and cover-up at the prestigious prep school, Solebury School — another example of an organization more interested in protecting their reputation, legacy and assets over the well-being of children entrusted to their care.
The only body that has the ability to reverse this epidemic of institutional abuse and cover-up is the Pennsylvania General Assembly. The public wants this nonsense to end.
State Rep. Mark Rozzi is a Democrat who represents the 126th House District in parts of Berks County. He is a leading proponent of legislation safeguarding children from sexual predators.
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Jo Ciavaglia, As grand jury investigation continues, Solebury School abuse accusers tell story in Harrisburg, Bucks County Courier Times
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL Reformhttp://m.buckscountycouriertimes.com/news/local/as-grand-jury-investigation-continues-solebury-school-abuse-accusers-tell/article_2959945a-1938-11e6-9bc7-bffa186e8228.html?channelId&channelListId&mediaId=8890988919484be9955e4ac5f769dfe1&mode=jqm
On a November day in 2014, Carole Trickett had just spent an hour testifying before a grand jury about a part of her childhood she spent most of her 79 years trying to put out of her mind, when a Bucks County prosecutor posed one last question to the 1954 Solebury School graduate.
How did she think the alleged sex abuse she experienced as a child at the hands of one of the school’s founders affected her life?
The Maine resident answered, but only after she took two minutes to compose herself, she said during a recent phone interview. She doesn’t recall her exact answer, but does remember the question left her astonished.
“They need to understand this is not just having your appendix out. It’s affected me in many ways,” said Trickett. “It doesn’t go away.”
While the painful memories of child sex abuse don’t expire, the time limits for victims to take court action against their abusers does.
For example, only one of the reportedly dozens of alleged sex abuse victims over decades at Solebury School, a private boarding school, falls within the legal time frames for pursuing criminal and civil action, according to sources close to the now 18-month-old grand jury investigation.
Trickett and others want to see that changed. It’s why she will appear, along with other alleged Solebury School sex abuse victims and statute of limitations reform supporters, at the Pennsylvania Capitol on Wednesday for an event to bring attention to proposed legislation that would extend — in some cases eliminate — those time limits.
House Bill 1947, the first piece of legislation since 2002 addressing the statute of limitations on child sex abuse claims both civilly and criminally, was passed out of the House last month.
The bill seeks to add 20 years to the current civil deadline for alleged victims who are now under age 50, extending it until their 50th birthday. It also would waive sovereign immunity for state and local public institutions in cases of “gross negligence,” meaning that abuse victims could file civil suits against them, as well as their perpetrators.
It also would eliminate the criminal statute of limitations for certain sex crimes — such as rape — against children. Currently, prosecutors can pursue criminal charges of sex abuse until a victim’s 50th birthday, but only if the victim is now under age 40, said attorney Marci Hamilton, a senior fellow for research on religion at the University of Pennsylvania and academic chair of CHILD USA, a new think tank focused on child abuse and neglect. Pennsylvania’s current criminal statute of limitations already has expired for victims over age 40, she said.
“The problem that we face is that perpetrators get all those decades to prey on children and we have shut people out of the court system so they can’t identify who those predators are,” Hamilton said. “So unless we push back the SOL, it just is not possible to get the predators before they get that next victim.”
Hamilton, a nationally recognized advocate for children, represents a 2005 Solebury School graduate who alleges she was sexually abused by a former faculty member during her senior year.
“We’re seeing institution after institution being named. We’re seeing victims coming forward,” Hamilton said. “We have an epidemic and a cover-up and the trick is how do you get adults to protect children rather than just protecting their own interests.”
Hamilton believes that extending the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims is critical, since many struggle into adulthood about whether to disclose abuse, citing fear, shame or embarrassment. They are reactions that institutions and pedophiles count on to delay action and protect reputations, but they also allow the abuse to continue in secret, she said.
In states where the statute of limitations has been extended for sex abuse cases, such as Massachusetts, more individuals are coming forward, she said.
The bill’s opponents include the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania. Critics contend it would expose public schools — and taxpayers — to potentially expensive lawsuits and settlement awards.
The bill is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee headed by Montgomery County Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-12, the author of two earlier laws that amended the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims in 1985 and 2002.
Greenleaf said his office is gathering information about how the proposed changes compare with statutes of limitations in other states. He plans to hold a committee hearing on the bill sometime in June, and afterward the committee could vote to move it to the Senate floor.
“We want to be fair about this, but the facts are I don’t think anybody disputes what the facts are,” Greenleaf added.
Fairness is all that Trickett wants.
She was a 14-year-old freshman floundering in Algebra 1 when Robert Shaw, a founder of the school in Solebury, offered to tutor her, she said. Soon the two were having sex, which continued through her senior year, she said.
“It was such a mythology he gave me. I was a young girl very much in need,” she said. “I thought I was being saved. I was so taken in by him. It took me a long time to understand what happened.”
It wasn’t until she was 60 years old that Trickett successfully started to deal with her childhood abuse in therapy, she said. The breakthrough has led her on a near two-decade quest for validation.
Along her journey, she confronted her former headmaster, who was 90 at the time, with her allegations, which she said he didn’t deny. She hired a lawyer and confronted school officials and turned down their offer to pay for her continued therapy and a promise to raise money to cover the counseling for other alleged abuse victims.
Trickett said she continued pursuing school officials with her abuse allegations, even writing to the alumni magazine. In 2012, she received a letter from Tom Wilschutz, the school’s headmaster since 2008, asking if he could come to Maine to meet with her, she said. She agreed and the subsequent meeting ended with Wilschutz apologizing to Trickett for what happened to her decades earlier, she said.
“He spoke with warmth and respect,” she said, adding, “his main responsibility, however, of course, is to protect the school.”
In a second meeting in 2013, Trickett said that Wilschutz showed her a letter he wrote disclosing the allegations of past sexual abuse of students by former school faculty and apologizing to victims. He also told Trickett that he had a portrait of Shaw removed from the school dining hall, eliminated a student award in his name, and no longer allows donations in Shaw’s name, she said.
In July 2014, Wilschutz released the letter to the community, posting it on the school’s website and mailing it to alumni. In a subsequent letter, Wilschutz revealed the abuse allegations involving school founder Shaw, but did not disclose the name of his alleged child victim. He also outlined the steps to remove Shaw’s legacy from the school.
Trickett said that she considers the headmaster’s efforts as validation to her claims.
“I was grateful for those steps, but I didn’t want to let him off the hook altogether,” she said. “I’m still pursuing this (by telling her story) because there are a lot of people who need to be honored.”
They include Hamilton’s client, a 28-year-old former Solebury day student who alleges she was sexually abused by a former faculty member during her senior year in 2005. The women asked that she not be identified because, in part, she has not told most friends and family about the alleged abuse.
In a telephone interview this week, the woman said the inappropriate conduct was a poorly kept secret on campus and the surrounding community that haunted her then, and now. The school’s headmaster at the time confronted her about the rumors, but she denied it. The faculty member remained at the school until he was let go for an unrelated reason and never criminally charged.
After she learned that the school and county prosecutors were looking into the allegations of sexual abuse on the campus, the woman said, she contacted the DA’s office seeking more details. She was unsure if she wanted to disclose her alleged abuse at that time, but wanted to know more about her options, she added.
The woman eventually was directed to Wilschutz, from whom she learned that six other people had given him her name as a possible abuse victim, she said.
“It’s taken me a very long time to talk about this. It’s something I didn’t emotionally deal with for a long time,” the woman said. “It was a very dark time in my life. Even now, 10 years later, I’m still mortified, still embarrassed by it and ashamed by it.”
In an email request seeking comment on the woman’s claims, Wilschutz said he has had conversations with a “number” of former students who have come forward, but declined to identify any specific individual.
The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office acknowledged the investigation into the sexual abuse allegations at the 91-year-old private middle and high school started nearly two years ago, when claims of abuse surfaced.
While attorneys, court employees and jurors, by law, are prohibited from revealing the existence of a grand jury or of any of its proceedings, witnesses, like Trickett, are not.
Assistant District Attorney Monica Furber, who is overseeing the investigation, Solebury Police Detective Cpl. Jonathan Koretzky, who inherited the case from former Detective Roy Ferrari after he was convicted of unrelated theft charges, and Wilschutz all declined comment on the grand jury.
Koretzky did confirm that no open police investigations are underway outside of the 2014 investigation.
Wilschutz said the school continues to cooperate fully with the district attorney’s office. He added that staff are “well trained” to prevent, identify and report abuse, all employees undergo full background checks at time of of hire and follow up checks.
“We continue to make every effort to have policies, procedures and training in place to prevent any harm to our students and we have a ‘zero tolerance’ practice should something occur,” he added.
Linda Crockett, Religious Leaders Step Up to Support Reform of PA Statutes of Limitation for Child Sexual Abuse, Samaritan SafeChurch
/in Pennsylvania, Uncategorized /by SOL ReformReligious Leaders Step Up to Support Reform of
PA Statutes of Limitation for Child Sexual Abuse
Blog Post #7: May 13, 2016
by Linda Crockett, Director of SafeChurch/SafePlaces
Christian faith community leaders are adding their voices to the growing cry for reform of PA’s Statutes of Limitations to support access to justice for survivors, accountability for those who harm, and protection of children. A “sign-on” letter to Senator Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery/Bucks), chair of the Judiciary Committee, is circulating to religious leaders across the state, and I am encouraged by many who indicate they are signing. The link for sign on is open until May 27 at http://www.pcar.org/communities-faith-support-reforming-pas-statutes-limitations-child-sexual-abuse-cases
The letter, initially drafted by SafeChurch as part of a coalition of organizations convened by the PA Coalition Against rape, encourages the Judiciary Committee to act swiftly to move HB 1947, passed by the House last month, in its current form to the Senate for a vote. We also call on Senator Greenleaf to champion the legislation in the Senate. As it stands, the bill will:
1. Eliminate the criminal statutes of limitations for certain child sexual assault cases
2. Extend the civil statute of limitations from at 30 to age 50 to give survivors additional time to attempt to seek damages
• By the time many survivors of child sexual abuse in Pennsylvania begin to deal with their abuse, they are well past their 30th birthday and the window for justice is closed by the civil statute of limitations.
3. The extension of the civil statutes would be “retroactive” for survivors older than 30 but younger than 50 – in other words, those people would now have until age 50 to file.
How we got here
Many people have worked for years to extend or eliminate the statutes for child sexual abuse in PA. But significant reform of the Statutes remained stalled, despite the Sandusky scandal, and the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, revealed through a grand jury investigation in 2005 and followed in early 2011 by a new grand jury report of extensive new charges of abusive priests active in the archdiocese. Opposition to reform from the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference was, until recently, largely unchallenged in a public way by religious leaders from other denominations.
Last October, I spoke for those in faith communities who believe in justice for survivors, accountability for offenders, and protection of children through reform of our Statutes at a Press Conference in the Capital called by Rep. Mark Rozzi from Berks County, a driving force for years to move legislation forward in the House on this issue.
http://lancasteronline.com/opinion/columnists/child-sex-abuse-victims-deserve-time-to-seek-justice/article_2444f3b2-6e0a-11e5-a8ee-e7549b4ab7d1.html
A survivor of abuse by a priest, Rep. Rozzi powerfully gave voice to survivors, opening his colleagues’ eyes and hearts to why there should never be a statute of limitations on prosecuting sexually-based crimes against children and also why it remains so important to give survivors extended time to pursue a civil action. He spoke of several friends, also survivors, who have killed themselves.
We are standing on the shoulders of many allies who have gone before us. Those of us who are survivors know all too well the devastation sexual abuse causes, and how hard it is to tell anyone. To learn more about why delayed disclosure is common, and the importance of retroactivity for the Statutes, visit the SafeChurch reading room at http://scclanc.org/clergy-congregation-care/safechurch/safechurch-resources/articles
Is this the tipping point?
The last straw seemed to be the horrific abuse and cover up in Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown detailed in the Grand Jury report released by PA’s Attorney General Kathleen Kane in March 2016. The report may be downloaded at the link below, and comes with a warning of “graphic content”. Fifty priests and other religious leaders molested hundreds of children and the church, aided by deference and loyalty of secular authorities to church leaders, covered it up.
http://www.pennlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/03/grand_jury_accuses_priests_in.html
The report revealed that church officials kept a payout chart based on levels of abuse. Victims of Level 1 abuse, which included above-clothing genital fondling, could receive $10,000 to $25,000. Victims of Level 4 abuse, the highest level, which included sodomy and intercourse, could receive $50,000 to $175,000 from the diocese.
Opposition from the Catholic Conference to reform remained. Marci Hamilton, an attorney who has helped to reform to statutes of limitations in other states, directly challenged the arguments by the Conference in an April 3 letter to Members of the General Assembly.
http://sol-reform.com/2016/04/my-responses-to-the-pennsylvania-catholic-conferences-misleading-arguments
As details about what happened in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese continued to make national news, and pressure within PA grew, House members who had refused to move legislation forward began to reconsider.
House Judiciary Chair Ron Marsico (Republican, Dauphin County), previously a reform opponent, had what could be described as a “Saul – Paul” like conversion, sponsoring the new bill, HB 1947, which was overwhelmingly passed by the House with a vote of 180 to 15 and is now is in the hands of the Senate Judicatory Committee, chaired by Senator Stewart Greenleaf.
Although we do not know if the letter to Chairman Greenleaf from religious leaders that is now circulating will have any impact, we can say that for the many survivors of child sexual abuse who have been longing to hear the voices of pastors, bishops and other religious leaders speak up for justice – a prayer has been answered.
– See more at: http://scclanc.org/blog-safechurch/samaritan-safechurch-religious-leaders-step-up-to-support-reform-of-pa-statutes-of-limitation-for-child-sexual-abuse/#sthash.IaqmI2K0.gKAxsv2F.dpuf
View as PDF: Samaritan SafeChurch – Religious Leade_ – http___scclanc.org_blog-safechurch
PA Action Alert: Spotlight Panel Wed. May 18
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformSam Kestenbaum, Cuomo Mum on Child Sex Abuse Bill as Deadline Nears, Forward.com
/in New York, Uncategorized /by SOL ReformView as PDF: Cuomo Mum on Child Sex Abuse Bill as Deadline Nears – National – Forward.com
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has dodged repeated entreaties from advocates against child sexual abuse to support legislation that would enable many victims of this crime to seek justice from their abusers.
In a May 9 statement, Cuomo sidestepped pointed questions from the advocates, and from the press, about his willingness to push the state Senate to pass the Child Victims Act before the current legislative session ends June 16. The bill would eliminate New York’s statute of limitations for sexual abuse, which is one of the shortest in the nation.
“Those guilty of sexual abuse need to be held accountable,” a spokesman from Cuomo’s office wrote in an email to the Forward. “We would support changes to help ensure victims have their day in court and maintain due process.”
The Cuomo spokesman declined to clarify what kind of changes the governor supported or to state where he stood on the only bill now being considered, which is currently stalled in the state Senate.
Leaders of the Democratic party-ruled state Assembly have promised a vote on the measure before the end of the legislative session and have a strong majority of supporters lined up to pass the bill. Advocates of the bill and a companion piece of legislation consider it their best chance so far to extend the state’s narrow time frame for prosecuting child sex abusers criminally and for holding abusers and institutions that effectively protect them accountable through civil suits.
But the Republican-ruled Senate has so far declined to schedule a vote on the bill. Cuomo’s refusal to publicly pressure the Senate to do so provoked scorn from anti-abuse advocates, including a significant contingent who claim to have been abused as children by rabbis, teachers and staff in yeshivas that ignored their pleas for help.
“Governor Cuomo cannot continue to ignore the cries of children and survivors,” said Chaim Levin, a child abuse survivor and community activist in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. “There is no room for neutrality on an issue like this… The governor’s silence on this issue makes one wonder who he is really protecting.”
The Child Victims Act was first introduced by Margaret Markey, a New York State Assembly Democrat, in 2006, and has taken various forms over the years. Senator Brad Hoylman, a Democrat, co-sponsored the latest version.
While the legislation has been adopted in the Assembly four times, it has never made it to the floor of the state Senate.
“More than a third of the Assembly members are already co-sponsors of my bill in [the Assembly],” Markey said, “which will ensure its passage, I believe.”
Under current state law, someone who is abused as a child has until the age of 23 to bring a civil lawsuit to court, as do prosecutors who want to press criminal charges. But experts say it can take decades — often, well into adulthood — for someone who has been abused as a child to understand what has been done to him, come to terms with it and come forward publicly.
In addition to lifting time limits for child victims to file civil suits against their alleged abusers, and against institutions that failed to act against abuse under their roofs, the current bill would provide a one-year window during which past victims who have already exceeded the statute of limitations could go to court.
A companion bill would eliminate the current statute of limitations for criminal prosecutions of alleged child sex abusers.
In past years, Agudath Israel of America, an ultra-Orthodox umbrella group, and the Roman Catholic Church, have lobbied against Markey’s efforts, voicing fear of a potential flood of claims, including some from long ago via the one-year window.
But this time more than 150 rabbis and Jewish leaders from other branches of Judaism signed a letter in support of the Child Victims Act. Some also participated in a two-day lobbying event in Albany on May 3 and 4.
“There hasn’t been religious support like this before,” said Manny Waks, who helms Kol v’Oz, an umbrella group for Jewish organizations dealing with sex abuse.
Still, it remains unclear whether the religious counterweight of groups like Kol v’Oz will be enough to shift the political balance in Albany.
Surveying what has worked in other cases involving tough social issues, Christopher Anderson, executive director of MaleSurvivor, a support network for male abuse victims, said that support from Cuomo could be instrumental.
“Look how the push for gay marriage succeeded here in New York,” he said, referring to the Marriage Equality Act of 2011, whose passage was widely credited to a strong push in the Senate by Cuomo. “When Governor Cuomo pushed for those reforms, it snowballed. We need to hear from Governor Cuomo on this issue.”
Anderson also cited the importance of “a powerful, dynamic voice in one of the houses of state legislature — like we have now with Markey — who has a strong partnership with grassroots groups.”
Markey’s office told the Forward that Cuomo had “personally told [Markey] that he is fully prepared to sign the bill when it passes both houses. But the challenge, Markey noted, remained getting the bill to the Senate floor, where senators are opposed to or indifferent to the bill.
John DeFrancisco, the Senate deputy Majority leader, has previously defended the statute of limitations. As reported in the New York Daily News, DeFrancisco pleaded a schedule conflict as he brushed past several victims of child abuse who sought to see him during a May 4 lobbying blitz in the state capitol. He then went on to attend a previously arranged pizza party for a women’s basketball team from Syracuse, which is part of his district. He told advocates they needed an appointment.
DeFrancisco later told the website syracuse.com, “There has to be some kind of statute of limitations. I do not think you should eliminate the statute of limitations going forward for every single case or allow people to sue someone for forever for something that happened years ago.”
Agudath Israel declined to comment on its position on the current bill; however, the organization referred to a 2013 letter to Markey from its leaders about an earlier form of the legislation.
“Agudath Israel fully acknowledges the horrors of child sexual abuse,” the letter stated. It added that the group had “no objection” to legislation that would extend or eliminate the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution or civil claims against individual abusers.
“However, we cannot support legislation that would also eliminate the statue of limitations for civil claims against schools and other communal institutions for abusive acts of onetime employees,” the letter stated.
The 2013 version of the legislation, Agudath Israel wrote, “could subject schools and other vital institutions in communities like ours to ancient claims and litigation and place their very existence in severe jeopardy.”
In previousl public statements, the New York State Catholic Conference has said it supports increasing the statute of limitations, both criminally and civilly, going forward, but opposes legislation that would reopen claims from decades ago.
Michael Polenberg, vice president of government affairs at Safe Horizon, a New York organization for victims of abuse, said that the experience of other states that have reformed their statutes of limitations, such as Delaware and Minnesota, should allay such concerns. “That doesn’t always take place,” he said. “Of course there is litigation, but institutions don’t immediately become bankrupt.”
Contact Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com or follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
Let Albany Leaders Know You Want to Fix SOL Laws
/in 2016 Action Alert, 2016 Legislation, New York /by SOL ReformView Government Contact List as PDF: Please Let Albany Know You Want CVA to Become Law
Please Let Albany Know You Want the Child Victims Act to Become Law in 2016
Call, write, fax, email to tell these government leaders to support A2872A/S63A to reform statute of limitations for child sex abuse crimes. We need to protect children not predators.
GOVERNOR
The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo Governor of New York State Executive Chamber
Albany, NY 12224
(518) 474-8390
Alphonso David Counsel to the Governor Executive Chamber Albany, NY 12224
Phone: 518-474-8343
Email: Alfonso.David@exec.ny.gov
LEGISLATIVE LEADERS
Hon. John J. Flanagan Senate Majority Leader
Room 805, Legislative Office Building Albany, NY 12247
Phone: 518-455-2071, Fax: 518-426-6904
Email: Flanagan@nysenate.gov
Hon. Carl E. Heastie
NY State Assembly Speaker
Room 932, Legislative Office Building Albany, NY 12248
Phone: 518-455-3791, Fax: 518-455-4812
Email: speaker@assembly.state.ny.us
Hon. Andrea Stewart-Cousins Senate Minority Conference Leader Room 907, Legislative Office Building Albany, NY 12247
Phone: 518-455-2585, Fax: 518-426-6811
Email: scousins@nysenate.gov
Hon. Jeffrey D. Klein
Independent Democratic Conference Leader Room 913, Legislative Office Building Albany, NY 12247
Phone: 518-455-3595, Fax: 518-426-6887
Email: jdklein@nysenate.gov
OTHER KEY LEGISLATORS & STAFF
Hon. Michael F. Nozzolio
Chair, Senate Codes Committee Room 503, Legislative Office Building Albany, NY 12247
Phone: 518-455-2366, Fax: 518-426-6953
Email: nozzolio@nysenate.gov
Hon. Andrew Lanza
Co-Chair, Senate Codes Committee Room 708, Legislative Office Building Albany, NY 12247
Phone: 518-455-3215, Fax 518-426-6852
Email: lanza@nysenate.gov
Hon. Joseph D. Morelle Assembly Majority Leader
Room 926, Legislative Office Building Albany, NY 12248
Phone: 518-455-5373, Fax: 518-455-5647
Email: morelle@assembly.state.ny.us
Kathleen O’Keefe
Counsel to the Assembly Speaker
Room 347, State Capitol, Albany, NY 12248 Phone: 518-455-3781
Email: okeefek@assembly.state.ny.us
View list as PDF: Please Let Albany Know You Want CVA to Become Law
REP. MARK ROZZI: Never-ending Penn State cover-up, The Mercury
/in 2016 Legislation, Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformDid Joe know? News accounts indicate that a Penn State insurer claimed “in 1976, a child allegedly reported to PSU’s Head Coach Joseph Paterno that he (the child) was sexually molested by Sandusky.” Apparently the victim depositions are under seal. What else is new?
The biggest thing that jumps out to me is this allegation was in 1976. The Second Mile was founded in 1977. If true, Paterno knew an abuser was founding a charity for kids and it would be on the campus and facilities of Penn State University.
The family’s response is predictable. “An allegation now about an alleged event 40 years ago, as represented by a single line in a court document regarding an insurance claim, with no corroborating evidence, does not change the facts. Joe Paterno did not, at any time, cover up conduct by Jerry Sandusky.”
Did Joe know? Who knows? But the pattern and practices of institutional-based abuse and cover-up is never-ending, with the way our statute of limitation laws protect pedophiles and the organizations that shield them.
Pennsylvania has the distinction of conducting the most grand juries in the country with respect to child sex abuse. Three were empaneled out of the Philadelphia Archdiocese alone. Anyone reading those reports got an education in how priests’ abuse histories, locked in the so-called “secret archives” along with the unmitigated mismanagement of the diocesan hierarchy, added up to catastrophe for hundreds, maybe thousands of children.
The now-familiar shuffling of priests among parishes after decades-old reports of abuse and the callousness of the bishops was brought out when Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced the devastating facts and conclusions in March from the Altoona-Johnstown diocese grand jury report. We’re told there’s more to come.
I’ve called on the district attorneys to pursue cultures of abuse where multiple allegations have been reported and children are at risk. The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office should be releasing its grand jury report on the investigation into the serial abuse and cover-up at the prestigious prep school, Solebury School — another example of an organization more interested in protecting their reputation, legacy and assets over the well-being of children entrusted to their care.
The only body that has the ability to reverse this epidemic of institutional abuse and cover-up is the Pennsylvania General Assembly. The public wants this nonsense to end.
My colleagues in the House heeded the call and on April 12, House Bill 1947 was overwhelmingly passed 180-15. The bill was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 28. It is time for the members of the Senate to step up to the plate and get H.B. 1947 passed NOW and on to the governor. We’ve all waited long enough.
State Rep. Mark Rozzi is a Democrat who represents the 126th House District in parts of Berks County. He is a leading proponent of legislation safeguarding children from sexual predators.
http://www.pottsmerc.com/opinion/20160506/rep-mark-rozzi-never-ending-penn-state-cover-up
View as PDF: REP. MARK ROZZI- Never-ending Penn State cover-up