Sexual Abuse Victims Voice Support for Assembleywoman Margaret Markey's Child Victims Act

By Michael O'Keefe
New York Daily News
February 28, 2012

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/sexual-abuse-victims-voice-support-assembleywoman-margaret-markey-child-victims-act-article-1.1030288

David Hiltbrands, who says he was abused at Brooklyn's Poly Prep by the football coach, is part of fight to extend statute of limitations laws. Photo by Robert Sabo

ALBANY — New York lawmakers will give sexual predators another one-year pass to abuse children if they fail to approve a bill that would extend the state's statute of limitations in molestation cases, a Brooklyn abuse survivor said.

Bay Ridge filmmaker Chris Gavagan, who is working on a documentary about sexual abuse in sports and the abuse he suffered at the hands of his roller hockey coach, said on Tuesday that legislators' failure to pass the Child Victims Act is like signing a "pardon for 1,000 child rapists."

"I was here last year, and the fact that we are here again is a sign of catastrophic failure," Gavagan said.

"Lawmakers, shame on you," he added.

Gavagan and other sexual abuse victims spoke at a news conference organized by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey, the first of three events to promote her Child Victims Act, which has passed the Assembly four times but has yet to clear the State Senate.

The bill would extend the statute of limitations by five years, until victims turn 28 years old, in civil and criminal cases. The bill would also suspend the civil statute of limitations for a one-year period to give victims a window to file suit against abusers, no matter how long ago the abuse occurred. State Sen. Andrew Lanza (R-Staten Island) his introduced similar legislation in the State Senate.

Markey, a Queens Democrat, said that one in five of the nation's children suffer from sexual abuse, which she called "America's dirty little secret." She said the sex-abuse scandals at Penn State and Syracuse have generated fresh attention on the topic but little reform of antiquated laws.

"Those cases have attracted enormous attention, but there is not much new about the pattern behind the headlines," Markey said. "Someone in a position of trust and influence over a child has violated that trust to molest or rape them. Respected organizations act like they are more concerned about their reputation than the victims of the crimes, and only many years after abused children become adults are they able to come to terms with what happened to them, and that means it takes place many years after our woefully short statute of limitations expire."

The speakers at Tuesday's event were men who say they were sexually abused by coaches when they were youngsters. Bobby Davis, a former Syracuse ball boy who says he was molested by ex-Orange assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine, said the bill will prevent child predators from hiding behind the statute of limitations.

"Because of my personal experience, I feel that the current law does not protect the victim, but instead protects the abuser," Davis said. "Children need to know we have their back."

David Hiltbrand, a graduate of Poly Prep who says he was abused by the private Brooklyn school's former longtime football coach, Phil Foglietta, said the statute of limitations puts an arbitrary deadline on suffering that can last a lifetime.

"Most of the victims I've met are so terrified and so scared they will never come out and say they are victims," Hiltbrand said. "Few men are willing to say, 'I was abused.' "

Hiltbrand is a plaintiff in a federal RICO lawsuit that alleges Poly Prep officials knew that Foglietta had abused boys for decades but looked the other way, and even threatened to discipline or expel students who complained about the coach.

Kevin Mulhearn, the lawyer who filed the suit on behalf of Hiltbrand and the other plaintiffs, said at the news conference that he believes the case will survive statute of limitations challenges from Poly Prep's lawyers because of administrators' ongoing "affirmative misrepresentations and affirmative acts of misconduct."

He said New York's current law "rewards" institutions for keeping quiet about sexual abuse until the statute of limitations passes.

The Catholic Conference, the Catholic bishops' lobbying arm in Albany, denounced the bill on Tuesday, claiming in a statement that it unfairly targets Catholic institutions and opens up lawsuits for crimes that occurred decades ago, long after evidence has disappeared and memories have faded.

Markey said the bill does not target the Catholic Church or any other religious organization. "If you have been raped three times, or four times, etc., would you forget who did this to you?" she asked. "People do not forget who inflicted this horrific act on innocent children."

Gloria Allred, the California attorney who represents Davis and his stepbrother and fellow Fine accuser Mike Lang, helped get similar legislation passed in California in 2002. Hundreds of suits were filed against the Church, she said, but it did not go bankrupt.

"We believe that perpetrators of child sexual abuse should not be able to abuse the trust of victims and then hide behind the statute of limitations," Allred said at the news conference.