Time to Pass Child Victims Act Is Now

By Chris Churchill
Times Union
May 18, 2016

http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-local/article/Churchill-Time-to-pass-Child-Victims-Act-is-now-7694669.php

Albany

In 1997, Bridie Farrell was a 15-year-old from Saratoga Springs who dreamed of becoming an Olympic speed skater. That's when she was repeatedly sexually abused by an Olympian more than twice her age, she says.

Like many underage sexual-abuse victims, Farrell kept her mouth shut. She didn't dare report what was happening.

"I didn't know if anyone would believe me," Farrell said Wednesday. "And if they did, I didn't know what would happen next."

Farrell says it took a decade to fully understand that she was not to blame for what happened and the personal struggles that followed. It took even longer before she was ready to go public with her story.

By then, the deadline to pursue criminal charges or civil litigation had long since passed. New York's statute of limitations bars child sexual-abuse victims from proceeding with cases once they turn 23.