UNITED STATES
Time
Jill Filipovic @JillFilipovic May 26, 2016
Jill Filipovic is a lawyer and writer
Bill Cosby stands accused of sexually assaulting dozens of women. Woody Allen, now married to his adopted step-daughter, faces accusations of molestation from his biological daughter. (Both men have denied the charges.) The Hollywood Reporter recently published an interview with actor Corey Feldman in which Feldman says that he and now-deceased actor Corey Haim were routinely raped (Haim), molested (Feldman) and abused (both, among other children) by Hollywood predators. In his interview with THR, Feldman said that despite knowing “every single person” who targeted Haim—a man who died at 38 after decades of drug abuse—he couldn’t name them.
“I’m not able to name names,” Feldman said. “People are frustrated, people are angry, they want to know how is this happening and they want answers and they turn to me and they say, ‘Why don’t you be a man and stand up and name names and stop hiding and being a coward?’ I have to deal with that, which is not pleasant, especially given the fact that I would love to name names. I’d love to be the first to do it. But unfortunately California conveniently enough has a statute of limitations that prevents that from happening. Because if I were to go and mention anybody’s name I would be the one that would be in legal problems and I’m the one that would be sued.”
I have written that, in light of the Cosby accusations, there should be no statute of limitations for rape. With ever public allegation—every child who was assaulted and never said anything until adulthood, every woman who assumed no one would believe her until she heard so many other women accuse the same man—the case for removing statutes of limitation for rape gets stronger.
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