NEW YORK
Times Ledger
By Bill Parry
In her push to eliminate the statute of limitations for child sex abuse crimes, state Assemblywoman Margaret Markey (D-Maspeth) and supporters of the Child Victims Act will lobby the Legislature in Albany for passage of the reform bill. The CVA has been adopted in the Assembly four times in various forms since 2006, but has never made it to the floor of the Senate.
“New York is among the very worst states in America for how it treats victims of childhood sexual abuse,” Markey said. “We rank right at the very bottom among the 50 states along with Alabama and Mississippi. This is the year to change that deplorable situation. Now the CVA has more than 60 co-sponsors in the Assembly and visitors are coming to tell legislators in both houses they want to see the law changed this year.”
The two-day lobby effort will include a roundtable forum Tuesday, May 3, which will be moderated by Benjamin Cardozo Law Professor Marci Hamilton, a national advocate for statute-of-limitations reform. Participants will include Olympic speedskater Bridie Farrell, who has accused speedskater Andy Gabel of molesting her in 1997, when she was just 15. Farrell was unable to pursue criminal prosecution or a civil lawsuit against Gabel because New York’s statute of limitations bars victims from proceeding with cases after their 23rd birthday.
Abuse victims are often very slow to come to grips with what happened to them, some not until middle age or even later in life, according to Markey.
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