NEW YORK
Church Militant
by Joseph Pelletier
NEW YORK (ChurchMilitant.com) – The New York Catholic Conference is spending millions fighting state reforms to the current statute of limitations requirements.
According to a report by the New York Daily News, the state’s Catholic Conference, under the direction of Cdl. Timothy Dolan, has employed some of New York’s most prominent lobbying firms to assist in blocking the passage of the proposed Child Victims Act, legislation that would seek to eliminate “both criminal and civil statutes of limitation for child sexual abuse, preventing predators and their protectors from escaping responsibility for their crimes by waiting out the clock.”
The proposed legislation would additionally offer a one-year window in which to file a lawsuit to those who can no longer sue per current law.
State records reveal in the church’s fight against both the Child Victims Act and various similar pieces of legislation, it spent over $2.1 million between 2007 and 2015 solely on various lobbyists, separate from the conference’s own personal lobbying team. The four firms contracted by the New York church are Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, Patricia Lynch & Associates, Mark Behan Communications and Hank Sheinkopf, who purportedly has close relations with multiple Albany politicians including Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
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