GUAM
Pacific Daily News
Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com March 25, 2017
Three months after the CNMI lifted the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases, retired Saipan bishop Tomas A. Camacho faced accusations he raped an altar boy in the 1970s. Camacho also is a former Guam priest.
That was in November, two months after Guam enacted a law that would allow victims of child sex abuse to sue their abusers and the institutions with which they are associated, at any time, paving the way for at least 18 former altar boys to file clergy sexual abuse lawsuits in the U.S. District Court of Guam.
“Our focus was more on the victims and family,” said former CNMI Rep. Ray Tebuteb, author of the bill that became CNMI law on Nov. 17, 2016. In a phone interview, he said the law helps child sex abuse victims, including those whose perpetrators are priests and other clergy, obtain some sense of healing, justice and closure.
Tebuteb’s bill became CNMI Public Law 19-72, “allowing the prosecution for sexual crimes committed against persons under the age of 18 to commence at any time.”
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