SIOUX FALLS (SD)
Argus Leader
May 17, 2019
By Patrick Anderson
A top advocate for clergy sex abuse survivors across the United States is set to visit Sioux Falls on May 24 to push for better protections for victims.
Tim Lennon is president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, a nonprofit that works to expose institutional abuse, seek justice for survivors and advocate for better laws to protect children.
Lennon hopes to draw attention to South Dakota’s statute of limitations law during his Sioux Falls visit. He also plans to meet with survivors who said they were abused at the state’s Catholic-run boarding schools.
“It is exceptionally restrictive, and the reasons politicians are giving for not bringing this into the modern world are pretty bogus reasons,” Lennon said Friday.
Dozens of Native Americans filed lawsuits against the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls, alleging numerous instances of rape and sexual molestation by priests, nuns and staff at three separate Indian Mission schools between the 1940s and 1980s.
The lawsuits eventually failed after a last-minute bill, written by a defense attorney for one of the schools being sued, passed through the Legislature and became law in 2010. It hurt the ability of child sex abuse victims to seek legal action against institutions responsible for their trauma.
Louise Charbonneau Aamot and her sisters still remember when former-Gov. Mike Rounds signed the bill, damaging their case against the Sioux Falls diocese and other Catholic institutions responsible for operating St. Paul’s Indian Mission school in Marty. She hopes Lennon’s visit will support the work she and other victims have been doing in Pierre since the current statute of limitations became law.
“To have them coming and supporting what we’ve been trying to do for so many years is a blessing,” Aamot said. “It is a huge blessing because we have someone who understands, and we have someone who would listen.”
SNAP has been a vocal advocate for survivors across the U.S., opening a national office in Chicago following 2002 reporting by the Boston Globe.
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