12/14/22

Child sex-abuse victims battle time, money in effort to hold suspects accountable. These laws can help.

A patchwork of statutes of limitations in the U.S. means a victim of childhood sex abuse may be able to sue in Maine but not Michigan. But advocates say much progress has been made.

Amanda Lee Myers | USA TODAY

By the time Jennifer Christiansen Vurno recognized the trauma of her sexual abuse as a teenager and found the courage to come forward, it was too late for criminal charges to be filed.

She was 43 and had missed California’s criminal statute of limitations by just three years.

But because of a growing movement to allow survivors of childhood sexual abuse to seek justice decades after their assaults, Vurno was able to file a lawsuit against the exclusive California private school where she said she was abused.

“To get to this point, I had to really come to terms with what happened to me was wrong,” Vurno told USA TODAY shortly after filing the lawsuit. USA TODAY doesn’t typically name sexual assault survivors but Vurno said she wanted to go public to encourage others to speak up.

Vurno herself was inspired by the victims of former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar and former University of Southern California gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall.

“Each one of them that came forward gave me the strength to recognize that what happened to me was not only not okay, but it was criminal … and then realizing that there is a reason why I was suffering so badly,” she said.

The Thacher School: Decades of abuse uncovered but unpunished at exclusive California private school

By filing the lawsuit, Vurno hopes to hold the school accountable and find healing in finally being able to stand up in court and call out her abuser.

But that’s not an option for many other victims.

Civil lawsuits for survivors of childhood sex abuse are only available in a select number of states, and even then mostly only temporarily, creating a patchwork of accountability for child predators and the institutions that protect them.

‘Voiceless’ victims speak up

The average age of survivors to disclose their abuse is 52, according to CHILD USA, a think tank that focuses on preventing child abuse and neglect.

Many survivors never disclose their abuse because of deep trauma and shame, said Marci Hamilton, an expert on statutes of limitation who has been tracking such legislation for two decades with CHILD USA.

“It is one of those crimes that’s almost like murder in the fact that the victim is rendered voiceless and the perpetrators benefit from short statutes of limitation to continue to keep them silent,” she said.

Across the country, only two states have completely eliminated their civil statute of limitations for childhood sex abuse victims. Vermont got rid of its statute in 2019. And last year, so did Maine – three men and a woman there filed lawsuits this week against the Roman Catholic Diocese stemming from alleged abuse as far back as the 1950s.

Vermont and Maine are part of a movement that began in the early 2000s following the Boston Globe’s investigation that uncovered sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

California was the first state to pass legislation that temporarily reopened the civil statute of limitations, giving abuse survivors a one-year window to sue in 2002, opening a floodgate of 850 lawsuits against the Catholic Church. Three hundred others filed lawsuits against other churches and institutions, including the Boy Scouts.

This is their playbook: The Catholic Church and Boy Scouts are lobbying against child abuse statutes

Since then, similar windows have opened up in states including Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, New York and New Jersey. California and Hawaii have opened windows multiple times.

“Every single year gets better,” Hamilton said. “The future is that there’ll be no statues of limitations as a barrier in child sex abuse cases.”

‘Justice really depends on where you live’

In 2019, California once again opened a window for survivors of childhood sex abuse to file lawsuits. The window closes at the end of the year, on Dec. 31.

Vurno filed her lawsuit in November, just 46 days before the deadline. She sued the Thacher School in Ojai, saying the institution knowingly hired a sexual predator who went on to repeatedly abuse her when she was just 17.

Her attorney, Paul Mones, said his office has seen “a big onslaught” of potential clients trying to file before the end of the month.

In Ohio: Former Boy Scouts push for new law as they seek relief for child sex abuse

At this point, given some of the vetting that’s needed before such a suit can be filed, “it’s very difficult to take any new cases,” he said.

“A lot of people will be unable to file their cases because they didn’t act in time,” said Mones, who has represented sex abuse victims in more than 40 states.

And then there are the people in more than two dozen states who can’t file at all.

“Justice really depends on where you live,” he said.

Mones, other attorneys who represent sex abuse victims and survivor advocates hope to see more statutes fall, but some powerful forces have created hurdles.

A USA TODAY investigation in 2019 found that many special interests have effectively opposed efforts to give survivors more time to sue. The most powerful opponents include the insurance industry, the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America, who collectively have had to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars for abuse claims.

Their arguments have centered on calling such legislation unfair.

In 2018, the Most Rev. Wilton Gregory, then-archbishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, said lawsuits against institutions for decades-old abuse are “very difficult if not impossible to defend.”

That concern was repeated by Boy Scouts of America lobbyist Edward Lindsey.

“Time corrodes evidence,” Lindsey told Georgia’s Senate Judiciary Committee. “You wait 20, 30, 40 years before you bring a suit, you make it very difficult on a defendant to defend himself.”

Taking back control

The lobbying has caused some victims’ attorneys and advocates to fear ever completely eliminating statutes of limitations, but there’s plenty of reason to hope.

It’s not just about money. It’s about what’s right, they say.

For many victims whose cases are too old to pursue criminal charges, civil lawsuits allow them to get in the driver’s seat, high-profile California attorney Allred told USA TODAY.

“Civil actions are extremely important because they are very empowering,” she said. “It’s very important to be able to have a victim know that she has control. Control is something she lost when she was victimized.”

Includes reporting from Marisa Kwiatkowski and John Kelly.

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12/01/22

2nd former student sues elite California boarding school alleging decades-old sex abuse

A second former student has sued an exclusive private school in Southern California, saying its administrators knowingly hired a sexual predator who went on to repeatedly abuse her.

Jennifer Christiansen Vurno of Washington announced Wednesday that she is suing The Thacher School in Ojai for negligence, and sexual assault and harassment.

Vurno, 44, said she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a soccer coach in 1996 when she was 17 years old, and that the school knew the coach was a predator when he was hired nearly a decade earlier.

USA TODAY doesn’t typically name sexual assault survivors but Vurno said she wanted to go public to encourage others to speak up.

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10/21/22

Ex-UCLA gynecologist James Heaps guilty of sexually abusing patients

A Los Angeles County jury on Thursday convicted former UCLA gynecologist Dr. James Heaps of sexually abusing female patients.

Prosecutors portrayed Heaps as exploiting his position as a renowned cancer specialist to prey on the most vulnerable women during his 35 years associated with UCLA. Hundreds of accusers have been paid nearly $700 million by UCLA in the largest sexual abuse settlement involving a public university.

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10/03/22

Read Paul’s comments to Newsday on the Diocese of Rockville Centre bankruptcy

Two years after the Roman Catholic Church on Long Island became the largest diocese in the nation to declare bankruptcy, none of the hundreds of clergy sex abuse cases filed against the church has been settled.

That has some survivors and their attorneys saying it is adding to the pain and injury the victims suffered as children years or even decades ago.

“They declared bankruptcy and said they wanted to see the victims adequately compensated,” said Paul Mones, an attorney who is representing some of the survivors. “People who suffered continue to suffer through these legal machinations that they are forced to go through.”

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08/03/22

A Survivor Shares Her Strength

Courtney Kiehl JD ’15 Law knew she wanted to work with trauma survivors in some capacity. A former elite gymnast and survivor of child sexual abuse, Kiehl chose to pursue a legal career after earning her bachelor’s degree in sociology at UCLA, where she had become involved in victims’ rights organizations.

“When I began researching law schools, it was around the time that the Sandusky case was getting a lot of publicity,” Kiehl says. “I had done work in the realm of child sexual abuse, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to go to Penn State, the center of this case that was getting so much attention.”

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05/02/22

After Teacher Convicted Of Sex Offenses, Corona-Norco USD Sued

The Corona-Norco Unified School District is the target of a lawsuit stemming from multiple sexual offenses perpetrated by a former high school teacher and athletics coach now serving time in state prison, it was announced Wednesday.

“Schools have a duty to protect the safety and welfare of students,” attorney Paul Mones said regarding the civil action. “Schools have a responsibility to not just properly and adequately supervise children delivered into their care by their parents, but as well a responsibility to adequately monitor teachers to ensure that they maintain appropriate and professional boundaries with students.”

The suit, filed in Riverside County Superior Court, names both the school district and Joe Robles Jr. of Ontario as defendants.

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04/27/22

Five Sexual Assault Survivors Sue Riverside County School District for Employing Convicted Serial Sexual Abuser High School Teacher-Track Coach

Former high school teacher, track and field coach, and cross-country running coach Joe Robles, Jr. – who is currently serving a four-year prison sentence after being convicted of multiple felony sex crimes – has been named in a civil action alleging that he sexually assaulted at least five children between the ages of 14 and 17 between 2014 and 2017, during the time Robles was employed at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Riverside County. The complaint also names Corona-Norco Unified School District for failing to protect the plaintiffs and other students as required by law, according to attorneys at Slater Slater Schulman LLP and Paul Mones, P.C.

“The effects of child sexual abuse are severe and long-lasting,” said co-counsel James W. Lewis of Slater Slater Schulman LLP. “The brave young women who are part of this case have each suffered extreme emotional distress as a result of being abused by an adult placed in a position of authority by their school and school district. Joe Robles, Jr. had access to hundreds of children over the course of his ten-year employment. We are working to build a community of survivors who are taking the power back.”

“Schools have a duty to protect the safety and welfare of students,” said co-counsel Paul Mones. “Schools have a responsibility to not just properly and adequately supervise children delivered into their care by their parents, but as well a responsibility to adequately monitor teachers to ensure that they maintain appropriate and professional boundaries with students.”

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12/22/21

Read Paul’s comments on the Michigan Attorney General’s investigation of the Boy Scouts

The Michigan attorney general’s office said it is close to bringing criminal charges in its investigation into allegations that troop leaders and others associated with the Boy Scouts of America sexually assaulted youths in the state.

A spokeswoman for Dana Nessel, the state’s attorney general, said Wednesday that her office is investigating five individuals. She declined to say when charges would be announced and said the investigation is ongoing.

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10/01/21

Boy Scouts’ bankruptcy creates rift with religious partners

Amid the Boy Scouts of America’s complex bankruptcy case, there is worsening friction between the organization and the major religious groups that help it run thousands of Scout units. At issue: the churches’ fears that an eventual settlement — while protecting the Boy Scouts of America from future sex-abuse lawsuits — could leave many churches unprotected.

The Boy Scouts sought bankruptcy protection in February 2020 in an effort to halt individual lawsuits and create a huge compensation fund for thousands of men who say they were molested as youngsters by scoutmasters or other leaders. At the time, the national organization estimated it might face 5,000 cases; it now faces 82,500.

In July, the Boy Scouts of America proposed an $850-million deal that would bar further lawsuits against it and its local councils. The deal did not cover the more than 40,000 organizations that have charters with the organization to sponsor Scout units, including many churches from major religious denominations that are now questioning their future involvement in Scouting.

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