Child Sex Abuse

Child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church has cast a long shadow worldwide. In recent decades,...

By now, everyone is aware of the allegations of wide-spread child sexual abuse perpetrated over the years by members of organizations like the Catholic Church and the Boys Scouts of America. For too many years, allegations of child sex abuse against these organizations and others were kept quiet. As more and more victims come forward to seek justice against their abusers and the organizations who shielded the abuse, the crucial question becomes: is it too late to bring a claim because you have missed your deadline under the “statute of limitations”? A statute of limitations is a strict time limit within which a claim must be brought. The statute of limitations varies depending on the type of claim and the state where the claim is filed. For example, in Florida you have four years from the date of the incident to file a claim for negligence; but in California you only have two years. If the injured party is a child, the statute of limitations generally does not start to run until the person reaches the age where they are considered an adult in the eyes of the law, which in all but three states occurs at age 18. However, […]

First, how could the Church keep these “secret files” hidden for so long despite hundreds of lawsuits seeking to uncover the records?  The Church, its lawyers, and all those involved in efforts to keep this information silent have blood on their hands and should be ashamed of their conduct in unabashedly protecting pedophiles.  This is all the more shocking on the heels of the revelations that Cardinal McCarrick was promoted to the highest levels in the Church hierarchy despite widely-known allegations of his pedophilia.  All these revelations come days after the death of Richard Sipe—a former priest and champion for clergy abuse victims who specifically called out McCarrick as an abuser years ago who led the fight to force the Church to turn over its secret files from the Vatican down to the most remote diocese. As an attorney specializing in representing victims of childhood sexual abuse, I have taken on the Catholic Church in numerous cases and have specifically joined in efforts to unseal and force public disclosure of secret files that demonstrate the widespread cover-up of child sex abuse in the Church. I have also worked to expose efforts by the Catholic Church and other religious entities to defraud, trick, […]