Editorial
A Window for Justice
March 22, 2009
For decades, priests who preyed sexually on children did so with shocking ease and impunity. Their superiors acted as functional accomplices, shuttling abusive priests among parishes and buying or bullying victims into silence. Shame and guilt did the rest, burying abuses under a shroud of secrecy that often far outlasted the statute of limitations for prosecutions or lawsuits.
Those victims deserve a day in court. The New York Legislature should grant it to them, by passing a bill that would temporarily lift the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits involving the sexual abuse of children.
The bill would open a one-year window during which accusers would be allowed to sue in civil court, no matter how old the case. After a year, the statute of limitations would be restored, but an accuser would have up to 10 years after turning 18 to make a claim, instead of five. The statute of limitations for criminal prosecutions would not be changed.
Like similar measures in Delaware and California, the Child Victims Act seeks to balance the need for reasonable time limits for lawsuits against the unusual challenges in uncovering sexual crimes against children.
It can take decades before victims are ready to make the wrenching decision to tell their stories.
Add to that problem the particulars of the priest abuse scandal. It had its roots in the 1960s and 70s, but did not engulf the Catholic Church — which systematically covered up for the criminals in its clergy — until 2002, when its many victims were in their 30s or older.
The bill does not explicitly target any institution. Catholic and Orthodox Jewish officials are lobbying against it, arguing that it is unfair to allow decades-old accusations against old men who are ill equipped to defend themselves when evidence is lost or forgotten and witnesses are dead. They also, naturally, fear a wave of expensive settlements and damage awards like the one that struck the Los Angeles Archdiocese when the statute of limitations was lifted under a 2003 law.
Those fairness concerns are vastly outweighed by the need to dispense fairness to those who were powerless to seek it. Exposing abuse is also a matter of public safety. It is wrong to allow the institutional shame of the Catholic Church to remain hidden in church files and in the anguished hearts of victims. Their continued suffering and the prevention of future abuses are the strongest arguments for passage of the Child Victims Act.
Hey UOJ, what the hell you gonna do?! if the bill doesn't get passed because of Aguda?
ReplyDeleteThe NY Times forgot to mention old men who don't remember anything due to their failing memory. (The definition of old is anyone 35+)
ReplyDeleteCuomo Says Most Big A.I.G. Bonuses Have Been Returned
ReplyDeleteBy DEALBOOK 42 minutes ago
I know this is off topic but never the less food for thought.
ReplyDeleteHow sad this Texas girl had the encroachment on her second amendment rights so graphically illustrated. I see the honorable senator from New York was getting a little uncomfortable in his chair. The gun banners are absolutely speechless as this little Texas gal chews them up and spits them out. She knows what the 2nd amendment is really all about..
Here's a video that I guarantee you won't forget anytime soon! She didn't cry, although she came close to losing it, and she gave them a reality check they dearly needed. Watch it. You will be glad you did.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4069761537893819675
Yanky Mandelbaum the ba'al machlokes is now Yanky Mandelbaum the moser. He officially filed charges against a yungerman who dared to call him and voice his opposition with yanky's work to facillitate the hostile Bais Faiga takeover. He claimed that this talmid chochom was threatening and harrasing and terorizing him over the phone. He called the yungerman and said that if he would come ask him mechillah he might drop charges. Of course, he refused.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/23/campbell.brown.transparency/index.html
ReplyDeleteObama breaks promise on posting legislation
UOJ - Keep up the fight. Get these sick molesters off our streets and out of our neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteI hear molesters get the best treatment in prison, better than any therapist can administer.
The Police have just gotten involved in this.
ReplyDeleteNew York Lighting that was on Cedarhurst Ave for many years is at the center of a massive fraud. For the last year they have been on the outskirts of the 5 Towns in Valley Stream.
The owner Doug Flank closed the business weeks ago but the website is still up and running where people all over the country are duped into entering their credit cards to make purchases. He stole countless dollars worth of merchandise from factories and then does not even ship it to customers from the website who he is just stealing from. He is probably making the money several times over by selling the chandeliers on eBay.
He is a not frum guy who was married to a shiksa. He had some frum ladies working for him in Cedarhurst but they quit after he didn't pay them for months.
FAIRVIEW, Okla. (AP) Judge sentences former Oklahoma sheriff to 79 years for sexually abusing inmates, defendants.
ReplyDeleteShades of the Weimar Republic!
ReplyDelete*
Geithner, Bernanke Stress Need for Regulatory Powers- AP
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner joined Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in calling for greater governmental authority over complicated and troubled financial companies -- power they likened to the authority wielded over banks by the FDIC. That includes the power to seize control of institutions, take over their bad loans and other illiquid assets, and sell good ones to competitors.
Doug Flank also owns Altech Lighting in Garden City where he is also stealing from people.
ReplyDeleteNew York Lighting in the 5 Towns is also known as DF Lighting and Lightingonthenet.com.
The NYPD is also looking for the Russian putz running his websites, Alex Alekseev of "BigBangTech" from Forest Hills.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/health/24docs.html?em=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteA year ago, Sweden’s most prestigious medical school found itself in an international uproar after it unknowingly admitted a student who was a Nazi sympathizer and a convicted murderer, then scrambled to find a way to expel him.
It is hard to imagine how the case could get any more bizarre. But it has.
The 33-year-old student, Karl Helge Hampus Svensson, having been banished from the medical school of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on the ground that he falsified his high school records, has now been admitted to a second well-known medical school — Uppsala, Sweden’s oldest university.
New twists in his and another case highlight the difficulties that three of the country’s six medical schools have had in admitting and dismissing students with serious criminal offenses in just the past two years. The cases resonate far beyond Sweden, raising fundamental questions about who is fit to become a doctor.
The circumstances of Mr. Svensson’s admission to Uppsala’s first-year class — reported in January by Swedish news organizations — are unknown, because none of the officials involved will publicly discuss his case. He apparently uses an assumed name — a customary practice for Swedes seeking to remain anonymous because of a personal threat. Last week, Uppsala officials, responding to concerns about Mr. Svensson’s admission, said he had not participated in class work, but did not say why.
In another embarrassing twist, a Swedish newspaper reported last month that much of the verdict and court files regarding Bjorn Soderberg, Mr. Svensson’s murder victim, had been cut out or replaced with blank pages. The police said they had been unable to find a culprit.
And in still another case, a 24-year-old medical student at Lund University was convicted last April of raping a 14-year-old boy while he slept. A district court sentenced the student to two years in prison, but a higher court reduced the sentence to two years’ probation and medical therapy.
When the dean at Lund sought to expel the student, a national board that reviews expulsions blocked the action, saying that although the man had committed a serious crime, he was not considered a threat to people or property.
It's mamash a small world. Doug Flank does business with my shver Leibish Gross from Sea Gate.
ReplyDeleteAIG Testimony: Geithner-Bernanke Launch Joint CYA Operation
ReplyDeletePosted Mar 24, 2009 04:35pm EDT by Aaron Task in Newsmakers
AIG was topic A (again) on Capitol Hill Tuesday as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke addressed the critical question: What did you know about the AIG bonuses and when did you know it?
"On March 10, I received a full briefing on the details of AIGFP's pending retention payments, including information on the payments to individual executives," Geithner testified.
While there's no evidence Geithner wasn't briefed (in full) on March 10, that statement doesn't preclude the (strong) possibility Geithner knew about the bonuses long before then.
Meanwhile, Bernanke's testimony did not try to hide that he's known about the bonuses for a while: "Beginning last fall," the Fed chairman had "deep concern surrounding compensation issues at AIG," he said. (There was no sense for Bernanke to pretend otherwise since AIG CEO Edward Liddy had thrown the Fed under the "when do you know?" bus last week when he testified.)
Timing issues aside, both Geithner and Bernanke testified to having the same response when learning of the AIG bonuses: Outrage, followed by discussions with lawyers who told them they couldn't stop the payouts because of contractual obligations.
This lame excuse speaks to a lack of leadership and courage on the part of both policymakers; more especially in contrast to the actions of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo whose office reports 15 of the top 20 AIG bonus recipients have returned the money ($50 million in total) as of late Monday.
The Geithner-Bernanke "Joint CYA Operation" also included the familiar refrain they lacked the authority to more effectively deal with the implosions of AIG and Lehman Brothers last fall. Both lobbied Congress for the power to regulate non-bank institutions that may pose systemic risk.
That's a good and smart regulatory change but doesn't explain a few things:
Why a decision was made to make whole the debtholders and counterparties of AIG, but not those of Lehman Brothers.
Why the Fed and Treasury are so steadfast in their opposition to letting the FDIC use its existing regulatory powers to put into receivership certain large banks that are by many accounts insolvent by any reasonable definition of the term.
UOJ;
ReplyDeleteThe 2010 Congressional elections can not come soon enough.
Hopefully, we will still have the ability and right to vote. (Hold your breath).
As the economy continues to tank with The Manchurian Candidate's unbridled assault on Capitalism and The Constitution, look for a "hot" summer of a distinct possibility of street riots agitated by the Acornistas to stir up the have-nots against the haves.
We have already seen a preview with last weeks Acornista demonstrations in front of the AIG homes in Fairfield, CT. The AIG Executives standing on their front lawns protected by Private Security, crying to be left alone, fearful for their families safety, conjure up images of our Brethren in pre-Hitler Germany and the ensuing CristallNacht Pogrom.
Yes, it can happen here in "Der Goldene Medina."
And, G-D forbid, if there should be a terrorist attack on US soil this summer/fall, exacerbated, aided/abetted by Bim-Bams intentional and conciliatory 'Let Us Break Bread' Policy of appeasement to the terrorists, then the invocation of "temporary" Martial Law and suspension of Habeus Corpus in order to 'protect and defend' the citizens of the United States according to The Constitution is a distinct possibility.
And the Teleprompter President laughs and laughs on 60 minutes.
This is not "punch-drunk" as Steve Kroft asked but pure unmitigated EVIL!
Fasten your seat belts.
The Bim-Bam Identity.
Who is really behind him pulling the strings?