For Victims of Child Sex Abuse in New York, Justice Can Be Hard to Find

Advocates for victims of child sex abuse continue to push for changes to New York state laws that severely limit the amount of time a victim has to file charges.

New York state Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill Monday that would eliminate statute of limitations requirements, and would make it easier to sue public schools and other institutions.

Currently, New York state has some of the most stringent statute of limitations laws in the country. Victims have until they are 23 years old to file a civil or criminal case against a private institution, but victims who want to sue public institutions have only 90 days after the incident to notify the government that they intend to do so.

Advocates have long pushed to eliminate the statute of limitations; legislation that sought to change the law was last voted down in 2009.

Reuven Blau, a New York Daily News reporter who has followed this story spoke to WNYC's Soterios Johnson. He said that one of the people affected by the state's law is Joel Engelman. Engelman was in his early 20s when he decided to speak about his former teacher, Rabbi Avrohom Reichman, who Engelman accused of molesting him when he was an 8-year-old child in a Williamsburg yeshiva.

At first, Engelman went to the school to inform them of his allegations. By the time Engelman decided to bring a lawsuit, however, he had already turned 23 and his civil suit was dismissed because of the state's statute of limitations law. Reichman, meanwhile, continued to teach at the school.

Blau said that the powerful Orthodox Jewish organization Agudath Israel and the Catholic Church have been the biggest opponents of past legislation that attempted to change the law.

"They believe that if the law would be passed, it would enable people to come out of the woodwork and it would sort of generate a flood of lawsuits," Blau said. "That would in turn ultimately bankrupt some of their schools that are already facing large cash issues."