PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The window to report years-old cases of child sexual assault in New Jersey has closed.
In 2019, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law to extend the statute of limitations on claims of sexual abuse from adults who say they were victims as children.
Since then, more than 1,200 lawsuits were filed.
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Court officials say about two-thirds of those were against religious organizations. About 10% of the suits named the Boy Scouts.
Attorneys who represent a total of several hundred plaintiffs said Tuesday they've received a flurry of inquiries in recent weeks as the deadline approached. One of them, former priest Michael Reading, became the latest to sue defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for alleged abuse in the 1980s, in a lawsuit announced last week.
"The window is the thing that gave him the freedom, seeing that you could come forward and do something about it," said attorney Jeffrey Anderson, who represents Reading and more than 400 other plaintiffs in suits against Catholic institutions. "That was the impetus, the incentive, and inspiration."
New Jersey's law was spurred by a lengthy 2018 grand jury report in Pennsylvania that concluded more than 1,000 children had been abused in that state over a span of decades by about 300 Catholic priests.
At least 18 other states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws in recent years that have made it easier for victims to file claims.
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In a statement Tuesday, a spokesperson for Murphy said the governor would consider working with the state Legislature to extend the filing period.
While the window has closed, it will take a few more years for all of these cases to be brought to trial because of volume and judicial backlogs.
Under this law, adults now have until age 55, or within seven years of when they first realized the abuse caused them harm, to report a crime that occurred when they were children. It was previously limited to age 20 or two years after first realizing the abuse caused harm.
The closing of this window does not affect the ongoing investigation at the Attorney General’s office.
So far, charges were filed against four priests in New Jersey. One pleaded guilty, one was acquitted, and cases are pending for two more.
