Monthly Archives: March 2013

The Next Frontier of Scholarly Study: Sexual Abuse in Puerto Rico

By TIM KOSNOFF

We often broach the notion of statutes of limitation, typically within the context of how such time constraints serve the purposes of certain pedophiles and hinder the ability of the abused to seek damages in civil litigation.

Let’s look at the notion of time limits in a different way and ask rhetorically: Is there a built-in time period after which the effects on the victim miraculously just disappear?
Common sense tells us such a supposition is ridiculous. Anecdotal evidence continually reveals to those of us who litigate against accused abusers that the devastating effects on victims can linger for entire lifetimes.

An ongoing scholarly study seems to show precisely how observable the damage to victims can be. It’s being conducted among subjects in Puerto Rico: interesting given that the Caribbean island probably isn’t the first place many think of when the topic of child sexual abuse is brought up. Here, then, from a 2011 article in the St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times, is a refresher:

“SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A lawsuit filed Monday in a Puerto Rico court accuses a St. John’s Abbey [a Minnesota institution] monk of sexually abusing a teenager in 1978 at a boarding school in [the Puerto Rican city of] Humacao.
“The lawsuit accuses the Rev. Raymond Francisco Schulte of abusing the boy at the San Antonio Abad boarding school that was run by St. John’s Abbey. Schulte was assigned as a monk, priest, teacher and principal at the school from 1977 to 1981.

“The lawsuit accuses Schulte, who also was known as Father Ray or Father Francisco, of sexually abusing at least two other students at the school and of recruiting at least one boy to attend St. John’s Prep School.

“The lawsuit accuses Schulte of continuing the abuse at the Prep School when the student enrolled there and when Schulte returned there in 1981 to serve as Prep School chaplain.

“Mike Ford, the attorney representing St. John’s Abbey, said last week that the abbey would discuss resolution to the case even though the decades-old allegations might put the case outside the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations in civil cases is the time in which a victim must file a claim or be barred from doing so.

“The complaint filed Monday against Schulte indicates that the victim didn’t ‘have knowledge of the injuries relating to the sexual abuse‘ until June, 2010. In May, 2010, an investigator interviewed the man related to a case involving another possible Schulte victim. The man described what had happened to him with Schulte in an affidavit, and then ‘began to think about the sexual abuse by Fr. Schulte and the ways that these acts had injured him,’ according to the complaint.

“‘Plaintiff also, for the first time, was aware that Fr. Schulte had sexually abused more than he and his friend, while at (San Antonio Abad boarding school). This knowledge led the Plaintiff to believe that the Defendant St. John’s may in some way be responsible for failing to supervise Fr. Schulte, for failing to protect Plaintiff from Fr. Schulte, and that St. John’s may have defrauded the Plaintiff.’”

The above, then, given the Ford quote, indicates how a statute of limitations can shield an alleged perpetrator.
Now to the abstract for the scholarly study being conducted at Carlos Albizu University in San Juan: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22545566 ”This study explores dissociative symptoms in three different groups of Puerto Rican children. Data were collected on 40 children with documented sexual abuse history, 39 children with psychiatric disorders but without a history of sexual abuse, and 40 community control children.
“Dissociative symptoms were assessed with the child using the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC); a social worker answered the Child Dissociative Checklist (CDC). Results indicated that children with sexual abuse obtained significantly different scores on both the TSCC and the CDC.
“Further analysis indicated that child and social worker reports of dissociative symptoms were highly correlated . . . Furthermore, 30 percent of the children in the sexual-abuse group scored at or above the cutoff point of 12 on the CDC, which is indicative of a dissociative disorder. None of the children in the other two groups obtained such a score.
“The results suggest that children with documented sexual-abuse victimization demonstrate a significant number of dissociative phenomena that not only are subjectively experienced but also can be observed by a non-family member.
“Finally, as nearly a third of the abused children obtained a score of 12 or higher on the CDC, the next step is to prepare clinicians to conduct a proper and formal diagnosis assessment of dissociative disorders.”
Meanwhile we await a way to assure such victims and their friends and loved ones that, someday, a statute of limitations will magically make their agonies go away.

Our attorneys are highly experienced in childhood sexual abuse law  and offer free initial consultations to potential clients. We are also willing to assist other attorneys in sexual abuse cases. Please call 206-257-3590, or email us directly. Conversations will be kept confidential, and even if you are unsure about a lawsuit, often we can direct you to the assistance you need. You will be treated with compassion and respect.

Toll free: 855-529-4274
Tim Kosnoff, direct: 425-837-9690
Dan Fasy, direct: 206-462-4338
Kosnoff Fasy, Seattle office: 206-257-3590

The Sad, But All Too Familiar Fact in Abuse Cases: Pedophiles are Often ‘Trusted,’ Well Known by Survivors and Relatives

By DAN FASY

A recent pair of links we posted on our Facebook page inadvertently demonstrate something of a range of ways the scourge of child sexual abuse is revealed to the public.

One is a news story about the aunt of an alleged victim discovering references to abuse incidents on her niece’s Facebook page. The allegations indicate that the predator is another member of the extended Indianapolis family.
If so, the case would jibe with several familiar patterns. One is the high likelihood that the pedophile would be well known by the victim — would, in fact, likely be a family member. Another is that the alleged victim waited, in this case about two years, before revealing what she remembers. Yet another is the implicit reluctance of the victim to more overtly come forward and charge the perpetrator.

One certainly can understand the reluctance. Imagine the feeling of powerlessness of, in this instance, a 13-year-old girl. She’s already been forced by circumstances to process what she claims are two cases of molestation. Then she has to summon the emotional wherewithal to come forward in some fashion and, in effect, let the world know what happened.
Obviously it requires the kind of courage no one should have to demonstrate.
Then there’s the related recent link on our Facebook page. Rather than being about average citizens with no claim to celebrity, it concerns a woman for whom celebrity has been a live-long given.
Her name is Anoushka Shankar. The last name belonged to her late father, Ravi, for half a century a name synonymous with sitar music. As it happens, Anoushka Shankar also is the half sister of singer Norah Jones, also Ravi Shankar’s daughter and a celebrity better known than any from the extended family.

Anoushka Shankar, herself an accomplished sitar-player and composer, is in the news precisely because of the familiarity of her name. She reported just a few days after attending the 2013 Grammy-award event in Los Angeles that she was repeatedly molested as a young girl by an apparent “family friend.”
The timing of her announcement, revealed in a video, has to do with her support of the One Billion Rising global movement for women’s rights.

In the video Shankar says: “As a child, I suffered sexual and emotional abuse for several years at the hands of a man my parents trusted implicitly. Growing up, like most women I know, I suffered various forms of groping, touching, verbal abuse and other things I didn’t know how to deal with. I didn’t know I could change.”

A Huffington Post story indicates that Shankar “has dedicated her ‘rising’ message to the 23-year-old Indian physiotherapy student who died after being brutally gang-raped by five men in New Delhi. ‘I’m rising with the amazing women of my country who are together calling and saying enough is enough. I’m rising for the child in me who I don’t think will ever fully recover from what happened to her.”
Shankar’s bold, selfless revelations bear at least one striking similarity to the Indianapolis story. In each case the accused perpetrator was known to — perhaps trusted by — the alleged victim.
What the two instances do not have in common may prove to be most notable. The fact is, the Shankar story no doubt will have far greater resonance with a much larger audience than that of an anonymous girl from Indiana. That the latter has been bold enough to reveal her story should be admirable to many. But the notion that a celebrity would tell a similar tale can’t help but make it at least incrementally easier for other heretofore reticent victims to reveal their own deeply guarded secrets.
In this way, we can at least hope that such victims, so emboldened, will help us bring to justice the myriad sex-abusers who otherwise will continue to prey on defenseless children.

Our attorneys are highly experienced in childhood sexual abuse law and offer free initial consultations to potential clients. We are also willing to assist other attorneys in sexual abuse cases. Please call 206-257-3590, or email us directly. Conversations will be kept confidential, and even if you are unsure about a lawsuit, often we can direct you to the assistance you need. You will be treated with compassion and respect.

Toll free: 855-529-4274
Tim Kosnoff, direct: 425-837-9690
Dan Fasy, direct: 206-462-4338
Kosnoff Fasy, Seattle office: 206-257-3590