Sex Abuse Lawsuits at 400 and Counting as New York Law Takes Effect

ALBANY, N.Y. — The Roman Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, schools and hospitals, the late financier Jeffrey Epstein are some of the targets named in a flurry of sex abuse lawsuits filed Wednesday in New York as the state began accepting cases once blocked by the statute of limitations.

Hundreds of lawsuits were filed as plaintiffs rushed to take advantage of the one-year litigation window, created by state lawmakers this year to give people who say they were victims a second chance to sue over abuse that, in many cases, happened decades ago.

Those suing Wednesday include a woman who says she was raped by Epstein as a teenager in 2002. She filed against Epstein’s estate and three of his associates. Similar lawsuits from other women who say they were abused by Epstein are expected.

Other suits filed Wednesday include one from 45 former Rockefeller University Hospital patients who say a renowned endocrinologist molested hundreds of boys over more than three decades.

Hundreds of others sued the Catholic Church or one of its several New York dioceses. Among them is Peter Vajda, who said a religious brother molested him when he attended a Catholic boarding school in the Bronx in the early 1950s.

“Now it’s their turn. Now it’s their time,” said Vajda, now 75 and a Georgia resident. “And I want them to get everything they deserve in the way of punishment.”

Another suit filed Wednesday accused former Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard, who retired in 2014, of sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy in the 1990s.

An attorney for Hubbard, 80, denied the claim.

In yet another complaint, a man who has accused ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of molesting him in the 1960s and 70s in New York and New Jersey says the church failed to stop the abuse.

McCarrick, the former archbishop of Newark and Washington, D.C., was defrocked by Pope Francis in February after a church investigation determined he sexually abused minors as well as adult seminarians. McCarrick’s misconduct was reported to some U.S. and Vatican higher-ups, but he nevertheless remained an influential cardinal until his downfall last year.

Now 89, McCarrick has denied the allegations made by James Grein, the son of close family friends McCarrick baptized. Grein has told Vatican investigators that McCarrick began abusing him at age 11, sometimes during confession.

In all, 427 sex abuse lawsuits were filed by 5 p.m. Wednesday across New York. Some of the cases have one plaintiff, while others include several dozen.

The state’s statute of limitations had been among the nation’s most restrictive before state lawmakers extended it earlier this year for new cases. The Child Victims Act gives victims until age 55 to file lawsuits and until age 28 to seek criminal charges, compared with 23 under the old statute.

That law, which passed following more than a decade of debate in Albany, also created the litigation window.

“This is a momentous time for courageous survivors who have waited so long for justice in New York,” said Jeff Anderson, an attorney whose firm, New York-based Jeff Anderson & Associates, filed molestation lawsuits Wednesday on behalf of hundreds of clients.

Institutions that have long cared for children _ such as the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts, as well as private and public schools and hospitals _ are girding for what could be a devastating financial blow. A similar law passed in 2002 in California resulted in Catholic dioceses there paying $1.2 billion in legal settlements.

A compensation fund for sexual abuse victims set up by the New York Archdiocese in 2016 has paid out $65 million to 323 people, the archdiocese says. Those victims have waived their right to file lawsuits. The archdiocese is also suing more than two dozen insurance companies in an effort to compel them to cover abuse claims, anticipating that insurers won’t pay the claims filed during the litigation window.

The leaders of the Catholic diocese covering Long Island have been working “for months with financial and legal experts to prepare for this day,” according to a statement, which added that parish donations aren’t being used to fund victim compensation.

“Our Church continues to suffer as a result of past sins of sexual abuse of minors,” said Bishop John Barres of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. “Victim survivors of abuse and their families also continue to carry the terrible effects of that abuse.”

Brian Toale, one of those who pushed lawmakers to approve the litigation window, said the lawsuits are as much about empowering victims as financial compensation. Toale, 66, said he was molested by an employee at a Catholic high school he attended on Long Island.

Toale’s suit against the Catholic Church was filed early Wednesday.

“Every time a survivor comes forward, there’s another survivor who finds the strength,” Toale said.

Advocates, mental health experts and victims themselves say it can take years for victims to speak out, worried they won’t be believed or overcome by shame or fear.

“We only get one childhood, one adolescence,” said Jack Traub, 55, of Staten Island, who says a doctor at Rockefeller University Hospital molested him 45 years ago. As a result of the trauma, he said he has struggled to maintain relationships “I can’t go back. It is what it is.”

The doctor, Reginald Archibald, has been accused of molesting hundreds of child patients over a 30-year period. Rockefeller conducted an internal investigation that found Archibald, who died in 2007, “engaged in acts of sexual misconduct and sexual abuse toward many of his patients.”

“We profoundly apologize to his patients who experienced pain and suffering as a result of his reprehensible conduct,” the hospital said in a statement.

About the photo: Attorneys Jeff Herman, left, and Krisel McSweeney, right, hold a press conference outside New York Supreme Court to announce lawsuits on behalf of clients suing Catholic Archdiocese and Rockefeller University hospital in childhood sex abuse cases on Wednesday in lower Manhattan. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)