Democrats introduce bill to end statute of limitations on civil sexual abuse cases

Democrats in Congress were joined on Capitol Hill by survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse to introduce legislation to end the statute of limitations and restrictions on jurisdiction in civil sexual abuse cases.The move comes less than two weeks after the Justice Department released 3.5m pages of heavily redacted documents related to Epstein, as ordered by the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act.“When the truth of Jeffrey Epstein finally started to come out, when the world finally started to listen to their stories, oftentimes the laws in the books said, ‘Sorry, it’s too late. The deadline to bring your case has passed,’” Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said, introducing the legislation on the Senate floor on Tuesday. He added that the bill – called Virginia’s Law in honor of the late Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most well-known accusers – “will change that, because justice for victims of abuse should not have an expiration date”.In September 2022, Congress passed a law removing the statute of limitations for victims of child sex abuse, previously set at 28 years old or 10 years after the incident, but the change did not apply to any crimes committed before that date.Schumer and congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández, who is sponsoring the bill in the House, were joined at the US Capitol by Giuffre’s family, the anti-human trafficking coalition World Without Exploitation and attorney Sigrid McCawley, who represented Giuffre and other survivors of Epstein’s abuse.Alongwith ending the statute of limitations, Leger Fernández said, Virginia’s Law “clarifies that traffickers cannot escape accountability by committing abuses in another jurisdiction. You don’t get to escape prosecution by simply putting predators and victims on a plane to a private island or a mansion in Florida or a ranch in New Mexico”. Leger Fernández represents New Mexico, where Epstein owned a 10,000 acre ranch outside Santa Fe.The disgraced financier, who was a convicted sex offender, died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.Lawmakers were accompanied by Sky and Amanda Roberts, the brother and sister-in-law of Giuffre, who died by suicide last year.“Virginia’s dream was to inspire and empower survivors to come forward,” Sky Roberts said in teary remarks. In response to a question later in the press conference, he called for Andrew Mountbatten Windsor to “answer questions in front of our Congress”. Schumer said he agreed.Survivor advocates added that trafficking survivors often require many years to come forward about the abuse they faced.Although the Justice Department has released millions of pages of documents related to Epstein, lawmakers including Schumer have called for the release of further files, which Schumer says number in the millions.