Headline

Delayed Justice: 3 States In US Remove All Time Limits On Child S3x Abuse Lawsuits

Published

3 years ago

June 9, 2023

Ann Allen loved going to church and the after-school social group led by a dynamic priest back in the 1960s.

The giggling fun with friends always ended with a game of hide and seek. Each week, the Rev. Lawrence Sabatino chose one girl to hide with him. Allen said when it was her turn, she was sxually assaulted, at age 7, in the recesses of St. Peter’s Catholic Church.

“I don’t remember how I got out of that cellar and I don’t think I ever will. But I remember it like it’s yesterday. I remember the smells. The sounds. I remember what he said, and what he did,” she said.

Allen, 64, is one of more than two dozen people who have sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, Maine, over the past year, seeking delayed justice since lawmakers allowed lawsuits for abuse that happened long ago and can’t be pursued in criminal courts either because of time limits or evidence diminishing over time.

More survivors are pursuing cases as states increasingly consider repealing time limits for child sex crime lawsuits. Vermont was the first state to remove the limits in 2019, followed by Maine in 2021 and Maryland this year.

Michigan, Rhode Island and Massachusetts are poised to take action before their legislative sessions end.

“The momentum is irreversible,” said Marci Hamilton, CEO of CHILD USA, a think tank aiming to prevent child abuse and neglect.

In April, Maryland lifted time limits on child sexual abuse lawsuits against institutions less than a week after the attorney general detailed decades of abuse of more than 600 children by over 150 priests associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Other states, meanwhile, have briefly removed the statute of limitations on lawsuits for childhood abuse. More than 10,000 lawsuits were filed when New York set aside time limits for two years.

Across the country, those lawsuits have targeted churches, summer camps, scout groups and other institutions accused of enabling pedophiles or turning a blind eye to wrongdoing.

More states eliminating the limits would help achieve justice and prevention, according to advocates who say survivors tend to keep the trauma to themselves, backed by new research suggesting survivors typically come forward in their 50s.

“More and more people come forward as they realize that they’re not alone,” said Michael Bigos, one of Allen’s attorneys, whose law firm has brought 25 lawsuits since last June and is evaluating more than 100 additional potential cases, including about 65 targeting the Portland diocese.

In his law offices, Allen looked at a photo of herself at her first communion at St. Peter’s, which serves what was once Portland’s Little Italy neighborhood and hosts a popular street party each summer.

The photo was taken after the assault. Her joy and exuberance are gone. “When I look at it, I see a pretty damaged child,” she said.

Sabatino quickly became part of the fabric of St. Peter’s when he arrived in 1958 after leaving another church where parents reported to police that he had sexually abused their 6-year-old daughter. The priest was warned by the Diocese of Portland not to engage with children or play games, but was soon doing both.

Parishioners, including Ann Allen’s family, invited him into their homes. He visited her family’s beach house.

Allen thought she was lucky when she was selected to hide with him. But the abuse became a dark secret she carried for decades.

She never considered telling her parents. Allen said she didn’t think anyone would believe her.

“School principal in California, Allen was protective of children, especially those who reported abuse. She would try to help them and say right things — things she wished had been done for her. Then, she went home to “curl up in a ball,” she said.

But her secret came bubbling back when she returned to Maine and had to confront her past, she said.

Robert Dupuis tells a similar story.

He was 12 years old in 1961 when he was abused by the Rev. John Curran in Old Town, a riverside city in Maine. Decades later, he sought help from Alcoholic’s Anonymous when his marriage was in jeopardy. He acknowledged the abuse in group therapy, at around age 55, and the revelation changed his life.

“It healed me and it freed me from holding back,” the 74-year-old said.

His marriage and friendships have improved, he said. Now, he encourages others who have been abused to come forward.

Most of Maine’s newly filed civil lawsuits target the Diocese of Portland, accusing leaders of ignoring accusations against priests like Sabatino and Curran, or simply moving them to new parishes, allowing the abuse to continue.

Diocese officials concluded that allegations against Sabatino and Curran were credible. Both have long since died.

Maine removed its time limits in 2000 to sue over childhood sexual abuse, but not retroactively, leaving survivors without recourse for older cases. Changes in 2021 allowed previously expired civil claims. The Legislature also is considering easing the statute of limitations on criminal charges for sexual assaults of children.

The Portland diocese contends survivors had ample time to sue and it’s unconstitutional to open the door to new litigation, which could lead to requests for damages of “tens of millions of dollars.”

A judge rejected the arguments. The diocese has appealed to the state supreme court. An attorney and a spokesperson for the diocese both declined comment.

For Patricia Butkowski, it was 1958 when her family alerted police that she said Sabatino assaulted her at a parish in Lewiston. After the diocese transferred him to Portland, Allen and others became victims.

“I’m now at 70 feeling emotions and allowing myself to feel emotions that I never knew I had. Anger is at the top of it. I’m like a volcano spewing and there’s just so many emotions, and anger at the church,” she said.

Butkowski, who now lives in Oklahoma City, wants the church to apologize and acknowledge the wrongs done to her and others so she can “hopefully regain some sort of faith before I die,” she said.

“What was done to me by the priest damaged my soul,” she said. “I don’t have a soul anymore. It’s broken.”

Headline

South Korea, Japan Protest China, Russia Aircraft Incursions

Published

10 hours ago

December 10, 2025

Editor

South Korea and Japan reacted furiously on Wednesday after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols around the two countries, with both Seoul and Tokyo scrambling jets.

South Korea said it had protested with representatives of China and Russia, while Japan said it had conveyed its “serious concerns” over national security.

According to Tokyo, two Russian Tu-95 nuclear-capable bombers on Tuesday flew from the Sea of Japan to rendezvous with two Chinese H-6 bombers in the East China Sea, then conducted a joint flight around the country.

The incident comes as Japan is locked in a dispute with China over comments Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made about Taiwan.

The bombers’ joint flights were “clearly intended as a show of force against our nation, Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi wrote on X Wednesday.

Top government spokesman Minoru Kihara said that Tokyo had “conveyed to both China and Russia our serious concerns over our national security through diplomatic channels”.

Seoul said Tuesday the Russian and Chinese warplanes entered its air defence zone and that a complaint had been lodged with the defence attaches of both countries in the South Korean capital.

“Our military will continue to respond actively to the activities of neighbouring countries’ aircraft within the KADIZ in compliance with international law,” said Lee Kwang-suk, director general of the International Policy Bureau at Seoul’s defence ministry, referring to the Korea Air Defence Identification Zone.

South Korea also said it deployed “fighter jets to take tactical measures in preparation for any contingencies” in response to the Chinese and Russian incursion into the KADIZ.

The planes were spotted before they entered the air defence identification zone, defined as a broader area in which countries police aircraft for security reasons but which does not constitute their airspace.

Japan’s defence ministry also scrambled fighter jets to intercept the warplanes.

Beijing later Tuesday confirmed it had organised drills with Russia’s military according to “annual cooperation plans”.

Moscow also described it as a routine exercise, saying it lasted eight hours and that some foreign fighter jets followed the Russian and Chinese aircraft.

Since 2019, China and Russia have regularly flown military aircraft into South Korea’s air defence zone without prior notice, citing joint exercises.

In November last year, Seoul scrambled jets as five Chinese and six Russian military planes flew through its air defence zone.

Similar incidents occurred in June and December 2023, and in May and November 2022.

Meanwhile, Tokyo said Monday it had scrambled jets in response to repeated takeoff and landing exercises involving fighter jets and military helicopters from China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier as it cruised in international waters near Japan.

It also summoned Beijing’s ambassador after military aircraft from the Liaoning locked radar onto Japanese jets, the latest incident in the row ignited by Takaichi’s comments backing Taiwan.

Takaichi suggested last month that Japan would intervene militarily in any Chinese attack on the self-ruled island, which Beijing claims as its own and has not ruled out seizing by force.

AFP

Headline

Thousands Reported To Have Fled DR Congo Fighting As M23 Closes On Key City

Published

24 hours ago

December 9, 2025

Editor

Fierce fighting rocked the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday as the Rwanda-backed M23 militia rapidly advanced towards the strategic city of Uvira, with tens of thousands of people fleeing over the nearby border into Burundi, sources said.

The armed group and its Rwandan allies were just a few kilometres (miles) north of Uvira, security and military sources told AFP.

The renewed violence undermined a peace agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump that Kinshasa and Kigali signed less than a week ago, on December 4.

Trump had boasted that the Rwanda-DRC conflict was one of eight he has ended since returning to power in America in January.

With the new fighting, more than 30,000 people have fled the area around Uvira for Burundi in the space of a week, a UN source and a Burundian administrative source told AFP.

The Burundian source told AFP on condition of anonymity he had recorded more than 8,000 daily arrivals over the past two days, and 30,000 arrivals in one week. A source in the UN refugee agency confirmed the figure.

The Rwanda-backed M23 offensive comes nearly a year after the group seized control of Goma and Bukavu, the two largest cities in eastern DRC, a strategic region rich in natural resources and plagued by conflict for 30 years.

Local people described a state of growing panic as bombardments struck the hills above Uvira, a city of several hundred thousand residents.

“Three bombs have just exploded in the hills. It’s every man for himself,” said one resident reached by telephone.

“We are all under the beds in Uvira — that’s the reality,” another resident said, while a representative of civil society who would not give their name described fighting on the city’s outskirts.

Fighting was also reported in Runingo, another small locality some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Uvira, as the M23 and the Rwandan army closed in.

Burundi views the prospect of Uvira falling to Rwanda-backed forces as an existential threat, given that it sits across Lake Tanganyika from Burundi’s economic capital Bujumbura.

The city is the main sizeable locality in the area yet to fall to the M23 and its capture would essentially cut off the zone from DRC control.

Burundi deployed about 10,000 soldiers to eastern DRC in October 2023 as part of a military cooperation agreement, and security sources say reinforcements have since taken that presence to around 18,000 men.

The M23 and Rwandan forces launched their Uvira offensive on December 1.

Rich in natural resources, eastern DRC has been choked by successive conflicts for around three decades.

Violence in the region intensified early this year when M23 fighters seized the key eastern city of Goma in January, followed by Bukavu, capital of South Kivu province, a few weeks later.

– Regional risk –

The peace deal meant to quell the fighting was signed last Thursday in Washington by Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame, with Trump — who called it a “miracle” deal — also putting his signature to it.

The agreement includes an economic component intended to secure US supplies of critical minerals present in the region, as America seeks to challenge China’s dominance in the sector.

But even on the day of the signing, intense fighting took place in South Kivu, where Uvira is located, which included the bombing of houses and schools.

Witnesses and military sources in Uvira said that Congolese soldiers fleeing the fighting had arrived in the city overnight Monday and shops were looted at dawn.

Several hundred Congolese and Burundian soldiers had already fled to Burundi on Monday, according to military sources, since the M23 fighters embarked on their latest offensive from Kamanyola, some 70 kilometres north of Uvira.
Since the M23’s lightning offensive early this year, the front had largely stabilised over the past nine months.

Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye warned in February there was a danger of the conflict escalating into a broader regional war, a fear echoed by the United Nations.

Headline

‘Santa Claus’ Arrested For Possessing, Distributing Child Sexual Abuse Material

Published

1 day ago

December 9, 2025

Editor

A 64-year-old man from Hamilton Township has been arrested in the United States after investigators linked him to the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material.

The suspect, identified as Mark Paulino, had been working as a “Santa for hire” at holiday events, a role that placed him in repeated contact with children.

Mercer County officials said the investigation began on 4 December when detectives were alerted to suspicious online activity involving the uploading of child pornography from a residence in Hamilton Township. The probe quickly identified Paulino, a retired elementary school teacher, as the person involved.

Police stated that Paulino had presented himself online as a retired teacher and had recently performed as Santa Claus for photographs and private, corporate, and organisational events. “Because this role involved direct, repeated contact with children, detectives worked around the clock to secure a search warrant,” authorities explained.

The warrant was executed on 5 December, during which police seized multiple items regarded as evidentiary. Paulino was taken into custody without incident and charged with possession and distribution of child sexual abuse materials, as well as endangering the welfare of a child.

Prosecutors have filed a motion to detain him pending trial. The investigation remains ongoing, and authorities have urged members of the public with relevant information to come forward.