Grossest Crime which still has a Statute of Limitations?

PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- Closing arguments and jury deliberations are scheduled to begin on Wednesday in the trial of a defrocked Catholic priest in the Albany diocese charged with raping two altar boys more than 20 years ago.

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About the time Hogan began her investigation, the story was reported in the press and five more victims, including a pair of brothers, came forward. But the statute of limitations on the alleged crimes had run out in New York, so Hogan said she could not bring charges in any of the cases.

''If law enforcement has not been notified earlier, the five-year statute time clock starts running when the victims turn 18,'' Hogan told the jury of 10 women and six men. ''The time ran out when they were all 23.'' The victims were in their early to mid-30s when they came forward with their claims.

Despite the statute limitations in New York, Hogan said she contacted officials in other states in which victims said they were allegedly abused by the priest. Hogan said victims reported abuse in Vermont, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Maryland and Virginia.

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An appeals court partially overturned a vaunted cold-case prosecution in Lee County, but the man convicted will still serve the same amount of time in prison.

The statute of limitations prohibited the 2009 prosecution of Micah Lynn Lawson on two of three battery-related charges in which he was convicted, a panel of three judges from the Second District Court of Appeals ruled in an order released Friday.

Lawson, 30, was arrested in November 2008 for the rape of a 76-year-old woman during the burglary of her North Fort Myers home five years earlier, in 2003. DNA evidence collected from the scene matched Lawson, who was in jail at the time on unrelated charges.

Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott lauded the arrest in a press conference, and prosecutors filed three charges against Lawson--burglary of a dwelling with assault or battery, lewd or lascivious battery of an elderly person and elder abuse. Lawson was sentenced to 65 years for the first count, followed by 15 years for the lewd and lascivious battery charge and five years for elder abuse, with the latter two counts to run concurrent to the first.

In the Friday ruling, judges noted that the statutes of limitations for the latter two charges is three years, meaning prosecutors were prohibited from filing charges after January 2006.

Yet they upheld the burglary count, as well its disposition, meaning Lawson will still serve a 65-year prison sentence.

(CN) - A woman who claimed to have unearthed repressed memories of being raped decades ago by a now deceased priest cannot sue a Catholic diocese because her claims are barred by the statute of limitations, the 8th Circuit ruled.
Before Pamela Baye and her husband, Sylvan, sued the diocese of Rapid City, S.D., in 2007, she had a long history of abuse and mental illness.