Prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump announced on Wednesday that he would represent child sex abuse victims of the Baltimore Archdiocese. Crump will join a coalition of lawyers that includes Adam P. Slater, whose firm specializes in child sex abuse cases.
“We stand honored to represent victims who have been sexually abused as children and suffered in silence for decades until we had great leaders in the Maryland legislature pass a law that told them finally, they could get some measure of justice,” Crump said.
The recently passed Maryland Child Victims Act lifts the statute of limitation on October 1 and allows victims an opportunity to file lawsuits even if their statutory time limit has expired.
“We believe the Maryland state constitution allows for a look back at the statute of limitations,” Slater said.
“This case is about holding the institution that enabled the abusers accountable. In this case of course it’s the Catholic Church, so even know some abusers are long deceased many were known abusers, the institution must be held accountable,” Slater added.
The coalition aims to file hundreds of lawsuits on behalf of the victims from October the first.
“Nobody was beyond this abuse,” Crump said. “You have Black victims, white victims, Hispanic victims. You have men, women. It was little boys. It was little girls. They preyed on them all.”
According to a 456-page report by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office which documented child abuse cases at the Archdiocese, a total of 600 children were abused over an 80-year period.
