EMAIL DETAILS

Another voice in support of massive Statute of Limitations reform. What a tragedy.

Patricia Dailey Lewis, Esquire
Executive Director
Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children
4 E. 8th Street Suite 302
Wilmington, DE 19801
302-295-8340
www.beaubidenfoundation.org <http://www.beaubidenfoundation.org/>
patty@beaubidenfoundation.org <mailto:patty@beaubidennfoundation.org>

“We have seen the progress that can be made when society commits to shining a bright light on a crime like domestic violence, and we are seeing the beginning of what can be accomplished if we continue shining that bright light on child abuse. As adults, we have a legal and moral obligation to stand up and speak out for children who are being abused. These children cannot speak for themselves.” —Beau Biden


> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: HELEN MCGONIGLE <attymcg@yahoo.com>
> Subject: an introduction and about Rhode Island
> Date: September 9, 2016 at 1:10:26 PM EDT
> To: <patty@beaubidenfoundation.org>
> Reply-To: HELEN MCGONIGLE <attymcg@yahoo.com>
>
>
> Ms. Lewis - I realize you have no idea who I am but I thought I would try to write as I admired from afar (I live in CT) and great admiration the
> work Beau Biden did as Attorney General of the state of Delaware. First and foremost was his work in the arena of child protection and helping steer through the statute of limitations reform. I never wrote to him or anything like that but I was very aware of who he was he what he did.
>
> To introduce myself, first and foremost I am a concerned mother, the hardest of jobs. After all a women's place is "she is the mother of the human race" a jazz song lyric I once heard but a phrase that seems to be often forgotten. I am also a lawyer and Iam also a victim of Catholic clergy abuse, but I try not to let that define me. Not always an easy thing.
>
> I was deeply saddened to learn of Beau's illness and then his death. I cannot even begin to express my condolences to
> the entire Biden family. Like anyone touched by the premature loss of someone so loved by his family, it brought
> back all the feelings I had when I lost my sister in 2005 and them my brother at 2008, for different reasons, suicides
> after extended battles with depression. Some losses you simply cannot get over. That same year, 2008, I lost a
> client who played pivotal role in my life, also to brain cancer. His name was Michael Powel and Mike left a legacy of
> his own. It was his mission in life also to protect children and he spent his last few years doing that -- if only to
> save just one. He was a victim of childhood sexual abuse - by clergy and a lay worker of the Catholic Church.
>
> So its in the spirit of both these great men and my own siblings (my sister was a victim of clergy abuse) that I
> write you. The turning point for me was 2005 when I was trying to prevent my sister from slipping away and then my
> own memories of having been sexually abused starting at age 6, by a horrific serial sexual abuse whose birth name was
> John Gerard Smyth but ordained name was Fr. Brendan Smyth. If you google his name Fr. Brendan Smyth or his name and
> mine (Helen McGonigle) or his name and cardinal Sean Brady you will see Smyth's photograph and information about him.
> He was a Nobertine (the same order as Archmere in Delaware) and after abusing children in Ireland, N. Ireland,
> Scotland and Wales he was sent to my tiny parish in the suburban town of East Greenwich RI. My family had moved
> there from Pittsburgh PA in 1966. I won't go into the details of it all but suffice it to say, Smyth's case was a
> rare instance where a pedophile priests actually admitted abusing hundreds of children - if not close to a thousand.
> He even pled guilty on 141 counts of child molestation in N. Ireland and Ireland if you combine all the prosecutions and
> he died in prison in 1997. All unknown to me at the time and up until 2005 His case even collapsed the goverment of
> Ireland in 1994 and brought down (disgraced) two cardinals. He has been featured in 7 documentaries RTE, UTV, BBC, two
> of which won awards for the film crews - Royal Television Society (Ressurection of Brendan Smyth) and a BAFTA (This
> World: the Shame of the Catholic Church). As recently as last summer, the N. Ireland Historical Abuse Commission,
> held a week long hearing on just Smyth. The victim testimony is gut wrenching. One of Smyth's colleagues, another
> Norbertine, Fr. Fitzgerald even testified that the Norbertine name in Ireland is considered one and the same as
> pedophilia.
>
> That said and despite all the notoriety abroad, Smyth's case was barely noticed here in the US. It is not for this
> reason I am writing. The reason I write is to see if anything can be done on a federal level in terms of statute
> of limitations reform even if restricting funding in some fashion to pressure state governments so that all states can
> have open windows or extended statutes of limitations like Beau achieved in Delaware? I was able to do some fairly
> positive work in CT before getting my own memories in 2005 and loosing my sister to suicide, then my brother. I have
> been on partial disability since having a stress induced grand mal seizure in 2008 around the time of my father's
> death (I had to go to church) and then my brother's death a few weeks later, back to back. The Diocese has paid for many
> of my medical bills. At least that much they have done but it does not bring back my siblings or give me my life back
> or make me the sole provider I need to be for my own daughter (age 16), So my apologies for any typos as a
> consequence as I am not what I use to be or should be.
>
> My legal case, a civil suit naming the Diocese of Providence RI through its bishop Thomas Tobin, is filed as Helen Hyde
> aka Helen McGonigle vs Thomas Tobin. Itt was joined with that of my childhood neighbor Jeffrey Thomas and was
> dismissed on the Rhode Island statute of limitations this June 2016. I had excellent legal represenation (my
> lawyer is from Delaware, Bart Dalton, and worked with Beau Biden in the DE, AGs office) and it was presented in the strongest of
> ways via a stipulation/agreement that both Jeff Thomas and I had been sexually abused by Fr Brendan Smyth between
> 1967-1970 and that we repressed our memories until 2005 and filed suit within three years of our memories surfacing. It
> put to the test whether or not the court would allow our dissociative amnesia to toll the 3 year general tort SOL.The
> operative statutes in RI are
>
> 1) the 3 year general statute of limitations
>
> 2) the 7 year discovery statute of limitations specific to
> child sexual abuse claims. BUT the RI Supreme Court had
> previously held this statute only applied to perpetrators,
> not "non-perps" of the sexual assault AND in addition to
> that also previously held that the RI Constitution
> prohibited retroactive application of this 7 year statute.
> With those rulings already in place, we didn't even try to
> argue for an application of the 7 year statute, RI 9-1-51.
> The key decision addressing this issue is Kelly v
> Marcantonio, 678 A2d 873 (1996).
>
> 3) the RI tolling statute which tolls the SOL for minority
> and various other things like the defendant being out of the
> country (which Smyth was but the Diocese was not of course)
> and "unsound mind".
>
> Both Jeff and I were born in 1961 so our age of majority would have been achieved in 1982 and three years from that,
> 1985 was when the Ri Supreme Court held our claims were time barred. I happened to be in law school in New Orleans at
> Loyola University at the time and oblivious to all of this. My memories of Smyth were blocked -- even his very
> existence. The court noted the incongruity of its holding in that we could not have excercised our rights since our
> memories did not surface until 2005. The justice who penned the opinion made much of the fact that the claims were
> 50 years old, whereas it took us 21 years to achieve majority and it took another ten years since I came forward
> in 2006, plus the coverup of Smyth's crimes in RI. It was not until the Diocese entered the stipulation that it
> publicly acknowledged Smyth had sexually abused children in the state of RI. When I first came forward in 2006 I begged
> the bishop and Vicar General to make this public knowledge, knowing the Diocese knew Smyth was an abuser as early as
> 1968, if not earlier. I have the very letter from 1968 when he was first caught molesting children in our parish and
> sent back to Ireland for treatment. I also have the sworn affidavit of a whistleblower Norbertine name Fr. Bruno
> Mulvhill given to the Irish Garda in 1995 where he states he took the call from the Bishop of Providence in early 1968
> when Smyth had been caught molesting children in RI. Fr. Bruno spent his career trying to expose Smyth's crimes and years later was run off the
> road in Germany and killed in a fatal crash. I made sure his work in exposing the truth was not in vain and made sure both the UN
> Convention on the Rights of the Child had his affidavit when they questioned the Vatican delegation in Geneva in January 2014 ( I was there)
> and that the N. Ireland Historical instutitonal Abuse Inquiry had Fr. Bruno's affidavit.
>
> The court ruling of course is a huge disappoint and I have to live with it. But I also have faith and also know good
> and bad things sometimes happen for a reason and we have to follow that path that God laid out for us and see it
> through. I can give some really good examples of why I see things in this way. I never regret being public about what happened to me.
>
> Back to the legal issues. I noticed the same kind of arguments were being raised (eg. the state constitution
> prohibits retroactive application of extensions of statutes of limitations even though the federal constitution
> allows it) in PA and bootstrapping with the PA constitution to block legislative reform.
>
> By comparison here in CT back in 1992 CT extended the CT SOL to age 35 for the first time, now its 48. The age 48
> legislative effort I worked hard on in 2002 before getting my own memories. Truly incredible. The CT statute was
> considered procedural in nature, like most civil SOls and did not violate due process by creating substantive rights.
> Therefore it has withstood state and federal constituional challenges.
>
> By comparison if you look at what happened in RI ( and I do not know if this is true of PA where the legislative reform
> encountered a similar state constitutional prohibition) but in 1986, and this may be just coincidental OR the church saw
> the writing on the wall, RI held a state constitutional convention. Evidently since the 1970s the RI General
> Assembly is mandated to consider a constitutional convention every 10 years. I am not sure there is any state in the
> nation that does that. Despite its size, RI is considered the most Catholic state in the nation per capita.
>
> That year, 1986 various proposed amendments to the state constitution were put forth including an abortion ban.
> Regardless of what your personal stance on that issue may be, the Catholic lobbying must have been strong. The
> abortion ban failed but what slipped into the state constitution that year, 1986, was a "civil" due process
> clause as the RI Supreme Court said in Kelly v Marcantonio 678 A 2d 873 (1996) and it is that due process clause contained in Art 1,
> section 2, which serves as the foundation of prohibiting retroactive application of the 7 year discovery statute for
> CSA claims. The victims do not get due process but the church does.
>
> I readily realize my case is over but want to have the best available insight into legislative reform in one of the most
> hostile of states. Although I have very limited funds and wish I could offer you a donation but I do is thank you for
> your work and express my condolences to the Biden family. I also do have contacts and can drum up support.
>
> I do not know if there is any interest on the part of the Biden Foundation on doing something on a federal level. I am
> just brainstorming and realize (yes its an election year and wait and see and the Catholic votes tends to drive the election)
> but what I was envisioning is some how setting a federal incentive program in place so that states like RI (or PA for that matter) can be more pro-active in the realm of child protection and perhaps some incentive that encouages not just legislative reform but state
> constitutional reform. I am not a political person, plus I a bit compromised these days but I do want to call these
> issues to your attention. Maybe just maybe something can be done. Is there an alliance of some sort that can be formed?
>
> Lastly, my apologies for being so long winded. I am a laywer after all :- )
>
> Helen L. McGonigle
> Attorney at Law
> 22 Shamrock Drive
> P.O. Box 540
> Brookfield, CT 06804
>
> tel 203-740-0074
> fax 203-740-1171
>
>