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Maryland lawmakers are considering ending the state’s statute of limitations for when lawsuits can be filed against institutions related to child sexual abuse, though the state’s courts are likely to decide whether such a change in the law is constitutional if the General Assembly passes one.

Accusers who are now adults were scheduled to testify in favor of the legislation at a hearing Thursday.

Currently, people in Maryland who say they were sexually abused as children can’t sue after they reach the age of 38. The Maryland House has approved legislation in recent years that would have lifted that age limit, but it stalled in the state Senate.

This year, state Sen. Will Smith, who chairs the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, is sponsoring a bill that would end the age limit. He said in an interview that he’s confident the bill will pass this year but that the judiciary likely will have the final say.

Fifteen states have lifted statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse, according to Child USAdvocacy, a nonprofit that advocates for better laws to protect children. Twenty-four have approved revival periods known as “lookback windows,” which are limited timeframes in which accusers can sue, regardless of how long ago the alleged abuse occurred.

In 2017, Maryland raised the age that accusers can file lawsuits from 25 to 38. But the law also included language, known as a statute of repose, that some say prevents lawmakers from extending the statute of limitations again.



Lawyers for a 97-year-old former secretary to the SS commander of Nazi Germany’s Stutthof concentration camp asked Tuesday for their client to be acquitted, arguing that she didn’t know about the atrocities committed at the camp located in what is now northern Poland.

Irmgard Furchner has been on trial for over a year at the Itzehoe state court in northern Germany. In her closing statement, Furchner said she was sorry for what had happened and regretted that she had been there at the time, according to a court spokesman.

Her lawyers requested her acquittal, arguing that the evidence hadn’t shown beyond doubt that Furchner knew about the systematic killings at the camp, meaning there was no proof of intent as required for criminal liability.

Prosecutors accused Furchner of being part of the apparatus that helped the Nazis’ Stutthof camp function during World War II. In their closing arguments last month, they called for her to be convicted as an accessory to murder and given a two-year suspended sentence.

Tens of thousands of people died at Stutthof and its satellite camps, or on death marches at the end of World War II.

Furchner, who made headlines last year when she absconded from trial, is being tried in juvenile court because she was under 21 at the time of the alleged crimes.

The court said a verdict is expected on Dec. 20.




A New York City judge’s son who stormed the U.S. Capitol wearing a furry “caveman” costume was sentenced on Friday to eight months in prison.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg told Aaron Mostofsky that he was “literally on the front lines” of the mob’s attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

“What you and others did on that day imposed an indelible stain on how our nation is perceived, both at home and abroad, and that can’t be undone,” the judge told Mostofsky, 35.

Boasberg also sentenced Mostofsky to one year of supervised release and ordered him to perform 200 hours of community service and pay $2,000 in restitution.

Mostofsky had asked the judge for mercy, saying he was ashamed of his “contribution to the chaos of that day.” “I feel sorry for the officers that had to deal with that chaos,” said Mostofsky, who must report to prison on or after June 5.

Federal sentencing guidelines in his case recommended a prison sentence ranging from 10 months to 16 months. Prosecutors recommended a sentence of 15 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.





A defendant accused of fatally shooting a man because he didn’t want to pay him for a drug deal pleaded not guilty in Brown County Circuit Court Monday.

Pedro Santiago-Marquez is charged with first-degree intentional homicide and being party to mutilating a corpse in connection with the Sept. 27 murder of Jason Mendez-Ramos.

Prosecutors say Mendez-Ramos was angry that he had not been paid $80,000 for a cocaine deal. A criminal complaint says rather than pay for the cocaine, Santiago-Marquez shot him in the head with a pistol. The victim’s burned body was found at the edge of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus, WLUK-TV reported.

Security videos, cell phone tracking information, and DNA tie Rodriguez-Garcia to that scene, according to the criminal complaint.

Another man, 47-year-old Alexander Burgos-Mojica, is charged with harboring or aiding a felon in connection with the case. He returns to court March 18 for a balance of initial appearance. Rodriguez-Garcia returns to court March 21 for a status conference on the charge of mutilating a corpse.



A man who broke an ankle on an obstacle course at a pumpkin patch will get his foot inside a courthouse again.

A judge wrongly dismissed Tarek Hamade’s lawsuit against DeBuck’s Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch, the Michigan Court of Appeals said Thursday.

Hamade fractured an ankle while running across tires that were part of an obstacle course known as “Tough Farmer.” He said he was injured while stepping on a tire that was very soft at the fall attraction near Belleville.

DeBuck’s argued that the spongy tire was an open and obvious risk, a key legal standard under Michigan liability law.

“It’s an obstacle course. It’s meant to be difficult to traverse,” attorney Drew Broaddus said at a Feb. 3 hearing.

But the appeals court said the tire’s condition was not obvious.

“If they’d called it the ‘spongy tire challenge’ we might have a different case. But that’s not what it was presented as,” Judge Michael Gadola said.

Hamade’s lawsuit now returns to Wayne County Circuit Court.



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