IPR has confirmed the Grand Traverse County district attorney’s office has received an unredacted copy of the report commissioned by Interlochen Center for the Arts documenting first-hand accounts of incidents of sexual abuse dating back to the 1950s.
A Boston-based independent investigation team found some 70 instances of sexual abuse by 47 individuals associated with Interlochen. About a third of those on whom allegations center are deceased.
District Attorney Noelle Moeggenburg told IPR by email that she’s looking into the cases that “may still be prosecuted.”
“When I say may,” she wrote, “that is because in each case, the statute of limitations needs to be investigated.”
A statute of limitations is the length of time after an incident that a person can be held liable in court for their actions.
Whether or not the people accused in the report can be prosecuted depends on, according to Moeggenburg, “the alleged victim's date of birth, whether or not the (accused) remained within the state of Michigan, and the type of crime committed.”
The severity of the crime will be one of the main factors in deciding the statute of limitations, according to University of Michigan Law professor Frank Vandervort.
“The general rule would be, for the most serious offense, there is no statute of limitations,” said Vandervort. “In less serious offenses, the statute of limitations is either 10 years or the individual’s 21st birthday, whichever comes later.”
Those rules apply to criminal cases. The statute of limitations for a civil lawsuit, according to Vandervort, is 10 years from the time of the incident.
Civil lawsuits can be filed by anyone at any time. They generally use monetary compensation to atone for the harmful actions of a person or an institution.
Vandervort said it’s possible that even if a lawsuit doesn’t prevail, it can still bring large monetary settlements or tie up the organizations in costly legal proceedings.
“There have been a number of organizations that have been put out of business or sent into bankruptcy,” he told IPR. “Various dioceses of the Catholic church, the Boy Scouts of America, these are institutions that have been basically sued into nonexistence because of exactly this issue.”
Most of the incidents outlined in the Interlochen report occurred in the 1970s, 80s and 90s; only 1 incident was reported in the 2010s.
Some advocates for sexual assault survivors say there should be no statute of limitations.
That’s the viewpoint of State Senator Kevin Hertel, a Democrat from southeast Michigan (St. Clair Shores).
Hertel is the lead sponsor on legislation that would extend the time that people have to sue over sexual assault or abuse — in some cases, up to their 42nd birthday.
The bills passed the state Senate on a bipartisan basis, but have been held up in a House committee for about a year.
“For me it’s not about which side they come from or who the sponsor is,” Hertel told IPR. “I think we just need to get this done so survivors of sexual assault have access to the justice system.”
Representative Brian BeGole is the chairman of the House committee where the legislation is currently sitting. He was not able to get back to IPR in time for this story.
