Olympic Skater Launches Campaign Against New York's Child Sex Law

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — A former Olympic skater is relaunching her campaign to extend New York's statute of limitations on child sex crimes months after Albany officials refused to vote on a bill.

Speed skater and child abuse victim Bridie Farrell is raising funds to lobby for the Child Victims Act, a law that would increase the time allowed for child victims to file suit or bring charges against attackers which state senators declined to vote on in June.

“The message is quite clear,” Farrell wrote on the GoFundMe campaign website where she announced she'd relaunch her grassroots campaign. “Stop F-----g Kids.”

Farrell is among a group of advocates who want to expand New York’s current statute of limitations, which is the strictest in the nation and grants victims just five years past their 18th birthdays to take legal action against attackers.

Advocates hoped the Child Victims Act — which would give victims until their 50th birthdays to file civil suits and until their 28th birthdays to press criminal charges — would be passed in the state senate this summer, but Republican lawmakers refused to vote on the bill before their legislative session ended on June 21.

Farrell is now raising money on GoFundMe to fight what she says are “pedophile protecting institutions that are spending millions of dollars to prevent New York from correcting this archaic law.”

Farrell, who says she was herself a victim of child sexual abuse, earned $4,786 of her $15,000 goal in the sixteen days since she launched her campaign on Sept. 26.

The former Olympic skater said she’ll spend the money traveling across New York State to mobilize a grassroots campaign and lobby local representatives.

Farrell, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, concluded her statement with a note of appreciation to contributors.

“Thank you for supporting our efforts to get New York to Stop F-----g Kids.”