wellcome my name is natasha sherman and i am your host and i'd like to start today's show with a trailer from a documentary called pursuit of truth adult survivors of child sexual abuse seeking justice was you sexually abused her says she was twelve years old there isn't other people there are witnesses this is the crime that always takes place in secret and right now our legal system is operating in a way that prefers the predator protects the predator and keeps the victims out of court the response was so protective of the perpetrator and it was so dismissive of the damage to human life and after the church's response one of the most intimate aspects of your life off then all we have is the victim's account of what happened and we have to champion that we have to go an advocate on behalf of that victim and i asked him why he did it he replied it was because of the stresses of life every survivor i know that's done he has come out on the other side stronger him articulate more beautiful more of an incredible human being whose soul has been tested and who has come out the other side heroes you know a victim has to wonder is it worth it and we really need is for victims to understand that it's always worth it because having voice seeking that truth is the human truth it was about fighting to do what was right you know because your determination that person will not be able to harm another kid so that even just that trailer is extremely compelling and riveting i'd like to now introduce my two guests for today that will be gibson is the mother of a survivor of childhood sexual abuse she is also the executive producer and co producer of this film she is the founder and c e o of the vertigo charitable foundation or v c s whose mission it is to help reform the legal systems response to survivor cases welcome valorie so my other guest is neil jaffe and neal is co producer of the film and is v c s legal counsel welcome natasha so one of the worst things that we can do as a society i think is to turn a full searing crime into something commonplace or old news and this subject is clearly never old news and additionally it seems we are quite unaware of how few of these crimes are brought to justice and how extremely challenging the process is if they are brought into the legal system so valerie let's start with you your son was sexually abused as a child and you didn't find out until he was a young adult is that correct that is correct my sense both to me when you was a seeing your colle and he was twenty one years old at the time and that was the first time i had become aware that a family member had ever made in the seventy's that you know as a mother i mean it's just i want to collapse and bend over you know hearing that what that must have been like for you and and him and everybody else involved in your life because life was never the same and  then you decided to make this documentary is that correct req i made that documentary based on my experience going through the legal system  son first reported to me that he had been abused who called me and he didn't tell me that directly it took him about what he five minutes in a phone conversation to get it all out and like i said i had absolutely no idea i was floored and like anything else any other crime you say something happened to watch out somebody was abused you go to the bully and that's what we did shortly thereafter went grammar county maryland police station and reported the crime and after we reported the crime i began to feel my offer began to feel like it was on death years and that no one really was going to do anything about it that compelled me to find out why no one was taking responsibility or the police department was not interested in these cases so that's really what led me to make the documentary that i felt like we weren't the only family that this happened to and there had to be a better way it's just again mind boggling and unfathomable because not only has a crime been committed but the years of you know living with that and then when you report it it's treated not victim friendly so neal i'm going to ask you from a legal point of view how many of these cases do get into the courts finally and what's the success rate well those are very difficult questions then you answer caution because it's just picks are not available for the number cases that actually reach the legal system and the number of cases that result in a conviction if very little cases one of the best practices that we are advocating for is the transparency of those types of statistics who should be kept by law enforcement and by prosecutors offices as best we can tell our research in contacting various offices many offices don't even keep coming to the district and those that you keep them private so we believe it's important the public to know how many cases are actually being reported to release what percentage of those cases were from the  valerie so you know this documentary is really it shows how challenging it is for the victims to move it into  court and how daunting the questioning is and the challenges that they're put under what for you what was the biggest challenge and what for you is the main thing that you would or main one or two things that you would want changed well they hire system it's challenging and we try my privacy and i think for me it was about saving my son and like any survivor that is kept a secret for a long car they are fragile and they need to be treated with respect with the knowledge that they are probably and would support the bigger system  and it just doesn't happen it just meant that happened and i think what i want most or golf with people to know long horsemen when the first reporters get it wrong the case is never going to go in for because if you're not strong and you have no supports if you're never going to make it through that system and i'm going to interrupt you here because clearly there are problems but in order to you know make it real so what were some of the things the fate of yours along the way so you reported did they treat it dismissively did they treat him dismissively did they do any follow up what did they and again you know in the documentary you start to see that this is a crime where there were no witnesses and so because there are no witnesses i'm assuming  enforcement discourages people from pursuing it because it's a hard case to prove is this accurate or again what what happened along the way that really was most distressing i think the most distressing thing was it was like you said treat it as a dismissive case it happened a long time it happened a long time ago you are an outstanding sits in your perpetrator is is  outstanding citizen that you should get on with your life and i think that was the most dismissive thing a judge could say a lawyer could say is to get on with your lives so he was a victim you know finally and from everything i've read and seen you know a lot of those memories don't even surface for a long time and then they surface in bits and pieces and then there's the whole shame aspect and who do i tell and who will believe and and all of that and then they finally voice what happened and it's treated like get over it in the past wreck so and then what has you come back and say no i'm not going to be dismissed that takes a tremendous amount of  become back and picked tremendous amount of courage to even come forward and i think no one ever puts those two things together how much courage it ever took to come for just say it happened and i think for me when i saw that happening in our nation i went to other places i think the first thing i want to do is make sure that this its best i can make sure that this doesn't happen to any other family and so i went to ideas research again and be ok here we go i will do all of you know everything necessary to break a safe or so for me again you know i'm always looking for our viewing audience that's a big clue so that if you report it to someone who is dismiss you look for somebody else to report it to so neal i'm going to ask you what's the biggest challenge for you you know again in the documentary they talk about you know these people who have to really live and relive and relive and they're badgered and questioned and made to divulge extraordinarily terrible details why how do you prepare your clients and what's the biggest challenge for you well the his or her perpetrator in the legal system and to be given an opportunity to tell his or her story to explain really what happened to them and the challenge from the lawyers perspective is comparing the survivor that type of compensation the criminal justice system is an adversary system as you know and the credibility of the survivors are going to be challenge writer and forming survivor what is going to happen in with a group process at every stage it's very powerful were lawyers to know what to expect but it's surprising how many lawyers don't inform their clients what's going to come next the pairing would be survivor by reviewing the evidence in the case by doing mock examinations in cross examination by going into the courtroom in the courthouse in advance of this imbiber know what he or she is going to be facing one by educating everybody in the system as to what this survivor is actually going through extremely important thing for anyone who's watching who might be in this situation to understand and to know that this is what should happen that you want to find someone who's going to work with you in a supportive but mary preparatory way valerie you know your case was just your son's case was just recently resolved one of the things from our conversation i'm assuming that but one of the things that in the documentary which we will be running on the station that the it's exactly what you pointed to neal the the the it was very empowering for them as grueling as it was finally taking that step was empowering and healing in some way so valerie would you say that that's the case with your son or was it resolved in a very unsatisfactory way i think you know my conversations with my son started therapy shortly after his disclosure and he stayed in therapy continuously and past the trial date we never actually got to trial and as a matter of fact would make you know i'm making a follow up documentary to this to pursue the truth this is saying the things that happened off the record you're not that people are not aware and those are a lot of things that happened in our judge told us that we should get on with our lives and pretty much that it was over and the constituents in new jersey did not want to pay for a long expensive trial so we should settle it and when we walked out there was no settlement no meeting of the mind which is over is the judge dismissed the case without any settlement agreement any agreement at all so it just ended one day before we and at the time that we got dismissed or alcoholic kicked out of court he was prepared to face is a perpetrator just never got a chance so we really never got a chance to tell his tru his you know it's it's almost leaves me speechless but so thrilled you're going to do a documentary about that people need to be educated people need to be informed people need to know how to  prepare but how devastating that it would just be dismissed and then the perpetrator suing you for defamation i mean it's just unbelievable so it seems to me in the research or in the served the country for different police departments that were trying to get it right and we came across action oregon and they had if you have a program and it seemed to have all the right components to it that would make it survivor friendly and you could do a partial reporting get the whole report and you could call the police department or go online and say hey this person abused me i don't want to do anything right now but i want to let me know you know we know that a lot of perpetrators there are multiple big them and this allows someone to or if they start be in the same name over and over again then they could follow that person and they could use other survivors to support each other grants to train officers train police departments comes down to finding and how much how much police departments really really want to pursue these crimes they're difficult to prove  so you know we have four or five minutes left i want to give each of you a chance to say what ever it is that you think is really important for us to know and i'll start with you neal thanks i think one point for your viewers to know is that statutes of limitations are particularly difficult person viper's knows are the laws that set time limits for filing legal  particular although there's no statute of limitations for sexual assault there are statutes or lesser sexual crimes against children there's also a statute of limitation in civil claims against  mean bombing abuse a joker i know there's been a strong movement in new jersey to change you know eliminate those statutes of limitations so i would encourage yours to contact their representatives in the state legislatures eliminate statutes of limitations as other states in all john sex abuse cases i think that's really important and you don't even have to be involved in any case or your you know anyone in your is really most important for us to know i think most people think to now is everyone is not a specialist in this area and if you are going to go forward you need to find an attorney that specializes in adult survivors of child sexual abuse and it's not a personal injury lawyer and it's not a lawyer that just says anything it's i want to know well and there aren't very many of those and i found that out personally that you need to have someone that truly knows what they're doing to handle the face and looking back on it if you had it to do over again what would you have done i would have demanded action when i know enough now to know that i did not have to except what was given to me and you know from the detectives perspective and from my lawyer my legal team i would have known and that i didn't have to except what was given to me and i think you really have to be knowledgeable or you have to go to someone and you recognize whether or not they know this area  it was really difficult because i found myself being a lawyer being a mother being a litigant being everything and i didn't want to do that wow yeah and that's really powerful and i think what you said is be a demand for excellence and again not be afraid to say not you not you and i can expect more and i should expect more particularly advocating for your child you know and i think sometimes people feel disempowered and they think they have to trust the authority and someone with a sign on their door saying attorney at law is an authority or the first detective they meet is an authority and really i think what you said is probably key is just be a demand for excellence be unstoppable so we're at the end of our time and i just want to thank you so much not only for coming on the show but for the work that you're doing for being such powerful advocates and for not giving up and you know we will show pursuit of truth on our station and i invite people to watch to take whatever steps they can take in whatever their situation is even if it's only to make a call and say hey we need to change the law so i look forward to your next documentary thank you so much again