Friday, October 27, 2006

Does Minnis support bringing her husband to justice?

As we reported here, an investigation by FuturePAC has uncovered that Oregon GOP House Speaker Karen Minnis and her police officer/former legislator husband John appear to have covered up child sexual abuse committed by his brother, Tuck.

In 2005, Minnis sponsored House Bill 2015, which later was folded into House Bill 2316. The law eventually passed, expanding the statue of limitations to either the child’s 30th birthday or within 12 years of being reported to a law enforcement agency for the following felonies: Criminal Mistreatment; Rape I, II and III; Sodomy I, II and III; Unlawful Sexual Penetration I and II;Sexual Abuse I and II; Using a Child in Display of Sexual Conduct; Encouraging Child Sexual Abuse; Incest; Promoting Prostitution; and Compelling Prostitution.

Nice how she managed to skip the "failing to report" statue, eh?

Not only did Minnis sponsor this legislation, she gave testimony for it. You can hear it here (skip ahead to 20:45 on the time), but I've excerpted a large section of it below:

As many of you know--some of you don't know, my husband John was a Portland Police Officer for 27 years. And he passed legislation through this body that set up what they call the Child Abuse Investigation Team. They call it the CAT Team. That has an interdisciplinary model that has social workers, DAs , health professionals and police officers that took in these kinds of cases and work with these complaints.
And the devastation that is wrought upon children when an adult takes advantage of them is life long devastation. Life long devastation. It impacts people for the rest of their lives.

I don't believe that because a time limit has run out that somebody ought to get off being prosecuted for destroying another person's life. John would come home and tell me stories that were heart breaking and horrendous. And I've talked with people that have been the victims of such activity and as adults when they recall the incident. It was accompanied with tears and gut wrenching emotion because there had been no justice, no recourse.

Ladies and gentlemen I think we need to send a message that it doesn't matter who you are or what you do. That if you do something like this against one of the children of this state, there will be a price to pay. There will be a price to pay. Just because a clock runs out doesn't mean that you're not going to be held accountable.


Minnis' husband was OBLIGATED UNDER OREGON LAW to report his brother's actions to the police. He's been able to escape justice because the "clock ran out" and now he doesn't have to be held accountable.

Will she see to it that her husband pays the price?

Somehow I doubt it.