Law signed last fall allows Iowa woman to sue man she says sexually abused her decades ago
Sherri Moler spoke with KCCI last spring about the man who she says sexually abused. Moler was shocked to learn he was a surgeon in the Des Moines area.
Sherri Moler spoke with KCCI last spring about the man who she says sexually abused. Moler was shocked to learn he was a surgeon in the Des Moines area.
Sherri Moler spoke with KCCI last spring about the man who she says sexually abused. Moler was shocked to learn he was a surgeon in the Des Moines area.
A new federal law could bring an Iowa woman closure decades after being sexually abused.
Sherri Moler lives in Scott County. Last spring, KCCI spoke with her as she publicly shared what she says occurred in the summer of 1975.
Moler says was 14 years old at a gymnastics camp at the University of Iowa that summer, when she was sexually abused by an athletic trainer. An article by The Daily Iowan in 1976 shows the man was convicted of lascivious acts with a 14-year-old girl.
"I had to stand in front of 12 strangers and tell a horrific part of my life and I had to look at him," Moler said in 2022.
Decades later, in 2020, Moler says she was shocked to learn that man became a doctor and he was offered a deferred judgment.
KCCI learned in 2022 that a deferred judgment means a person was placed on probation and if it was completed, the case is essentially dismissed.
"I couldn't imagine how — if you were found guilty — that wasn't the outcome," Moler said in 2022.
Court documents filed this week show Moler is ready to go back to court again.
It's something she can do thanks to a 2022 legislation signed into law by President Joe Biden. Known as the "Eliminating Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims Act of 2022," the law abolishes the 10-year statute of limitations for victims who were minors when they experienced sex offenses at the federal level.
It allows them to file civil claims.
Moler is suing Lynn Lindaman named in documents as a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who had a practice in Polk County up until this year.
The lawsuit alleges Moler has experienced "mental health diagnoses and treatment of Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, pain and suffering," and more.
The lawsuit seeks punitive damages and actual damages of $150,000.
"I need to know that by going to court as a 14-year-old girl that I did the right thing," Moler said in her interview last year.
KCCI reached out to Moler on Thursday, but she couldn't comment.
KCCI also reached out to the attorney we were referred to last year for Lindaman, but have not yet heard back.