News from the South - Missouri News Feed
Bill extending statute of limitations for child sex abuse survivors clears Missouri House

Bill extending statute of limitations for child sex abuse survivors clears Missouri House
by Clara Bates, Missouri Independent
February 20, 2025
The Missouri House on Thursday approved a proposal to extend the civil statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
Filed by state Rep. Brian Seitz, a Republican from Branson, the bill would extend the amount of time survivors have to file civil action against a perpetrator. Survivors would have until age 41 to file civil action, rather than age 31.
Seitz’s bill was inspired by sexual abuse allegations at Kanakuk Kamps, in the Branson area.
The legislation that contained Seitz’s bill passed out of the House on Thursday 92 to 42, with 24 voting present. The opposition, from Democrats and Republicans alike, was due to parts of the bill unrelated to the childhood sexual abuse piece.
It now heads to the Senate for consideration.
In 2023, the bill didn’t receive a vote in the House until May, when session was nearly over, and never got to a committee hearing in the Senate. Last year, the bill never came to a vote in the House.
Seitz’s bill hasn’t had a committee hearing this year but was passed out of committee unanimously in the last two years.
Opposition in previous years has come primarily from insurance companies raising concerns about being exposed to liability.
The legislation was tacked on as an amendment to another bill filed by state Rep. Matthew Overcast, a Republican from Ava.
“This amendment is not the perfect fix,” Seitz said during debate on the House floor earlier this week. “It’s a start. And it gives victims time and hope…I ask this body to, once again, in a bipartisan manner, do what’s right and help those who were harmed as children.”
Personal injury claims
The underlying bill relates to statutes of limitations for personal injury claims, which are governed by a separate legal framework than childhood sexual abuse claims.
Overcast’s bill reduces Missouri’s statute of limitations for personal injury claims from five years down to two years, meaning individuals would have less time to file a lawsuit after an injury.
Overcast said it would help the state compete economically and help small businesses protect themselves against frivolous lawsuits.
“It’s good, sound legal policy,” Overcast said Thursday. “It promotes the economic viability of our state, puts us in a place to compete with our neighboring border states who are well below our current five year statute of limitations.”
Missouri’s statute of limitations for personal injury claims is higher than all but two states, Maine and North Dakota.
Opponents said the change would stymie access to justice for those who are injured and seeking redress.
“This is designed to protect insurance companies, not you,” said state Rep. David Tyson Smith, a Democrat from Columbia. “If you get injured, you need that time, five years is not overly generous.”
Several lawmakers said they support the amendment to extend the statute of limitations for childhood sex abuse survivors but not the underlying bill to reduce the statute of limitations for personal injury.
“The problem I have with this is the amendment is so good,” Smith said. “I may have to vote ‘present’ on this because of the great amendment that’s on this.
“And I know that, probably, there’s a strategy behind that.”
The bill was heard immediately after the House approved legislation to protect a pesticide maker from charges that it didn’t warn customers that one of its most popular products causes cancer, which state Rep. Raychel Proudie pointed out.
“When someone hurts you, you should certainly be able to seek justice. Justice is something that we should be entitled to,” said Proudie, a Ferguson Democrat. “Reducing that here is kind of breathtaking.”
State Rep. Michael Davis, a Republican from Belton, said the two components of the bill are inconsistent.
“I’m wondering, how can it be both that it’s good to lower the statute of limitations for personal injury,” he said, “but it’s also, on the other side, good to be doubling the statute of limitations for the child offenses, which do not start running until they become an adult?”
Overcast replied that he doesn’t “see them both in the same lens.”
“I’m looking at this through economic vitality for the state perspective,” Overcast said, adding that lowering the statute of limitations for personal injury claims will incentivize people to bring claims earlier.
“We’re trying to pass smart policy in this state that allows businesses to grow without burdening access to justice, and this bill does that,” Overcast said.
When state Democratic state Rep. LaKeySha Bosley asked Seitz whether there were other possible avenues for his bill, he said “this may be the last time this year.”
Seitz urged members to vote for the bill and said once it is in the Senate’s hands, “it will be changed in some way, hopefully making it more palatable for all sides.”
He added: “Let us not make perfect the enemy of the good. This is the vehicle in which we can give these adult children a chance.”
Child sex abuse survivors
According to the nonprofit child protection advocacy group Child USA, Missouri is currently one of 18 states with the age cap set at 34 years old or younger — which the group ranks as the worst states in terms of statutes of limitations for child sex abuse survivors.
At Seitz’s bill’s initial hearing in 2023, former Kanakuk Kamps camper Evan Hoffpauir testified about the impact of Missouri’s statute of limitations on him.
For more than a decade, Hoffpauir believed the camp director who sexually abused him at the Branson-area Kanakuk Kamps had acted alone.
As a child growing up in Branson, he was involved with Kanakuk’s youth ministries, and said he was abused by Kanakuk director Pete Newman from 1999 to 2003. Newman pleaded guilty in 2010 to seven counts of sexual abuse, and the prosecutor said Newman’s victim count might be in the hundreds.
Newman is currently serving two life sentences plus 30 years in prison.
Kanakuk leadership maintains that they had no advanced knowledge of his behavior, and Newman was a “master of deception.”
Initially, Hoffpauir believed them.
“[Leadership] stated they fired Newman as soon as they were aware of his abusive behaviors, and that he acted alone,” Hoffpauir said at that hearing. “And I believed this narrative for over a decade.”
But when he came to believe camp leadership was responsible, too, it was too late: But by the time new evidence was uncovered through national media investigations, Hoffpauir was too old to file a civil suit against the camp and its leadership.
“As I sought out legal action in an effort to hold my enablers accountable, I was crushed to find out I was a few years past Missouri’s statute of limitations,” Hoffpauir said.
“The law was telling me there was nothing to be done about it,” he added, “and the clock had run out on me.”
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Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.
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News from the South - Missouri News Feed
Billy Long’s bid to lead IRS under scrutiny over donations that paid off personal debt

by Jason Hancock, Missouri Independent
April 19, 2025
Former Missouri Congressman Billy Long received $137,000 in campaign contributions — just enough to pay off a personal loan to his campaign — soon after he was tapped to lead the Internal Revenue Service.
Some of the donations are connected to companies that will be policed by the agency Long has been nominated to run.
According to recently filed financial disclosures, which were first reported on by the investigative journalism site The Lever, Long only raised roughly $36,000 in the last two years.
He was named as President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the IRS in December, and in January received $137,000 in donations. He then paid back the remaining $130,000 in debt from a $250,000 loan he made to his unsuccessful 2022 U.S. Senate campaign.
The donations, and their timing, have renewed criticism of Long’s appointment, which still awaits Senate confirmation. Senate Democrats have already called for a criminal investigation of firms with ties to Long that they allege are involved in fraudulent tax credit schemes.
Among the donors to Long’s campaign are financial advisers from some of those firms.
“When they told Billy he’d be in charge of revenue collection, did they forget to tell him that meant for the American people, not his own bank account?” said Sean Nicholson, a longtime progressive activist and campaign consultant in Missouri.
Jordan Libowitz, vice president of communications for the liberal watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the timing of the donations and the “explicit knowledge that they’d end up directly in Long’s bank account, it’s hard to see them as anything other than an attempt to curry favor with the future head of the IRS.”
Long did not respond to a request for comment.
Billy Long, Trump’s nominee to lead IRS, touts credential tax experts say is dubious
After a career as an auctioneer and conservative radio host, Long served six terms representing a Southwest Missouri congressional district. He gave up his seat to run for U.S. Senate in 2022, losing in the GOP primary to now-Sen. Eric Schmitt.
Long then worked for Lifetime Advisors and earned at least $5,000 in income from White River Energy. Both companies have drawn scorn from Senate Democrats, and intense media scrutiny, over their involvement in controversial tax credit programs.
In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a limit on the amount of post-election funds a candidate can use to pay back personal loans. The majority found the limit an unconstitutional restriction on the freedom of speech, while the dissenting justices argued removing it would pave the way for political corruption.
“Even if our broken campaign finance system allows this behavior,” Libowitz said, “it raises serious questions about future conflicts of interest and needs to be addressed in any hearings (Billy Long) has before Congress.”
Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.
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News from the South - Missouri News Feed
Illinois family desperate for answers after man goes missing in Mississippi River

SUMMARY: An Illinois family is urgently seeking answers after 52-year-old Shane Bear fell into the Mississippi River while being chased by police over the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge on Wednesday night. The family fears that the search efforts have slowed and that their loved one may still be alive. Bear, who had mental health struggles and outstanding warrants, was reportedly attempting to climb under the bridge when he slipped and fell into the river. Illinois State Police, alongside the Coast Guard and local fire departments, have conducted aerial and boat searches, but the family demands more thorough efforts.

An Illinois family is demanding police do more after they said their loved one fell into the Mississippi River.
They said it happened as he was being chased by police Wednesday night over the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge.
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News from the South - Missouri News Feed
Missouri health department announces first measles case of 2025

by Clara Bates, Missouri Independent
April 18, 2025
Missouri’s first confirmed measles case of the year involves a child in Taney County, the health department announced Friday afternoon.
The child’s vaccination status “has not yet been verified,” according to the press release.
The child, who is not a Missouri resident, was visiting Taney County and was diagnosed “soon after arrival,” Lisa Cox, spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a press release.
Taney County is in southwest Missouri, and its largest city is Branson.
“Exposure is believed to be limited, and known contacts have been identified and contacted,” Cox said, adding that the state is supporting Taney County’s health department to investigate possible exposure.
The case is “associated with recent international travel,” Cox said.
Measles is a highly-contagious virus the country declared eliminated 25 years ago, but that has resurged with falling vaccination rates.
“For those unvaccinated or those unsure of their vaccination status, now is the time to review records and get caught up if needed,” Dr. George Turabelidze, state epidemiologist with DHSS, said in the press release.
The percent of Missouri kindergarteners fully vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella has declined over the last several years, from 95% in the 2019-2020 school year to 91% in the 2023-2024 school year, in public schools, per DHHS data. In private schools, the drop has been even larger, from 92% to 85% in the same period.
Nationally, there are at least 800 reported cases of measles across 25 states, according to Center for Disease Control data as of Friday. That doesn’t include Missouri’s case, Cox said, because the state received lab test results Thursday night, after the federal reporting deadline for this week.
That is the highest number for a single year since 2019 and is still growing.
The majority of measles infections nationally have been reported in a West Texas outbreak. There have been two confirmed deaths, both in Texas.
Kansas has reported 37 cases, possibly linked to the Texas outbreak.
There are outbreaks in Canada and Mexico, too, and several states have reported isolated cases as the result of international travel.
At the same time, the federal government has cut grant funding set aside for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to encourage vaccinations, according to St. Louis Public Radio.
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Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.
The post Missouri health department announces first measles case of 2025 appeared first on missouriindependent.com
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