A Queens, NY judge has rejected Bob Oliva’s motion to dismiss the $20 million lawsuit filed by a man who was sexually abused by the former Christ the King Regional High School basketball coach.
The decision by Queens Supreme Court Judge Roger N. Rosengarten means the case will go to trial later this year unless Oliva’s attorney, Henry Weil, files an appeal or Oliva reaches a settlement with the plaintiff, Jimmy Carlino.
“The trial will continue to expose Bob Oliva for the sexual predator that he is,” Carlino’s Boston-based attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, told the New York Daily News.
The Daily News reported that Oliva admitted in a Boston courtroom last year that he had sexually abused Carlino during a trip to Massachusetts in 1976, when Carlino was 14. Oliva was sentenced to probation for five years and required to register as a sex offender.
Weil had argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed because it was barred by the statute of limitations and Oliva had not been charged or convicted of abusing Carlino in New York.
Rosengarten wrote in his decision that under New York law, the clock on the statute of limitation is reset after a defendant is convicted of a crime — and that it doesn’t matter where the crime occurred or where the defendant was charged.
The lawsuit, filed on April 1, 2011, three days before Oliva pleaded guilty to two sex-abuse charges, says the disgraced former coach abused Carlino more than 100 times between 1974 and 1978. Most of the abuse took place in New York, the suit says, but Oliva also molested Carlino during out-of-state trips.
Another man told the Boston grand jury that indicted Oliva that the legendary coach had sexually abused him also.
