SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Legislature passed a bill Wednesday that eliminates the statute of limitations for lawsuits against perpetrators of child sexual abuse. 
 
 Deondra Brown, co-founder of the nonprofit Foundation for Survivors of Abuse, watched from the Senate gallery as lawmakers engaged in a final debate before voting to pass HB277 and sending it to Gov. Gary Herbert for his signature. 
 
 “On behalf of victims across the state of Utah, we’re excited to know that we can kind of breathe, take our time in healing, and come forward and tackle that big legal case when and if we are every ready,” Brown said. 
 
 Brown has followed the progress of HB277 and testified in favor of the bill at committee meetings throughout the legislative process. Three Brown sisters, members of the 5 Browns piano quintet, were molested by their father, Keith Brown, as children. The sisters sought criminal charges in 2010 against their father, who had also been their professional manager. 
 
 Keith Brown was sentenced in March 2011 to 10 years to life for sodomy on a child, a first-degree felony, and one to 15 years each on two counts of sex abuse of a child, a second-degree felony. The crimes occurred when the girls were 13 years old or younger. 
 
 Current Utah law limits civil actions to four years after a victim’s 18th birthday. HB277 would remove those limitations and allow victims time to heal and muster the courage and maturity to take civil action and hold their abusers accountable, said bill sponsor Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan. 
 
 “Someone that victimizes a child should never be able to hide behind time — ever,” Ivory said. 
 
 The bill’s floor sponsor, Sen. Aaron Osmond, R-South Jordan, said 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 4 girls in Utah will suffer or have suffered from sexual abuse. He added that most children who are sexually abused don’t come to a realization or the ability to deal with the experience until after age 40. 
 
 The bill gives victims a four-year window from the time of discovery or remembrance of the child abuse experience to file civil action, Osmond said, allowing them to overcome emotional obstacles that often bar them from taking action. 
 
 As a result, perpetrators could be susceptible to lawsuits for crimes committed years ago, Ivory said. 
 
 Sen. Scott Jenkins, R-Plain City, argued against HB277, saying the statute of limitations was put in place for a reason and citing cases where individuals who realized repressed memories of child sexual abuse, but later discovered them to be wrong. He said he’s “not for abuse by any means,” but he’s concerned about what the bill would allow. 
 
 Sen. Gene Davis, D-Salt Lake City, joined Jenkins in voting against the bill. 
 
 After the Senate’s vote, Deondra Brown said victims of child sexual abuse shouldn’t have a “door closed in their face” because of time limits, and they should be granted the option if or when they decide they want to file civil actions against perpetrators. 
 
 She said victims deal with medical bills and health issues for “the rest of their lives” and shouldn’t have to shoulder the burden of paying for it, which she said costs the average victim up to $1 million over the course of their lives. 
 
 Victims should be allowed to pursue a case that would hold the perpetrator accountable and relieve that financial burden, Deondra Brown said. 
 
 “They’re the ones that inflicted this upon us to begin with,” she said. 
 
 When asked if she would consider civil action against her father, Deondra Brown said she had talked about a civil case several years ago with her siblings, but they felt as though they “were able to get the case that (they) needed though the criminal side of things." 
 
 “But honestly, I don’t know where I would be 10 years from now if that’s something I would still like to be able to explore,” she said. “I’d love to be able to have that option in the state of Utah.” 
 
 The Senate's final vote on the bill was 24-2. 
 
 Email: kmckellar@deseretnews.com ||||| RANDOLPH, Rich County — Under strong words from a judge and years of pain from his former student, a retired Rich High School teacher has been sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting the woman 22 years ago. 
 
 Michael Layne Williamson, 60, spoke of shame, pain and forgiveness as he appeared before 1st District Judge Thomas Willmore for sentencing on July 27. The former teacher pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, one second-degree felony, while the other was reduced to a third-degree felony. 
 
 No details of the case were released when Williamson was originally charged in November, and requests by the Deseret News to the Rich County sheriff's and attorney's offices for police documents were denied. Inquiries about appealing the denial were ignored. 
 
 In an audio recording of Williamson's sentencing hearing, the judge — unmoved by Williamson's apologies and scolding him for calling his actions a mistake — sentenced the former teacher to one to 15 years, with an additional term of up to five years to run concurrently. While in prison he must complete a sex offender course. 
 
 A pre-sentence report had recommended 210 days in jail for Williamson, his attorneys explained, asking that he be able to serve his time in home confinement as he battles stage 4 prostate cancer. Prosecutors did not ask for a specific punishment for Williamson, saying they left the decision to the judge's discretion. 
 
 Willmore scoffed at the short recommended sentence, which he attributed to the Justice Reinvestment Initiative and efforts to reduce prison populations. He based his sentence on the girl's young age, the position of trust that Williamson held, and the way he disgraced the "noble profession" of a teacher. 
 
 Reading from an apology letter describing the remorse and shame that he, too, has lived with, Williamson said in the hearing, "This indiscretion of mine was of the most heinous type." 
 
 Willmore interrupted at that moment. 
 
 "Let me stop you right there. It is not an indiscretion. You broke the law. And I heard from many of these letters from your family that it was a mistake," the judge said. 
 
 "A mistake means unintended consequences or a lapse of judgement," he continued, pounding his hand for emphasis. "That's far beyond a lack of judgment and indiscretion. You and your family tried to sweep this under the rug, tried to downplay this." 
 
 In an emotional testimony, the woman, now 35, showed the judge a picture of herself in eighth grade to reinforce that it wasn't an adult who was victimized, it was a child. 
 
 "You pushed forward little by little until I was so deep in that there was no way out. You were my teacher, my friend's dad, an adult, all of those people I was taught to respect and to listen to and to trust," the woman said. "You used all of it to satisfy your own perverted desires. You made sure I knew how much I would ruin everyone's life and everything around me if I ever told anyone. You made sure I knew how much you stood to lose if anyone ever found out. 
 
 "You put it all on my shoulders, those of a 13-year-old, to carry. I always blamed myself." 
 
 The woman, who the Deseret News has chosen not to name, explained that she kept her silence about what happened between her and her teacher, eventually leaving the state. On a recent trip back to Utah, however, the pain came rushing back, and she said she made a choice: Report the abuse to law enforcement or take her own life. 
 
 "Since breaking my silence I have attempted to begin processing everything I have pushed aside for two decades," she said, describing the blame, anger, hurt and embarrassment she long believed was of her own making. "I am 35 years old and I am now just starting to understand those things are a reflection of you and not me." 
 
 Among the greatest challenges since coming forward, the woman said, has been battling the panic she now feels seeing her own children go to school or activities knowing that she, at their age, was not safe. 
 
 "With my knowledge of the evil that is out there, I feel helpless in protecting them when I couldn't even protect myself," she said. "So many times I have broken down crying when I am talking to my kids about boundaries and how to keep their bodies safe, telling them that no matter what anyone else tells them it is not their fault." 
 
 In his statement, Williamson apologized to the court, the community, his church and the school district. He called on the woman and her family to do what he called one of the hardest things they may ever face: forgive him. 
 
 "I am so sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused you," he said, calling the woman by name. "I sincerely apologize for every out-of-line thought, action and deed which I committed. I truly wished you no harm and had no intention of hurting you so severely. I was reckless with our student-teacher relationship and ignored the values and principles that I truly believe in and cherish." 
 
 In several moments, Williamson spoke of his faith in God and his belief that forgiveness is possible. 
 
 "The future is ahead and the past is in the past," Williamson concluded. "My hope and prayer is that through these proceedings we can all find closure and live courageously into life ahead. Our lives and our families have been irreversibly changed by my actions of 20 years ago. My earnest prayer is that all of us can move forward from this spot and create our own personal future full of love, forgiveness and healing." 
 
 Email: mromero@deseretnews.com, Twitter: McKenzieRomero
– A retired Utah school teacher was sent to prison for having sex with one of his teenage students 22 years ago, reports the Deseret News. The woman came forward last year and told police that former teacher Michael Layne Williamson, 60, had repeatedly assaulted her over a period of years. He was sentenced to one to 15 years in prison by a judge who berated him for disgracing the "noble profession" of teaching. Williamson, who pleaded guilty in May to aggravated sexual abuse of a child and another count of attempted sexual abuse, apologized in court. "This indiscretion of mine was of the most heinous type," he said. "Let me stop you right there," retorted Judge Thomas WIllmore. "It is not an indiscretion. You broke the law." The unidentified victim, now 35, displayed a photo of herself as an eighth-grader and said Williamson ruined her life. "You put it all on my shoulders, those of a 13-year-old, to carry," she said. "I always blamed myself." She said she left the state and kept silent but on a trip back home, the pain was too much. Supporters of Williamson, however, wrote that he was a respected teacher and golf coach who “fell victim to the persuasions of a girl,” reports the Herald Journal. It's possible this isn't the end of Williamson's legal trouble: Last year, the state changed the law to allow victims of sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits years after the fact, notes the Deseret News. (In Texas, this teacher was accused of having a longtime sexual relationship with an eighth-grade student.)