A West Palm Beach lawyer who was repeatedly raped by a neighbor when he was 7 years old and the mother of a man who committed suicide 20 years after he was sexually molested by his Boca Raton karate teacher are desperate.

After five years, they’ve given up trying to get legislators to do away with the statute of limitations on civil and criminal punishment for child molesters that are now protected by time in Florida state law.

Their chief opponent, they say? The Catholic Church.

Now West Palm Beach Lawyer Michael Dolce is trying to get voters to do what lawmakers would not. He’s launched a petition drive to get a ballot initiative on next year’s November ballot.

Lantana resident Patti Robinson, whose only child Jeff Smith killed himself on Christmas morning in 2001, is tapping her grief to help Dolce get the law changed.

“I felt this would be the best way that I could memorialize him so we would maybe save somebody else from having to go through the pain and suffering he did,” Robinson said.

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