Florida no longer has a statute of limitations on sex crimes committed on victims between the ages of 12 and 16.

Gov. Charlie Crist signed into law HB 525, ending the three-year statute of limitations that Palm Beach County lawyer Michael Dolce – raped repeatedly by his Maryland neighbor when he was seven years old – has spent six years trying to undo. Studies show that it is often 15 years before victims go public with their accusations.

Powerful Miami lobbyist Ron Book and his daughter Lauren Book-Lim joined Dolce’s crusade this year, taking on the Catholic Church that effectively quashed the effort in the past. Book-Lim was sexually abused and molested by the Book’s nanny over a period of years.

The House and Senate unanimously approved the measure before sending it to Crist, who signed it into law today without comment along with nearly three dozen other bills. The law, which goes into effect immediately, will apply only to new cases.

Greenacres Democrat Dave Aronberg sponsored the bill in the Senate.

The House and Senate unanimously did away with the statute of limitations on sexual crimes against children between the ages of 12 and 15 today, sending the bill to Gov. Charlie Crist for signature.

Palm Beach Gardens attorney Michael Dolce, who was repeatedly raped by his Maryland neighbor at the age of seven, has tried for six years to get the measure passed but the Catholic Church has thwarted his efforts.

Senate bill sponsor Dave Aronberg introduced Dolce, who watched from the public gallery and received a thank-you from Sen. Mike Fasano, who was acting as president of the chamber.

“Michael, on behalf of the Florida Senate, thank you for your good work, my friend, thank you,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said.

Florida’s current laws gave children between the ages of 12 and 16 three years to file criminal charges although studies show that it is often 15 years before victims go public with their accusations.

“Overwhelming. Very, very grateful that we finally said to these monsters time will never protect them. The law will protect our kids first,” said Dolce, who launched a citizen’s initiative called “Protect Our Kids First” to amend the constitution to remove the statute of limitations because the legislature failed to change the law.

Also looking on were influential lobbyist Ron Book and his daugher, Lauren Book-Lim, whose nanny sexually molested her from the age of 11.

“This is a huge deal. It’s just incredible. We’re so excited,” Book-Lim said.

Up to 70 percent of child molesters walk free because of the time restriction that keeps their victims from pressing charges, said Aronberg.

“This bill is a long time coming. Because there is no statute of limitations for the pain of victims. There is no statute of limitations for the shame and humiliation,” said Aronberg, D-Greenacres.

The Senate approved the bill with 34-0 vote; the House passed it earlier today by a 114-0 vote.

Crist has indicated that he would sign the bill into law.

After six years, victims of childhood sexual abuse stand a good chance of eliminating the statute of limitations on sex crimes against children between the ages of 12 and 16.

Senate President Jeff Atwater said yesterday he wants the measure to pass and Gov. Charlie Crist said today he’s likely to sign it into law.

“It probably makes sense. It just sounds like common sense. If you find out that somebody committed such a heinous crime as that and it was a long time ago, it still was a heinous crime,” Crist told reporters today.

The House is expected to vote on the bill (HB 525) and the Senate could vote on it as early as tomorrow.

The Florida Catholic Conference has successfully thwarted similar legislation for the past six years, and continues to lobby against doing away with the current statute of limitations for institutions like the Catholic Church but supports doing away with the time restrictions on cases involving individual defendants.

On Tuesday, the Conference wrote a letter to Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, asking him to amend the bill to address the Catholic’s concerns.

“The open-ended nature of these proposals creates tremendous uncertainty for any organization’s potential liability for alleged acts of negligence,” Florida Catholic Conference executive director Mike McCarron wrote to Atwater.

“There’s no statute of limitations on suffering so there should be no statute of limitations on justice,” Atwater, who is running statewide for chief financial officer, told The Palm Beach Post yesterday.

Federal prosecutors in Florida are trying to keep a serial child molester behind bars in California for crimes George Joseph England allegedly committed in Palm Beach County.

England, now 65, is accused of buying then-five-year-old Jackie Zudis from her mother in Vietnam in the early 1970s. He claimed her as his adopted daughter and kept her as a sex slave for more than a decade, authorities say.

England sexually assaulted three of her young friends, skipped out of sentencing in California and lived for years in Florida — including Palm Beach County — using the fake name of a dead baby.

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