The law bars them from kid-friendly activities such as giving out candy and dressing up as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

Gov. Charlie Crist signed into law today a bill toughening laws against child molesters that, among other things, bars them from kid-friendly activities such as giving out candy and dressing up as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

The new law prohibits convicted child molesters from hanging out within 300 feet of places where children congregate, like parks or schools, or go to a child care facility or school without prior notification or approval.

Sen. Dave Aronberg, a Greenacres Democrat running for attorney general, co-sponsored the senate version of the measure. Crist signed the bill (HB 119) into law today at Timber Lakes Elementary School in Orlando.

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.

Correction: Because of reporting errors, a previous version of this story indicated that Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink had approved a pardon for Gerald McCranie, who had been listed as a sex offender. Gov. Charlie Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson approved the pardon. According to a spokesman, Sink did not sign the pardon.

Virgil McCranie is ecstatic. After more than a decade of marriage to his “Romeo and Juliet” sweetheart, the stigma of being branded a sex molester has finally been lifted.

The Board of Executive Clemency, comprised of Florida Cabinet members Gov. Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, granted McCranie a full pardon this week after leaving the Panama City Beach resident in limbo after the last clemency meeting in June.

“It sat there for two hours before I opened it,” McCranie said in a telephone interview today.

McCranie, now 34, and his wife Misty, now 28, fell in love when was he was 19 and she was 14. Since then, they’ve raised four children while struggling to make ends meet.
But their story is no fairy tale.

Misty and her father pressed charges against Virgil, accusing him of raping the minor. The rape charge was dropped but he was charged with lewd and lascivious acts against a minor and was sentenced to two years of probation.

That’s when the father of four’s nightmare began, McCranie told the clemency board in June.

He was placed on the state’s sex offender web site and has been unable to hold down a job or attend his daughter’s dance recitals, he said as he and his wife pleaded with the board to grant him a pardon.

The board took his case “under consideration,” leaving the couple in limbo.

The fact that three of the four clemency board members are running for statewide office – Crist for U.S. Senate and Sink and McCollum for governor – added to the pair’s worries.

That changed when they finally opened the letter containing the governor’s executive order and a copy of the certificate of clemency.

“I hadn’t felt that good since I was 19. I felt clean,” McCranie said.

McCranie said he hasn’t been able to hold down a job because of his sex offender status. Now he won’t have to wonder “if it was me not being good enough to do something or just me getting a bad shake from what I did,” he said. “I’m happy.”