The Keesee Brief · Senator Louis W. Blessing III
By Senator Louis W. Blessing III · 136th General Assembly · October 8, 2026

Ohio puts a deadline on a child's rape. I intend to remove it.

Ohio tells a child who was raped that the State's interest in prosecuting her abuser expires on her 43rd birthday, and that her own claim against him expires on her 30th. Forty-four states have decided otherwise. On November 6, a Knox County judge will decide the most-covered child sexual abuse case in central Ohio in a decade, and four days later this General Assembly reconvenes. I intend to introduce the bill that ends the deadline on the first day we are in session.

What follows is the case, the law, the arithmetic, and seven amendments that would make the bill answer what the Keesee trial actually revealed. Where the record is thin, I say so.

Knox County Courthouse, Mount Vernon. Photo: Mark Spearman, CC BY 2.0.
1 · The case

State of Ohio v. Gary Thomas Keesee Jr.

Gary "Tom" Keesee Jr. is the son of Gary and Drenda Keesee, founders of Faith Life Church in New Albany and hosts of the "Fixing the Money Thing" television ministry. He ran the church's media operation and directed its youth musical. His mother is a sitting Knox County Commissioner. In April 2025 a Knox County grand jury indicted him on 27 counts, later amended to 32 (Mount Vernon News): rape, gross sexual imposition, and unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, involving four girls between roughly 5 and 15 years old, between 2002 and 2011. He pleaded not guilty. On the first morning of trial he waived a jury, so Judge Wetzel sits as the finder of fact.

The verdict is not in. The defendant is presumed innocent, and nothing on this page should be read as prejudging what the court will do. I have written the bill, and this paper, so that neither depends on the outcome.

Eleven witnesses testified over four days. Three of the four accusers took the stand. A child-abuse psychologist with more than three thousand cases called their accounts "compelling, specific and detailed." Relatives testified that the defendant confessed to them, more than once, more than a decade ago. The defendant's father testified for the defense that he knew nothing before 2025. His other son and his daughter testified that the family knew earlier.

The fourth accuser left the stand before cross-examination and could not return. The court dismissed all five of her counts and struck the expert testimony that concerned her. I come back to that below, because it is the one event at trial that this bill, as announced, makes more likely rather than less.

In order

2 · Who knew, and who had to say so

Six adults, one duty, and the gap between them.

Set the verdict aside. What did the trial establish about Ohio law? Witnesses testified, as reported by Knox Pages, WSYX and The Roys Report, that at least six adults learned of the abuse years before any report reached a peace officer. These are allegations in a pending bench trial, and I report them as testimony:

  • the first accuser testified that her father, a church elder, told her to "forgive and forget";
  • her parents testified that they heard the defendant confess;
  • her husband and her brother-in-law testified that they heard two further confessions around 2012 and were told to "take it to leadership";
  • the youth production director testified that he confronted the defendant;
  • the executive pastor, the defendant's brother, testified that he asked his parents to keep the defendant away from the youth program.

A fourth accuser testified that she told Drenda Keesee directly; her testimony was not completed on cross-examination and her counts were dismissed. No one has been charged with failing to report. Under the statute as written, the duty is so narrow that whether any of them had one is an open question.

Ohio does not make clergy general mandated reporters. R.C. 2151.421(A)(4) gives a cleric, or a paid church official, a duty that triggers only when the abuser is another cleric or designated church official. A pastor who learns from his staff, from a parent, or from his own eyes that a volunteer, a congregant, a parent, or a lay employee is abusing a child has no duty under that division. The penalty for violating it is a fourth-degree misdemeanor, or a first-degree misdemeanor if reporter and abuser belong to the same church. The limitations period, four years since H.B. 322, runs from the failure, not from the child's age. Whether the defendant, as the church's media officer, was a "delegate" who triggered the duty is arguable and untested.

The confessional is not the gap here. No clergy privilege was invoked at this trial; elders and relatives testified freely to what the defendant told them. The gap is in the statute itself: it names the wrong class of abuser. The fix, in Amendment 1 below, leaves the seal of confession exactly where Ohio law has it and closes everything around it.

3 · Where the law stands

The deadlines, by section.

R.C. 2901.13
Criminal

Twenty-five years for rape and sexual battery. Twenty years for gross sexual imposition and unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. For a child victim the clock effectively starts at 18, so rape must generally be charged by the survivor's 43rd birthday and the lesser offenses by the 38th. For rape and sexual battery only, a DNA match made after the 25 years adds five years from the match. An earlier report to police or children services can start the clock early, so 43 is a ceiling, not a promise.

R.C. 2305.111
Civil

Twelve years after the victim turns 18: age 30. And the definition of "childhood sexual abuse" is narrower than the crimes. Rape and sexual battery by anyone qualify. Gross sexual imposition qualifies only if the abuser held a listed role: parent or guardian, teacher or instructor, coach, scout leader, ordained cleric, clinician, or a person with temporary or occasional disciplinary control over the victim. Unlawful sexual conduct with a minor is not listed at all. A claim outside the definition falls to the one-year assault period.

R.C. 2151.421
Reporting

Clergy and paid church officials must report abuse by another cleric or church official. A communication from a penitent is excused if the cleric could not testify to it under R.C. 2317.02(C), unless the penitent is the child victim. Fourth-degree misdemeanor; first-degree if reporter and abuser belong to the same church.

R.C. 2945.481
Testimony

A victim of a sex offense may testify by recorded deposition, with the defendant watching by monitor, as of right if under 13 when charged, and on a showing of serious emotional trauma if under 18. An adult survivor of childhood abuse gets nothing.

R.C. 2921.22
Failure to report a felony

Everyone must report a felony they know of. Division (H)(2) excuses information that "would tend to incriminate a member of the actor's immediate family."

4 · The comparable states

Forty-four states. Ohio is one of six.

The number in the September 23 coverage, "one of six states where survivors face a deadline to pursue criminal charges and lawsuits," is not quite right as worded. I would rather correct it here than have a reporter do it on November 6. CHILD USA's 2026 tracker lists 44 states, the District of Columbia and the federal government as having eliminated the criminal statute of limitations for at least some child sexual abuse offenses. The six that have not are Ohio, Oregon, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma and New Hampshire. Nineteen states have eliminated the civil deadline, and Nevada and New Hampshire are among them.

So the accurate sentence is: forty-four states have eliminated the criminal statute of limitations for at least some child sexual abuse offenses; Ohio is one of six that have not. The tracker's own text records Oregon H.B. 3582 eliminating Oregon's civil deadline effective June 26, 2025, though its table has not caught up, which leaves three states that have eliminated neither: Ohio, North Dakota and Oklahoma. LSC should confirm Oregon before that sentence goes out. Every one of Ohio's five bordering states has eliminated the criminal deadline.

Both eliminatedCriminal onlyCivil onlyNeither

Source: CHILD USA 2026 SOL Tracker. "Eliminated" means for at least some child sexual abuse offenses; several states' criminal eliminations are narrow. Oregon is shown as "criminal only" per the tracker's text on H.B. 3582 (2025); its table has not caught up.

5 · The arithmetic

Keesee was not a statute of limitations case. That is the point.

I lead with a case the current law handled because it handled it by luck. No statute of limitations defense has been reported. On the reported dates, victims aged roughly 5 to 15 between 2002 and 2011 and charges in 2025, the counts appear to fall inside the window because R.C. 2901.13(J) starts the clock at majority. That is an inference from the public record; birthdates are not public. The point holds either way. The accusers came forward as young adults. Had they waited until their forties, which is when the average survivor discloses, CHILD USA puts the figure at 52, not one count could have been brought. Not the rapes. Not the lesser offenses. Nothing.

Take a child who was five in 2001. She turns 18 in 2014. Her criminal deadline for the rape counts is 2039; for the gross sexual imposition counts, 2034. Her civil deadline is 2026, this year. Her statistically expected disclosure is 2048. The Keesee accusers got a trial because they were unusually early. The law should not make a trial depend on that, and in forty-four states it no longer does.

A child abused at age 5 in 2001
The Ohio Statehouse from High Street. Photo: General Ization, CC BY 3.0.
6 · Seven amendments

What the trial asks the bill to do.

Ranked by how much child protection each buys, how naturally it fits a statute of limitations bill, and how likely it is to pass. The risk label is my read of the Free Exercise, retroactivity, Confrontation Clause and procedure-versus-substance exposure that has sunk similar provisions elsewhere. Drafting goes through LSC, and the constitutional read on Amendments 2 and 4 goes there first; these are the policy calls.

1

Close the cleric-on-cleric loophole. Leave the confessional alone.

Extend the R.C. 2151.421(A)(4) duty to abuse by any person. Excuse only knowledge obtained solely through a communication that is a "sacred trust" under R.C. 2317.02(C), so anything learned from staff, records, parents or observation must be reported. Treat knowledge held by a board or eldership as the knowledge of each member, drafted as a severable subsection, since the Arizona court deferred to a church even where a confession had been repeated before a disciplinary board. Toll the four-year period until the victim turns 18. Create a felony for an institutional leader who conceals abuse, reassigns the abuser without disclosure, or destroys records, as Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida do, none of them clergy-specific.

Vehicle: H.B. 346 (V.J.'s Law) already opens this section and passed the House 96 to 0 on June 9, 2026.

Low · eldership clause moderate
2

Testimony accommodations for adult survivors of childhood abuse.

Extend R.C. 2945.481 to any victim who was a child at the time of the offense, on a showing of trauma. Authorize recorded cross-examination in a calm setting, breaks, a support person, and remote testimony. Require findings and an attempt at an alternate arrangement before counts are dismissed for an incomplete cross. This is the one amendment the bill makes unavoidable: every revived case will be an adult describing childhood abuse, and five counts in this trial fell for exactly that reason. Because the witness is an adult, the Confrontation Clause question is real: the defendant is present and counsel cross-examines at the deposition, as the statute already provides for children. LSC reviews it before introduction.

Moderate · Confrontation Clause
3

Void nondisclosure agreements that cover child sexual abuse.

Adopt H.B. 723 (Klopfenstein, Miller), Ohio's version of Trey's Law, already drafted with Republican sponsors and no opponents on the record. Seven states passed it in 2025 and 2026, most of them unanimously. The church in this case had more than a hundred staff sign such agreements.

Low risk, moderate if retroactive
4

A mandatory stay of civil discovery while the criminal case runs, with tolling.

On the victim's motion, stay discovery directed at the criminal defendant and toll every limitation and refiling period for the length of the stay plus one year. Federal law already does this for child plaintiffs, 18 U.S.C. 3509(k). One accuser had to abandon her suit because Ohio does not. A legislated discovery stay raises a procedure-versus-substance question under Article IV, Section 5(B); LSC reviews it.

Low to moderate · art. IV §5(B)
5

Redefine "childhood sexual abuse" to cover every Chapter 2907 offense against a minor.

Five of the counts are unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, an offense the civil definition does not list at all. Fourteen are gross sexual imposition, which qualifies only if the actor's role fits the list. Any bill touching R.C. 2305.111 should fix the actor list while it is open.

Low risk
6

Strip the immediate-family exemption where the victim is a minor.

R.C. 2921.22(H)(2) excuses a person from reporting a felony if doing so would incriminate immediate family. The people with the most knowledge in this case were the defendant's parents and siblings.

Low risk
7

An automatic independent investigator when a sheriff or the Attorney General recuses.

Referral within fourteen days to a designated investigator from a standing list, with written notice to the complainant, and a special-prosecutor path that does not require a vote by a board containing a conflicted member. A commissioner must recuse from votes touching any office investigating a family member. A nonpartisan fix for a 32-day freeze the public remembers.

Low risk

What I will not carry

Very high  Removing the confession exemption. Washington did this in 2025. A federal court enjoined it in July on Free Exercise grounds, the Department of Justice intervened on the bishops' side, and the State settled in October by agreeing not to enforce it as to confession. The court named "add clergy as reporters while keeping a narrow confessional exception, as about 25 other states do" as the less restrictive alternative. On July 30, 2026, the Arizona Supreme Court held 7 to 0 that courts may not second-guess a church's own definition of confession. I will not hand that litigation to the other side with the rest of the package tied to it.

High  A duty to warn inside the confessional. Arizona, Utah and Montana each tried. Each died.

Moderate  A civil revival window without severability. Article II, Section 28 of the Ohio Constitution bars retroactive laws, and windows have been struck in Colorado, Kentucky and Utah. The criminal elimination is clean under Stogner v. California for every claim still alive on the effective date. Carry the civil window as a severable companion so a loss on one does not take the other.

7 · Video

In their own words.

8 · The record

The coverage, and the people in it.

Who is on the bill

The coverage

Bills already in flight

H.B. 346, V.J.'s Law
Kishman, Williams; 35 cosponsors

Report to both police and children services; opens R.C. 2151.421

Passed House 96 to 0, June 9, 2026; in the SenateVehicle for Amendment 1
H.B. 723, Trey's Law
Klopfenstein, Miller

Voids NDAs covering child sexual abuse

House Judiciary, first hearing May 20, 2026Amendment 3 as drafted
S.B. 421
Antonio, Manning; 14 cosponsors

Civil limit for adult sex-offense victims, one year to five

Passed Senate 33 to 0, June 11, 2026; in the HouseSeparate; adult survivors
H.B. 659
Russo, Synenberg

Civil limit to age 55; liability for entities that negligently facilitated abuse; lifts noneconomic caps

Introduced Jan 27, 2026; no hearingSource language for institutional liability
H.B. 322 (135th)
Seitz, Abrams

Grooming offense; four-year period for failure to report

Effective April 9, 2025Done. Do not reopen.
Senator Blessing and Representative Baker present the Safer Communities Workgroup report, September 23, 2026. Photo: Ohio Senate.
9 · Calendar and rollout

Two beats, four days apart.

  • November 3. General election. Press bandwidth returns by Friday.
  • November 6, 9 a.m. Verdict. A release prepared in two versions and held under embargo with the reporters who sat through the trial lifts when the verdict is read. Two versions. On a conviction: these accusers got a trial because they came forward early, and Ohio law should not make that the condition. On an acquittal: even accusers who come forward in time face years of this, and the ones the law bars outright never get a hearing at all. The bill and the statistic are the same in both.
  • November 10. First session day. Formal introduction, a bill number, a second news cycle.
  • December 31. The 136th General Assembly ends. Reintroduce in the 137th on or after January 4, 2027, so the bill will have been before two General Assemblies.
  • About December 26. The civil plaintiff's refiling deadline. A live example for Amendment 4.

Allies on record. Ohioans for Child Protection, CHILD USA, the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, the Ohio Association for Justice, the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center and the other S.B. 421 proponents, Representative Baker, and Hamilton County Auditor Jessica Miranda, who carried the last two versions of this idea in the House.

Positions not yet taken. The Catholic Conference of Ohio told WCPO it "does not oppose all reform efforts." The Center for Christian Virtue, the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio, the Ohio Council of Churches, the prosecutors' association and the Attorney General have no public position on the reporting amendments. Each gets a call before November 10.

Expected opposition. Insurers and the civil defense bar on the civil window. Former Representative Seitz, now lobbying at Dinsmore and Shohl. And any religious body, if the confessional is touched. It will not be.

None of this is easy. It is also not complicated. Forty-four states have already done the hard part. Ohio can do it on November 10.