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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 204 Filed 04/16/21 Page 53 of 239

preclude such prosecution during the life of the child, or for ten years after the offense, whichever is longer.”).

Finally, later that same year, Congress enacted a new statute as part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-248, 120 Stat. 587. That statute eliminated the statute of limitations entirely for certain crimes involving the sexual exploitation of minors. Id. tit. II, § 211(1), 120 Stat. at 616 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3299).

B. The 2003 Amendment to Section 3283 Applies Retroactively

Counts One through Four of the Indictment charge crimes that occurred between 1994 and 1997. At the time of the offense conduct, the applicable statute of limitations, 18 U.S.C. § 3283 (1994), ran until “the child reaches the age of 25.” However, in 2003, while the statute of limitations had not yet run for the crimes charged in the Indictment, 12 Congress amended the statute, extending the limitations period to permit a prosecution at any time “during the life of the child.” 18 U.S.C. § 3283 (2003). Because the victims are all alive, the Indictment is timely under the 2003 amendment.

Put simply, the 2003 amendment applies to any conduct that could have been charged at the time of its enactment. The legislative purpose behind Section 3283 and a plain reading of the statute compel this conclusion, and courts have repeatedly held that the 2003 amendment applies retroactively, provided that the statute of limitations had not run for the offense at the time of the amendment. See, e.g., United States v. Leo Sure Chief, 438 F.3d 920, 922-25 (9th Cir. 2006) (“Because Congress evinced a clear intent to extend, rather than shorten, the statute of limitations applicable to sexual abuse crimes, and because there is no ex post facto problem here, the prosecution was timely.”) (citing United States v. Jeffries, 405 F.3d 682, 685 (8th Cir. 2005), cert.

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12 The timeliness of the charges in the Indictment in 2003 is discussed in greater detail below.

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