[ajonnav]

I just started law school so don't take this answer as definitive but a couple of things I thought of were: 1. For the statute of limitations, I believe that the time point to look at is when the lawsuit was filed (as opposed to when the guilty plea comes through). All that matters was that lawsuit was filed __before__ the statute of limitations ran out. 2. Additionally, there are scenarios where the law/courts will allow people to file suits after the statute of limitations runs out but that varies by jurisdiction and by the law that governs the crime committed. (For more info, you can check out equitable/statutory tolling).