Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

You may bring civil action for abuse while a minor up to your 26th birthday. You can try to file criminal charges and see if police are willing to do so.

First of all, you don't get to file charges. The police don't even get to file charges. The District Attorney is the one who has the discretion of whether or not to file charges. Sometimes the police and detectives will bring a case to a District Attorney, and the District Attorney will not prosecute the matter because there is insufficient evidence or problems with the statute of limitations.

The statute of limitations that Mr. Nelson mentions is the civil statute. It is embodied in Code of Civil Procedure section 340.1. There are exceptions to the general rule set forth by Mr. Nelson. You can read that statute here: http://law.onecle.com/california/civil-procedure/340.1.html

The criminal statute of limitations is different. In the early 1990s, the Legislature passed a bill that retroactively waived the statute of limitations for all crimes of child molestation, meaning even people who were previously immune to prosecution could suddenly be arrested. This law was overturned as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, so now the law's retroactive provision is eliminated.

I'm not sure what the prior statute was, without doing a lot of research on the issue. The current statute is set forth in Penal Code section 803, subdivision (f)(1): http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/803.html