“I think the statute of limitations is unfair for victims.”

A New York politician who last week accused hip-hop icon Afrika Bambaataa of molesting him as a child in the early ’80s has spoken of his ordeal and called for a change in the law to allow him to pursue criminal charges against the musician.

The Bronx Democratic Party activist claims that Bambaataa molested him 36 years ago, when he was 15 years old. New York’s statute of limitations currently bars child sexual abuse victims from pursuing criminal charges or civil penalties after their 23rd birthday.

“I think the statute of limitations is unfair for victims,” Ronald Savage, 50, told the New York Daily News. “It took me all of these years to speak about this. I was embarrassed. I was ashamed.”

According to the Daily News, Zulu Nation “minister of information” Quadeer Shakur threatened to file a defamation lawsuit against Savage in a cease-and-desist letter sent on March 31, claiming Savage fabricated the claims to sell more copies of his self-published memoir Impulse, Urges and Fantasies.

The newspaper also claims that high-ranking Zulu Nation officials, recorded on tape, offered Savage the opportunity to confront Bambaataa as well as get $50,000 in compensation for the alleged abuse.

It’s not clear whether the officials were trying to buy Savage’s silence, but Bambaataa’s lawyer Vivian Kimi Tozaki stated that the artist has no knowledge of the conversations.

Savage reiterated the allegations in an interview with Atlanta radio station Shot97 last week, saying: “I wanted to be down with the in-crowd, not really understanding that what Bambaataa was doing to me was molesting me. I knew it was wrong.”

Bambaataa has yet to comment on the allegations personally, but his lawyer Tozaki denied them last week.