TAMPA - Frank Leonard didn't remember the terrible things he experienced as a child.
      Then last May he entered psychotherapy, which he contends rekindled represses memories of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of his uncle. In September, Leonard says, he confronted his uncle, Frank Cowles, Jr., about the abuse.
      Cowles, a Tampa publisher executive, killed himself on Sept. 16 in North Carolina.
      Last week Leonard filed a lawsuit in Hillsborough Circuit Court seeking unspecified damages for assault, battery, false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
      He hopes to benefit from some of the $1 million his uncle left in trust for the Children's Home, Inc., a home for abused children in Tampa.
      Lawyers argue such cases are difficult to prove.
      But it will test a 1992 change in the law that allows victims of childhood sexual abuse as much as four years from the time they remember the abuse to file a lawsuit, said Leonard's attorney, Steve Yerrid.
      A similar lawsuit filed Monday pits a brother and sister against their stepfather's estate. From the time she was 4 until age 27, Margaret Cassedy, 30, was sexually and emotionally abuse by her stepfather, Donald M. Sahlman, who died in November, the lawsuit contends.
      Likewise, her brother, Nicholas Clairmonte, 32, alleges he was abused by Sahlman from age 5 through 21.
      Experts hesitate to say these cases represent a trend in the law, but they won't be surprised to see similar lawsuits filed.
      "I would predict increasing numbers," said Richard Pearson, a law professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
      " I think it is a trend to recognize young children need to be protected," Yerrid said. "One does not escape the terrible consequences of these kind of actions, even if rehabilitation occurs."
      Both cases involve traumatic events that are difficult to prove. The people accused of the offense aren't around to defend themselves so they won't be easy to win, lawyers agree.
      First, a victim would have to prove that knowledge of the abuse was discovered in the last four years.
      Then there is the need for someone to offer corroborating evidence.
      Similar lawsuits have been brought by women who claim to suffer for post-rape trauma against their attackers. Success has depended, to a large extent, on whether the testimony of the victim could be verified by someone else.
      That's where psychiatrists come in.
      If this kind of lawsuit gets to trial, a victim's attorney would have to convince jurors the memories didn't return because of a pot of gold under the rainbow - the money in the estate.
      Yerrid scoffs at the suggestion.
      "This is about protecting kids," he said. "Money is the only thing this system can deliver, because we don't allow vengeance."
      Cowles left about $1 million in the trust for use by the Children's Home, Inc. That is ironic, Yerrid said, because Cowles was a convicted child abuser.
      Thirty-five years ago he was convicted of molesting boys in Pinellas County, court records show. He was forced into therapy and told never to return to Pinellas.
      But in 1961, he started molesting his 6-year-old nephew, the lawsuit contends.
      Those convictions, however, may never touch the ears of a juror because they won't have anything to do with Leonard's case.
      "It's ironic in this case the fellow had some kind of remorse leaving his bequest to the children's home," Yerrid said.

04/18/93