PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) – "Secrecy is the fertilizer of sexual abuse!" attorney Kelly Clark thundered in his opening remarks, urging Multnomah County Judge John Wittmayer to vacate a protective order on nearly 20,000 pages of evidence documenting sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America. The trial ended in May with the jury awarding Clark’s client $18.5 million in punitive damages. The documents, the so-called "perversion files," were admitted after the Boy Scouts lost a long legal battle to keep them out of court. The issue went all the way to the Oregon Supreme Court.

But Judge Wittmayer ordered that access to the files be restricted to attorneys for both sides and their employees, and the jury, during the course of the trial.

Clark wants the secrecy order vacated. He cites Article 1 Section 10, the Open Courts section of the Oregon Constitution, which states: "No court shall be secret, but justice shall be administered, openly and without purchase, completely and without delay, and every man shall have remedy by due course of law for injury done him in his person, property, or reputation."

Clark says that means that the public has the right to see the evidence upon which the jury reached its decision.

But Rob Albiset, representing the Boy Scouts, claimed that Article 1 Section 10 merely protects the right of the public to have access to court proceedings, but does not grant the public the right to see evidence that was admitted but not shown or reproduced publicly during the trial.

In the case at hand, involving the molestation of plaintiff Kerry Lewis, parts of the files were read to the jury by both sides and extractions of text were projected onto screens for the jury to read. Albiset said the public had the right only to this representation of the evidence.

But Clark said that that would mean the public had a right to review only whatever was small enough to be read aloud or projected in a comprehensible way, and that the state constitution did not intend to discriminate against evidence because it was unwieldy.

A third group, news organizations, including Courthouse News, seeking access to the records, was represented by Daniel Lindahl. He noted that Article 1 Section 10 was subtitled "Administration of Justice" and that this suggests that every activity and item that was presented or entered into evidence was covered by the Oregon Constitution. Lindahl cited case law holding that even evidence or testimony later found to have been admitted in error was a mater of public record.

All three attorneys answered Judge Wittmayer’s questions on other points of law. During one exchange Albiset said the plaintiff lacked standing to challenge Wittmayer’s order because his access to the files was not restricted, and he had been able to successfully make his case.

Albiset told the judge that he should balance the possible prejudice that public release of the documents could have on several molestation trials still on Wittmayer’s docket, involving from the same abuser.

Wittmayer responded, "Isn’t the solution to prejudicial pretrial publicity the voire dire process?"

Albiset answered that it would unnecessarily complicate the selection process because the Oregonian newspaper had a circulation of 300,000 in a potential jury pool of 700,000.

"Couldn’t that be remedied by a change of venue?" Wittmayer asked.

Albiset persisted, saying potential jurors had become sophisticated at hiding their biases in the face of pervasive media coverage.

Clark angrily suggested during his rebuttal that elimination of the jury system and open courts might serve the Scouts as a solution to any perceived prejudice.

"The Boy Scouts of America still doesn’t get it that for healing to begin, the evidence must be made public," Clark said. "Plaintiffs believe abuse thrives in secrecy and it is time to get rid of the secrecy."

On the public interest in making the files public, Lindahl said, "The public wants to judge the merits of government-sanctioned liability, especially in damages cases, and how can the public judge fairness if they can’t review the data?"

Lindahl said that constitutional mandates allow no consideration of prejudice to parties in future litigation and that no balancing of prejudice versus access is allowed. For or the public to have faith in the system, he said, the evidence on which the jury adjudicated the case must be made public.

Judge Wittmayer aid he would rule the motion as soon as possible.

ST. PETERSBURG – The families of three boys molested by convicted felon and former Pasco County Scoutmaster Steven Greenleaf filed a lawsuit Friday in St. Petersburg against the Boy Scouts of America and its affiliated West Central Florida Council, saying the organization failed to protect the Scouts from Greenleaf’s predatory ways.

Greenleaf is serving a 12-year term in prison after his October 2009 convictions.

The lawsuit says the Boy Scouts didn’t follow its own internal guidelines when it comes to training parents to spot the signs of pedophilia.

Jennifer, who did not want to give her last name, is the mother of a boy, then 9, who fell victim to Greenleaf. She says her son is depressed and rarely leaves the house.

"His hopes and dreams and goals have vanished," she said. "And the worst part of all is that all this could have been prevented by following simple guidelines. Guidelines that were in place to protect my son, our sons," she said.

Two local attorneys on the case are being helped by attorney Kelly Clark of Portland, Ore. Clark recently won a $20 million verdict against the Boy Scouts.

A lawyer who represents the Boy Scouts of America said he could not comment on pending litigation.

TAMPA – Friday, three Bay Area families filed a civil lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America and a local chapter. A former scout master of West Central Florida Council’s Troop 60 was convicted last year of sexually abusing their kids.

The lawsuit accuses the Boy Scouts of negligence and failing to teach troop leaders and parents about its own Youth Protection Program. The guidelines are in place to protect children from abuse. The civil suit says it’s could’ve all been prevented.

For a century, the Boy Scouts of America has been a symbol of trust, promising to instill in young boys morals and values to last a lifetime. A Bay Area mother says instead, the Scouts destroyed her son’s life.

"I trusted that he was in good hands. I trusted that he would learn life skills. Instead he was being manipulated and violated in ways inconceivable," said Jennifer, who is keeping her last name private to protect her son.

Between 2005 and 2007, Scout Master Steven Greenleaf sexually molested Jennifer’s 9-year-old son and two other boys both during and outside of scouting activities in New Port Richey.

Greenleaf is serving a 12 year sentence. But this is far from over.

"Steven Greenleaf is a monster and so are the Boy Scouts and their chapters because they failed to protect our children," said Jennifer, standing outside of the Pinellas County Courthouse with her attorneys.

"We know that Steven Greenleaf was allowed to run essentially unsupervised with these kids. That’s against Boy Scout policy. They have a two deep rule. An adult is never supposed to be alone with the child. They didn’t follow that here," said Attorney Kelly Clark, who has litigated at least a dozen cases against the Boy Scouts of America.

A spokesman for the West Central Florida Council refused comment and said the lawsuit hadn’t been served yet. Meanwhile, a hurt single mother says instead of finding a father figure, her son lost his childhood.

"His hopes and dreams and goals have vanished and the worst part of all is that all of this could’ve been prevented by following simple guidelines," said Jennifer.

In a separate case, the Boy Scouts of America is accused of covering up decades of sexual abuse. Attorneys are fighting to make public thousands of the organization’s files they believe are proof.

Last month, a Portland, Oregon jury that viewed the files awarded a former scout 18.5 million dollars in his sex abuse case against the Boy Scouts.

Clark was the attorney in that case.
 

PINELLAS COUNTY (Bay News 9) — Attorneys filed a lawsuit in the St. Petersburg Civil Courthouse Friday morning against the Boy Scouts of America on behalf of three sexual abuse victims.

The mother of one of the victims, whose last name will not be used for privacy, says Steven Greenleaf, a former New Port Richey boy scout troop master, sexually abused her son.

"When my son was 9 years old, his childhood and spirit were stolen from him," Jennifer said. "Something he will never get back."

In 2009, a jury found Greenleaf guilty of exposing himself to boys and molesting one of his three victims.

The case happened in 2007 and Greenleaf is now serving a 12-year prison sentence.

"Steven Greenleaf is a monster and so are the Boy Scouts and their chapters because they failed to protect our children," said Jennifer.

Jennifer wants the Boy Scouts of America and its local affiliate, the West Central Florida Council, to pay for the sexual abuse.

Her attorneys say they hope the civil lawsuit proves the abuse could have been prevented.

"The Boy Scouts had the responsibility to ensure that a child predator like Steven Greenleaf was not given authority to be a scout master and was not properly monitored," said Joseph Saunders, one of Jennifer’s attorneys.

The Boy Scouts executive director of the West Central Florida Council said the council hadn’t been served yet, so he couldn’t comment on the lawsuit.

The suit seeks more than $15,000 in damages.

BY LES ZAITZ and NICOLE DUNGCA 

The Boy Scouts‘ effort to protect their young members from sexual abuse had large gaps from the start and has significantly fallen behind modern practices.

Videos intended to alert youth about potential abuse don’t warn that Scout leaders could be molesters, despite an 80-year record of just such scenarios.

Few of the 1.2 million adults volunteering in Scouts have been required to take training that the Boy Scouts offer.
 

Checking those volunteers for past criminal conduct wasn’t started until 2003, and each person is checked only once. Thousands who started before then weren’t included. Finally, in 2008, the Scouts required checks on everyone renewing their annual registration as a Scout volunteer.

The Scouts ignored their own experts’ advice to study and learn from thousands of confidential files on abusers.

A Portland jury with unprecedented access to those files sent a message last month that the Boy Scouts of America must do a better job of protecting the nearly three million kids in their programs. In a civil trial, jurors found the Scouts liable for allowing a former assistant Scoutmaster, Timur Dykes, to continue working with – and abusing – a Boy Scout after Dykes pleaded guilty to attempted sexual abuse of young boys.

"They never said once that ‘We have a problem,’" said Margaret Ormsbee, one of the jurors. "It felt to jurors that maybe they weren’t taking this seriously."

The jurors slammed the Scouts with the largest verdict in the group’s 100-year history. They awarded $18.5 million for abuse by Dykes, who admitted molesting 17 boys just as the youth protection program was being developed.

National Scout executives declined interviews or to respond in detail to two letters offering them factual statements to verify.

"There are many inaccuracies," the Boy Scouts said in a statement last Thursday. They said they didn’t have time to adequately address the statements and felt responses on many subjects would be inappropriate because of pending litigation.

The Scouts, who serve 41,000 youth in Oregon, face another 10 lawsuits in the state over child abuse.

The Scouts defend their efforts.

"The Boy Scouts of America has been a pioneer in building multiple layers of safeguards into its programs so that local Scout troop can be as safe a place as possible," the Scouts said in a statement to The Oregonian.

But Scout documents and sworn testimony by Scout executives show precious little of it mandated, and none of it audited.

Local Scout leaders are free to use the "youth protection program" as they see fit.

That was stunning to Portland jurors, who listened to weeks of testimony in a case pitting the national Scouts against a man molested by Dykes.

The biggest thing is that even in 2010, things were not mandatory," said Ormsbee. "Even after 60, 70, 80 years of kids being abused, it’s still not strictly mandatory."

She said the Scouts have good written material and should require its use.

"This should be mandatory training for every volunteer and not just registered volunteers," Ormsbee said. "There are far more unregistered volunteers. This should be required for any adult who’s going to be around Scouts."

On Thursday, the Scouts said in a statement to The Oregonian that as of June 1, "youth protection training will be mandatory for every adult volunteer and it must be taken every two years."

The Scouts developed youth protection material in the face of civil cases and increasing publicity about abuse within Scouting.

"When we began in 1987, we didn’t know anything about child sex abuse," said Larry Potts, a former top Scout executive in a sworn deposition.

The Scouts recruited prominent experts in child abuse to help, but they weren’t asked to design a program to protect Scouts. Instead, according to depositions, their job was to review brochures, articles and videos put together by the Scouts.

Paul Mones, a Portland attorney in the recent Scout case and has represented abuse victims for 30 years, reviewed the two videos used in the program. "None of them – not one of them – ever mentioned a Boy Scout, showed a Boy Scout or had a Boy Scout scenario," Mones said.

A Boy Scout flier for parents on how to talk to their child about abuse advised, "Tell your children that an adult whom they know and trust, perhaps someone in a position of authority (like a babysitter, an uncle, a teacher, or even a policeman) might try to do something like this."

The youth protection effort did provoke new rules in Scouting to minimize the chances a Scout would be abused.

Beginning in 1987, the Scouts required two adults attend every Scout event. In 1991, the Scouts mandated that no adult could be alone with a Scout. The national organization doesn’t audit whether those rules are obeyed.

The Scouts also say they warded off potential offenders by starting criminal background checks, beginning with employees in 1994 and expanded to new volunteers in 2003.

The Scouts said in 2008 they expanded criminal background checks to include "all volunteers" but wouldn’t explain if that included volunteers already participating and volunteers not formally registered with the Scouts.

Scout officials also wouldn’t answer whether volunteers are checked more than once.

Experts say once isn’t enough.

One of the most prominent leaders in Portland area Scouting logged 39 years of respectable service in Oregon and elsewhere before he was caught in the Department of Homeland Security’s "Operation Predator" program in 2005.

At the time of his arrest, Douglas Sovereign Smith, former executive director of the Columbia Pacific Council, had been in charge of the Boy Scouts’ national program to protect children from sexual abuse. He pleaded guilty to receiving and distributing child pornography and was sentenced to eight years in federal prison.

The case produced no evidence that Smith victimized Scouts but showed what child-protection advocates already know – the importance of vigilance.

Kristen Anderson of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said her organization recommends annual record checks. Congress created the center as a pilot project to give youth organizations one place to turn for centralized checks. Many of the country’s largest youth organizations signed on. The Boy Scouts didn’t.

Anderson said regular checks at the national level can turn up conduct that occurs after a volunteer has signed up. She also said molesters are sophisticated about evading detection.

"There are percentages of individuals who will use false names, who will apply to volunteer in states that are different than where their criminal history occurs," Anderson said.

In California, the Salvation Army checks the records of both employees and volunteers every two years. Anne Calvo, child safety consultant with Salvation Army’s Western operations, testified such care deters molesters.

"I like to believe that they know that we have these safeguards in place and so they stay away," she testified in a deposition two years ago. "They do chat amongst themselves and they share the organizations that are easy to have access to children without much screening."

The Scouts insist they have rigorous screening of volunteers, but as with much in Scouting, the process has been voluntary.

Some experts say the Scouts did not take advantage of a significant source of information for protecting Scouts – their own "ineligible volunteer files." They have collected such records since about 1920, documenting the name and conduct of Scout leaders banned for child abuse, including 98 in Oregon from 1971 to 2005.

The files are kept locked away. The Scouts said in a statement to The Oregonian that said disclosing the files "could have a very negative impact on efforts to protect our youth from those who should not be involved in youth activities."

Nonetheless, some experts say that unparalleled record would be valuable for evaluating the Scout protection program and for identifying patterns suggesting a molester was at work. They say the files also should have been more scrupulously mined to catch abusers returning to Scouting ranks.

One of those who saw the research promise of those secret files was David Finkelhor, a New Hampshire professor specializing in child abuse research. The founder of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, he served 20 years on the national Scout expert panel on child abuse.

"I suggested that there might be some utility in having somebody review those files as a way of trying to ascertain the effects their youth protection program was having," Finkelhor testified last year.

Other experts on the panel made the same suggestion. Finkelhor said he was frustrated that the Scouts wouldn’t crack open the files.

He’s not alone.

"What struck everyone was that the Scouts simply weren’t using their information," said Orsmbee, the Portland juror. "It was really disturbing."

She said the Scouts could use their files to profile Scout abusers. "Are they single? Are they married? How do they groom their victims? Are they younger? Older?" Orsmbee said.

Dr. Eli Newberger, a Massachusetts pediatrician and national leader in standards for youth organizations, also analyzed the Scouts’ practices and reviewed their internal records, acting on behalf of Scout victims.

"That sense was not made of these data to better serve children raises serious questions about the intentions of national BSA leadership," said Newberger.

Shortly before the recent Portland trial, the Scouts hired a University of Virginia researcher to examine the confidential files. She testified the files held little research potential.

But Newberger said the files also reveal instances when the Scouts inexplicably allowed an abuser to continue working in Scouts.

"The record is replete with violations of ethical principles and standards of care for children that led to tragic consequences for children and their families," Newberger wrote in assessing the confidential records.

Ormsbee said jurors were disturbed by episodes when the Scouts discovered but didn’t reject a suspected or proven abuser. In several instances, abusers were put on probation instead of being banned.

"We saw a lot of cases from the ’60s and ’70s where they were reported as abusers. In the 1990s, they’re still there," Ormsbee said. "We’re wondering why they were not kicked out."

– Les Zaitz
–

Nicole Dungca

By LES ZAITZ and NICOLE DUNGCA

When a parent heard that William E. Tobiassen, a longtime Scout leader in Corvallis, was sexually abusing one of his troop members, she alerted Scout officials.

Nothing changed.

For two more years, Tobiassen, an insurance agent with sons of his own, abused the boy.

The abuse was exposed only when the teenager told a counselor and then police what had happened. Even then, internal memos show, the Scouts executive overseeing Tobiassen didn’t want to ban him from Scouting until there were formal charges.

The episode from 1984 wasn’t the only instance when Oregon Scout leaders failed to act on trouble in their ranks.

Secret files obtained by The Oregonian from 1971 to 1991 contain no record that Scout leaders alerted authorities to adults suspected of child abuse in at least 11 instances in Oregon.

In all, 46 people were booted from Scouting in Oregon in those years, most based on police or media reports of suspected or proven cases of child molestation.

Scout leaders insist they take appropriate measures to protect children.

A Portland jury recently concluded otherwise.

In that case, jurors considered 1,000 confidential Scout files from 1965 to 1985 to judge the Scouts’ liability. Only once before in the country has a jury seen such files, but never before in the volume or unrestricted form provided Portland jurors. The jury subsequently awarded Kerry Lewis $18.5 million to punish the Scouts for abuse he suffered at the hands of a Scout leader.

But the award also was meant to jolt the Scouts.

"We were trying to send a message," said Margaret Ormsbee, one of the jurors. "It seemed to most of us they were putting their PR and reputation above children’s safety."

The Portland case focused a white hot light on Boy Scout practices. Critics say the Scouting organization, headquartered in Texas, has never adequately responded to sex abuse within its ranks as the Catholic church finally has now done.

Nearly 25 years ago, the Scouts designed a program they said would protect youth from sex abuse, but it has been largely voluntary for the 1.2 million men and women guiding Scouts across the country. The Scouts have no record of who has taken the training. They haven’t assessed how widely used it is or whether it works.

Scouts leaders in Texas headquarters won’t discuss their program or Scout child abuse. Historically, they have talked only grudgingly when they had to – in court or through lawyers.

The Scouts appeared ready to break their silence, scheduling an interview with The Oregonian and seeking written questions they promised to answer. One day before the interview, the Scouts canceled out on both.

Instead, they provided a two-page description of their abuse-prevention program and a chronology of their efforts.

Scout executives in Oregon were little more forthcoming after getting written questions asking how they protect Oregon Scouts from sexual abuse. The largest unit, based in Portland, responded with a one-page letter, the Eugene unit declined comment, and the Medford unit didn’t answer at all.

"We make the Boy Scouts of America’s youth protection training programs for youth, parents and volunteers readily available, and we strongly support participation in such programs," wrote Matthew Devore, Scout executive at the Cascade Pacific Council. The council serves 32,471 boys.

Ormsbee said jurors were troubled the Scouts didn’t concede the seriousness of their record of child abuse stretching back nearly a century. "We all thought it was absolutely incomprehensible that the Scouts didn’t realize this was a problem," Ormsbee said.

Ormsbee said she had nightmares for weeks after reading "about awful things that happened over and over and over" in the Scout files.

Those "awful things" are documented in "ineligible volunteer files" created at Texas headquarters and kept in locked storage.

The files typically include notes from local Scout leaders, relying on internal inquiries, police or court records, and even press clippings. Scout leaders have been banned for abusing Scouts, other children from school or church, or their own children.

The master list is meant to keep offenders from returning to Scouting. Local officials never see the files but are advised by headquarters when a particular volunteer can’t be registered as a Scout leader.
But in Oregon, that hasn’t always kept abusers away.

In 1982, Ken J. Drury was convicted in Deschutes County of sexual abuse.

Drury went on to participate in Scouting activities in Lane County.

Four years later, when Eugene-area Scout officials heard rumors of Drury’s criminal past, they wrote national headquarters for direction, noting that Drury "seems to have nothing more to do than travel around attaching himself to Scouting."

According to the confidential files, national Scout officials prepared to add Drury to the list but advised local Scout leaders that they "would not refuse registration" to Drury until they had more information.

An Oregon State Police officer supplied the necessary details, noting that the 1982 victim was a 16-year-old boy Drury was returning from a Scout outing.

Drury was officially banned from Scouting in November 1986.

He died in 2001.

National leaders in 1986 urged the Portland Scout council to drop cubmaster Carleton "Tim" Coffey "in a kind way" when they learned he had been convicted the year before of sexually abusing a young girl.

When national leaders learned later that Coffey was still in Scouting, they pressed again that he be ushered out. "This individual’s record is such that this could cause serious problems for the Boy Scouts of America should any further legal matters develop," according to an April 1988 letter from a national official.

The Portland council finally banned Coffey, who died in 1999.

The Oregon files also reveal that Scout leaders didn’t always tell police when they discovered a potential molester.

Under Oregon law, Scout executives aren’t required to report their suspicions to authorities as are teachers, doctors and others. Scout leaders were advised by national headquarters of their legal right to keep such information confidential.

"In the event that your jurisdiction does not require reporting, make sure that the individual making the allegation understands that the local council has no such requirement and does not intend to report the incident to authorities," said written instructions as read during a deposition of a top Scout executive.

William Tobiassen was one the Scouts spared from reporting to police.

He had been a Scout leader for more than a decade in Corvallis. He was active in politics, helping the local district attorney in a political campaign.

In 1982, Scout executives were told he was abusing a teen in his troop. The parent of another Scout tipped off Scout leaders. She testified later that they "downplayed" her information and said they would take care of it. They didn’t.

Two years later, police did act on the information. Tobiassen was convicted of sex abuse in 1984 and banned from Scouting.

Scouts were also slow to act following a report that assistant Scoutmaster Roy S. Wilson, who slept nude when camping, had straddled a Scout in his tent during a 1985 backpacking trip and insisted on providing a back rub.

The boy’s mother subsequently complained to Scout leaders.

A confidential Scout report drafted several months after the mother’s complaint recounted the boy’s description of how Wilson’s "muscles were very tense and his eyes bulged out."

Wilson told The Oregonian last week that he was dressed when he gave the back rub and that he didn’t abuse the boy. Still, local officials declined his offer to help with a 1985 summer camp, citing his "past background."

That may have been a reference to excerpts in his Scout file from a medical report that a worried doctor shared with Scout leaders. The doctor noted that Wilson, who was also a Lutheran minister, had "begun to turn to very young teenagers, 14 and 16 years old, as his main support system" and engaged in activities "there were not healthy for anyone involved."

Wilson said he participated with three troops at once, without registering as a volunteer. An internal Scout memo said Wilson was told to leave Scouting after the camping incident. But Wilson told The Oregonian he was ejected from just one of the troops and continued to work with the other two until months later, when he was formally banned from Scouting. He was added to the national list in 1987

"It was some time before the council did anything," Wilson said. "I think they were very sloppy."

He criticized the organization for ineffective controls.

"People are put on their list proscribing working with Boy Scouts any further without any checking into realities of the situation, and people are taken off the list despite the fact of solid evidence that they are a continuing danger," Wilson said.

Sixteen years after the back rub episode, police arrested Wilson in a child sex abuse case in Tillamook. He was convicted and is now a registered sex offender.

In 1974, Scout leaders confronted James F. Hogan over reports he had been kissing and hugging boys he oversaw through a troop sponsored by the Portland Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The file recounted one formerly "enthusiastic" Scout’s reaction to a meeting with Hogan. The boy "took off his uniform and threw it and his books into the closet and has not taken them out to this day," the internal report said.

The file said Hogan had repeated questionable contact with Scouts, but the file contains no record that Scouts reported him to police.

They did ban Hogan from Scouting – but only for a time. In 1981,

church leaders asked that Hogan be reinstated because they concluded the earlier accusations against him weren’t true.

The Scouts relented, and restored Hogan as a Scout volunteer. Nine years later, they put him back on the list after he abused two boys he met at the church and pleaded guilty to sodomy.

Hogan told The Oregonian in an email that he didn’t have much memory of how the Scouts handled his case.

"I do take full responsibility for my actions and carry a heavy burden of pain, sorrow and regret both for those young men who have been injured and also for my wife, children and grandchildren who are re-injured each time these things are brought forth," Hogan wrote. 

On Friday, church officials issued a statement about child-protection measures taken in the 30 years since the Hogan case:

"As in society at large, there is today a better recognition of just how manipulative and deceitful perpetrators of abuse can be. That fact, along with a deeper understanding of the impact such abuse can have on victims, has led the Church to establish a 24-hour helpline, to provide extensive training for local leaders on recognizing abuse, to mandate compliance with reporting laws, to provide professional counseling for victims and to adopt stern methods for dealing with perpetrators."

In Southern Oregon, a high school dean and Scout leader was banned from Scouting for associating with a known sex offender. A local volunteer asked about the Scouts’ procedures in such matters, and a national executive wrote that "no public knowledge is made of any information which we have which would destroy anyone’s reputation."

Such concern over reputation was standard for the Scouts, according to the national executive who managed registration of volunteers.

"Our philosophy has been that we are not trying in any way to hurt this person’s reputation or their standing in the community. Simply to make certain they are not registered in Scouting," testified Paul Ernst in a 1986 deposition.

He has since retired, and Scout officials in Texas wouldn’t answer whether that practice continues.

Past behavior wasn’t always detected because the Scouts didn’t start subjecting volunteers to criminal background checks until 2003. In the Oregon case files, word of criminal conduct came either from police or newspaper headlines.

In the 1980s, Oregon State Police Sgt. Ron Jones provided the Boy Scouts in Southern Oregon information he said should be sufficient to ban a Scout leader. Jones, who died in 2003, also was a top Scout executive in Medford.

In 1987, Jones alerted Scouts that Jay D. Mitchell, a Scout leader from Grants Pass, had been accused of sodomy and sex abuse involving children who weren’t Scouts.

Once Mitchell pleaded guilty to four counts of sodomy, Jones urged the Scouts to act. He said Mitchell was a "dangerous offender, which means simply that if he had not been arrested, his activities would be more and more violent."

The Scouts officially added Mitchell to the blacklist seven months after he was convicted of sexually abusing a child.

Mitchell couldn’t be located for comment.

Tim Kosnoff, a Seattle attorney who has represented abused Scouts, said his clients have never been offered treatment by the Scouts.

"It’s like a failure to administer first aid to a Scout who’s broken his leg," Kosnoff said.

The Cascade Pacific Council "offers both individual and group counseling when appropriate," said Devore, the Scout executive. He wouldn’t elaborate.

The national Scouts’ federal tax return for 2008 doesn’t list any expense for counseling or therapy. It did list $9.9 million on public relations, which, Scout officials say, includes internal communications.

The focus on public relations troubles those who believe the Scouts should be accountable for what has happened.

Dr. Eli Newberger, a Massachusetts pediatrician recognized as an expert on child abuse, is one of the few outsiders who have had access to the Scouts’ secret files. He has testified on behalf of Scouting victims, based in part on reviewing files as recent as 2005.

Newberger concluded the Scouts fell "far short" of adequately protecting children.

"Bureaucratic prerogatives may have trumped the interests of children and secrecy hid evidence of a continuing threat to the welfare of children," Newberger wrote.

James F. Hogan
Born

: June 1937

Scout positions:

Cubmaster of Pack 406 in Portland, involved with group from Post 812, cubmaster for Unit 3112

History:

When a Portland Cub Scout returned from an overnight stay at cubmaster James Hogan’s house, he told his parents that Hogan had fondled him over his sleeping bag, according to a 1974 letter a local Scout official sent to a Scout executive.

Hogan wrote an apologetic letter to the Boy Scouts that same year, but he was placed on the national organization’s blacklist in June 1974. He was rejected when he tried to re-register in 1978.

Then, in 1981, Hogan found a way back in. After a counselor affiliated with the Mormon Church insisted that Hogan’s physicality had been misinterpreted, the Scouts registered Hogan on a probationary basis, again as cubmaster.

In 1989, Hogan pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a juvenile relative and two boys he met through his position as a janitor of the church. Those two victims filed a civil suit against the church, which was settled.

 As recently as 2008, another Portland man came forward with a lawsuit alleging Hogan sexually abused him while employed by the church. The case was settled for undisclosed terms.

Where is he now?

Portland

Born:

January 17, 1934

Scout positions

: Scout Commissioner, 1986 Scouter of the Year for Eastern Oregon District

History

: On the outside, Franklin Mathias seemed an exemplary Scout leader.

But an emotional Mathias abruptly resigned from the organization in June 1987,  according to official Scout documents. Just months later, he was arrested on sexual abuse charges involving at least five young boys. News reports said some of the abuse allegedly took place on Boy Scout outings.

In 1988, he was convicted of one count of first-degree sexual abuse and three counts of second-degree sexual abuse.

Letters show Scout leaders immediately sensed the legal implications.

"So far, we are not involved and do not have any lawsuits pending against us," wrote one scout executive. "For the time being, I guess we wait and keep our fingers crossed."

Where is he now?

Jefferson

Gerald Wayne Gunter 
Born:

January 27, 1949 

Scout positions:

Involved with Troop Number 491 in Jackson County, volunteer for Ashland’s Troop 112

History:

In the summer of 1985, the National Office received word of a Scout’s mother who had accused Gunter of sexually abusing her son.

In September, Gunter pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual abuse charges and was sentenced to five years probation.

In July 1985, Kathryn Janssen, a longtime attorney for the Scouts, wrote the National Office about a civil suit filed on behalf of the boy against Gunter and the Scouts. She noted "warning signs of several other potential suits."

Gunter’s case was settled two years later. Terms were not disclosed.

Where is he now?

Ashland

 –

Les Zaitz

,

Nicole Dungca

by Timothy Lytton
December 7, 2009
Huffington Post

News Coverage of Cardinal Edward M. Egan’s cover up of clergy sexual abuse in the 1990s while he was the bishop of Bridgeport would be shocking if it weren’t so familiar. The list of high ranking Catholic Church officials who failed to report credible allegations of child sexual abuse by priests to law enforcement includes the most prominent prelates of this generation: Cardinal Joseph Bernadin in Chicago, Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua in Philadelphia, and Cardinal Roger Mahony in Los Angeles.

The Egan case does, however, highlight one feature of this ongoing scandal that is frequently overlooked: the role that civil lawsuits have played in uncovering most of what we know about clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and in motivating Church officials to address the problem.

To begin with, plaintiffs’ have lawyers compelled Church officials to produce secret files concerning abuse allegations and to provide sworn testimony about their own failures to adequately address the problem. Media reports about Cardinal Egan’s failures in Bridgeport are based on more than 12,000 pages of memos, church records, and testimony from 23 lawsuits against the diocese. Indeed, most media coverage of the scandal–dating back to the early 1980s–has been based on these types of litigation documents.

Civil lawsuits have also shaped our understanding of the clergy sexual abuse scandal as an institutional failure on the part of Church leaders. Throughout the scandal, some within the Church have attempted to focus attention exclusively on the perpetrators, suggesting that clergy sexual abuse is merely a matter of "a few bad apples." Others have argued that the whole matter has been blown out of proportion by plaintiffs’ lawyers and their clients seeking to make money off of the scandal by filing lawsuits. One also frequently hears suggestions that news coverage of the scandal is motivated by anti-Catholic media bias. Indeed, Cardinal Egan’s successor, Archbishop Timothy Dolan leveled this very accusation against the New York Times this fall.

By contrast, civil lawsuits have focused attention on the failures of Church officials. Plaintiffs’ lawyers sue large institutional defendants because they are better able to pay large settlements and judgments, and so clergy sexual abuse lawsuits have emphasized the failure of diocesan officials–especially bishops–to protect children from known abusers.

Media coverage of the scandal has been heavily influenced by this framing of clergy sexual abuse as an institutional failure on the part of Church officials. Litigation and trials have traditionally provided the type of drama that makes them attractive to journalists seeking to draw in readers. In addition, documents filed in court and sworn testimony provide the kind of credible sources of information that journalists like to rely upon.

By framing clergy sexual abuse as a problem of institutional failure on the part of Church officials, civil lawsuits have also motivated dioceses around the country to institute new programs to prevent sexual abuse before it occurs and to report credible allegations of sexual abuse when it does happen. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reports that over 90 percent of dioceses have instituted such programs and have trained over 7 million people in preventing, investigating, and reporting child sexual abuse.

It is inconceivable that so many U.S. bishops would have instituted such ambitious efforts to address clergy sexual abuse in the absence of the intense media coverage and public attention generated by civil lawsuits–not to mention the liability exposure.

It has been 25 years since the first civil lawsuits were filed against Catholic Church officials for clergy sexual abuse, and much progress has been made as a result of them. That leading prelates such as Cardinal Egan are still fighting so hard to hide the record of their misdeeds indicates that there is more work to be done and that civil lawsuits against Church officials may still have a role in uncovering the truth, highlighting the misdeeds of officials, and providing much needed pressure for reform.