US Scouts facing $14m lawsuit

Published on Friday 19 March 2010 20:54

THE Boy Scouts of America movement has long kept an extensive archive of secret documents that chronicle the sexual abuse of young boys by troop leaders.

The "perversion files," a nickname the group is said to have used for the documents, have rarely been seen by the public, but that could change in the coming weeks in an Oregon courtroom.

Kelly Clark, a lawyer acting for a man who was molested in the 1980s by a Scout leader has obtained about 1,000 Boy Scouts sex files and is expected to release some of them at a trial that began this week. He claims the files show how the Boy Scouts have covered up abuse for decades.

The only other time the documents are believed to have been presented at a US trial was in the 1980s in Virginia. At the start of the Oregon trial, Mr Clark

held up file after file that he said contained reports of abuse from around the country, saying keeping them secret may have set back efforts to prevent child abuse nationally.

However, Charles Smith, the lawyer for the Boy Scouts of America, said the files were kept under wraps because they "were replete with confidential information". He said the files helped national scouting leaders weed out sex offenders, especially repeat offenders who may have changed names or moved to other areas.

"They were trying to do the right thing by trying to track these folks," Mr Smith said.

Mr Clark is seeking $14 million (9.3m) in damages on behalf of a 37-year-old man who was sexually molested in the 1980s in Portland by an assistant Scoutmaster, Timur Dykes. He said the victim suffered mental health problems and lost several jobs because of the abuse.

Dykes was convicted three times between 1983 and 1994 of sexually abusing boys, most of them Scouts.