PORTLAND, Ore. — Jurors in a $14 million lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America are viewing documents that the plaintiff’s attorneys say illustrate their contention that Scout officials in various American towns dismissed or ignored allegations of sex abuse by Scout leaders for nearly two decades.
The attorneys represent a 37-year-old Oregon man who was molested by a Scout leader in the 1980s and is suing the national organization. The trial is expected to last three more weeks.
On Monday, the Multnomah County Circuit Court jurors got a rare look at letters and documents from a confidential file kept by the Boy Scouts of America from 1965-84 to track Scout leaders suspected of molesting young boys.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the Boy Scouts over sex abuse allegations, but judges for the most part have either denied requests for the documents — dubbed the “perversion files” by the Boy Scouts of America — or the cases have been settled out of court. The only other time the documents are believed to have been presented at a trial was in the 1980s in Virginia.
In one letter from the files, a Scout council executive in an unidentified town said a Scoutmaster who slept in the nude and showed pornographic books to Cub Scouts showed bad judgment but shouldn’t be dismissed.
Another document, from 1973, noted that a Scoutmaster who admitted sexual abuse was allowed to return to his duties after seeing a psychiatrist.
Lawyers Paul Mones and Kelly Clark say the documents show a pattern among Boy Scout leadership of ignoring suspected abuse or allowing pedophiles to return to scouting activities. Their client was sexually abused in the early 1980s by assistant Scoutmaster Timur Dykes, who was convicted three times between 1983 and 1994 of sexually abusing boys — most of them Scouts.
In a video deposition already played for these jurors, Dykes has acknowledged abusing the man.
Charles Smith, attorney for the national Boy Scouts, said in his own opening statement last week that the files were kept under wraps because they “were replete with confidential information.”
Smith said the documents helped national scouting leaders weed out sex offenders, especially repeat offenders who may have changed names or moved in an attempt to join another local scouting group.
William Dworin, a former detective in the Los Angeles Police Department exploited child unit, testified Monday that pedophiles often build a relationship of trust with their victims.
“They encourage the child to come to their place of residence,” he said. “They give gifts and presents.”
That was what Dykes did, according to a 39-year-old man from Sioux Falls, S.D., who testified Monday that the ex-Scout leader also abused him when he was a Boy Scout in Portland in the early 1980s. He didn’t tell his mother until she confronted him months later after learning that other Scouts had been abused.
“I was just scared,” said the man, who also has sued the Boy Scouts of America. “All the shame. I was just scared.”
Dykes has admitted molesting 17 of the 30 boys in his troop.
Boy Scouts of America spokesman Deron Smith has said the organization cannot comment on details of the case, but has worked hard on awareness and prevention efforts, including background checks.
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