Ore. lawsuit claims Boy Scouts sex abuse coverup
https://apnews. myway.com/ article/20100319 /D9EHLRE00. html


Mar 19, 2010 By WILLIAM McCALL
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The Boy Scouts of America has long kept an
extensive archive of secret documents that chronicle the sexual abuse of
young boys by Scout leaders over the years.

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

The lawyer 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 Wednesday. The lawyer says the files
show how the Boy Scouts have covered up abuse for decades.

The trial is significant because the files could offer a rare window
into how the Boy Scouts have responded to sex abuse by Scout leaders.
The only other time the documents are believed to have been presented at
a trial was in the 1980s in Virginia.

At the start of the Oregon trial, attorney Kelly Clark recited the Boy
Scout oath and the promise to obey Scout law to be "trustworthy. " Then
he presented six boxes of documents that he said will show "how the Boy
Scouts of America broke that oath." He held up file folder after file
folder he said contained reports of abuse from around the country,
telling the jury the efforts to keep them secret may have actually set
back efforts to prevent child abuse nationally.. ...

Clark is seeking $14 million in damages on behalf of a 37-year-old man
who was sexually molested in the early 1980s in Portland by an assistant
Scoutmaster, Timur Dykes. Clark said the victim suffered mental health
problems, bad grades in school, drug use, anxiety, difficulty
maintaining relationships and lost several jobs over the years because
of the abuse. Dykes was convicted three times between 1983 and 1994
of sexually abusing boys, most of them Scouts....

The lawsuit also named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
because the Mormons acted as a charter organization, or sponsor, for the
local Boy Scouts troop that included the victim. But the church has
settled its portion of the case.