CourthouseNewsService
By Travis Sanford

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.

TampaBayOnline
May 21, 2010

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.

MyFox TampaBay
Friday, May 21, 2010

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.
 

BayNews9.com
Friday, May 21, 2010

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.

www.OregonLive.com
May 23, 2010

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

www.OregonLive.com
May 22nd, 2010

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 Susan Nielsen, The Oregonian
www.OregonLive.com

Is it hard for survivors of child sex abuse to speak out?

Is the pope Catholic?
 
Victims worldwide continue to pour forward with stories of abuse as children at the hands of clergy. Many of the allegations have been substantiated by priests who’ve confessed. Even the pope himself was drawn into the scandal last week with questions about his past role in protecting an abusive priest from earthly consequences.
 
The surprising part here isn’t the sheer number of victims, from the deaf children in Wisconsin to the altar boys in Ireland. The real shocker is remembering that most child sex abuse victims aren’t connected to churches, don’t file lawsuits and never speak publicly at all.
 
At least one in five girls and one in 10 boys experiences unwanted sexual touching or other sex abuse, based on federal data and research cited by the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Most of the bad actors in these cases are not priests or pastors. They are stepfathers, family friends, fathers and neighbors.
 
The majority are never held accountable.
 
"I think of that as the hidden iceberg," says legal scholar Marci Hamilton, a national authority on child abuse at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and the author of "Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children."
 
She added, "There is a tremendous amount of suffering."
 
Traditionally, about 90 percent of victims don’t speak out, and the reasons are as messy and common as the crimes themselves. It can take decades for victims to shake off enough of the shame to stop feeling responsible.
 
"Denial and survival play a huge part in the reason why victims of abuse ‘wait’ to come forward," or never say a word, says Kristi Kernal of Beaverton, a co-founder and board member of OAASIS, Oregon Abuse Advocates and Survivors in Service.
 
Also, until recently, most state laws enforced a tight window of time during which victims could successfully seek justice. The statute of limitations would close while victims were still in their teens or early 20s, typically unprepared and ill-equipped to take on the authority figure who abused them.
 
Finally, there are stark personal costs to coming forward. If the abuser was a family member, victims risk an ex-communication of sorts by their own family. If the abuser was a trusted coach or pastor or teacher, victims risk other forms of social exile.
 
Staying quiet is a rational decision. So is eventually speaking up years later, whether in a counselor’s office or a lawyer’s conference room.
 
The alternative is to keep paying the price with compromised health and troubled relationships.
 
"Depression, anxiety, fear, post traumatic stress, trust issues, body image issues, relationship problems, suicide attempts — the list goes on," Kernal says.
 
The Catholic Church eventually will work through its backlog of sex abuse cases. Some evidence suggests that American churches are inching toward resolution, even while Europe confronts its own crisis: In 2009, the number of new allegations, victims and known offenders in the United States dropped to the lowest point since 2004, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
 
The process of legal and spiritual atonement is terribly wrenching, both for the Catholic Church and the people within it. But a clear upside exists.
 
The scandal is transforming American culture, forcing people to adopt prevention strategies and talk to children about warning signs. The fog of shame around sex abuse is beginning to lift.
 
This change may help the church recover and renew itself.
 
More important, it will help victims — including the silent ones everywhere — slowly heal.
 
 – Associate Editor Susan Nielsen, The Oregonian

Why the Grand Jury Probe Should Be Welcomed, Not Criticized

By MARCI A. HAMILTON
Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009
FindLaw

Recently, it was announced that Los Angeles United States Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien was starting a grand jury investigation into allegations of a child sex abuse coverup by the Catholic Church’s Los Angeles Archdiocese. The announcement was met with consternation and defensive cries from various Catholic quarters. Before they drown out the larger public good, however it is worthwhile to spend some time with the facts – which, I will argue, show that a grand jury investigation is exactly what should be occurring now.

Professor Kmiec’s Argument: The Claims of Abuse Were "Well-Litigated"

Pepperdine law professor Douglas Kmiec (who has also been a guest columnist on this site) quickly posted a lengthy critique on Catholic Online, arguing that "wading into this already well-litigated matter gives every appearance of ‘piling on.’" In support of his claim, he pointed to the fact that the Archdiocese settled civil claims with over 500 victims for a total of $660 million. The fact, though, is that the claims never were "well-litigated." Kmiec is right about one thing: The end result was a settlement, not hundreds of trials, which would have released mountains of information to the public.

The apparent reasons behind the settlement are very pertinent: First, early on, the church hierarchy succeeded in getting many claims consolidated together, so as to avoid individual litigation. Many survivors wanted their day in court and opposed consolidation, but this procedural move by the hierarchy meant that large collections of cases were treated as though they were single cases with judges overseeing many at one time. That way, the hierarchy could argue to reduce per-person claims, because the size of the total award would be large no matter what and the hierarchy could more effectively and efficiently control what information about the coverup would be released.

Second, the Archdiocese settled essentially on the eve of trial, when it appeared that the Cardinal would have to testify regarding his obvious knowledge of a great deal of abuse. In other words, the settlement was a tactic to keep a further lid on damaging information. Thus, despite the settlement, relatively little information, especially given the amount that is still under the sole control of the Archdiocese, has reached the public.

Kmiec still claims, however, that the public has enough information. He writes: "What’s more, the hypothetical prosecution cannot really be said to promote greater disclosure, as the Cardinal already issued a 2004 report giving individualized detail of priests accused of abuse." Yet that report is better described as a mere outline. Moreover, and more importantly, as part of the Los Angeles settlement, Cardinal Mahony promised to release millions of pages of files on the abusers, the abuse, and the coverup. Survivors insisted on it as a necessary element of the settlement.

These promises have not yet been worth the paper they were printed on. Mahony’s lawyers, on behalf of their client, have been in court ever since the agreement was signed, to oppose release of each of the papers, one by one. As Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley has said, "Three years ago, I urged Cardinal Mahony to provide the fullest possible disclosure of evidence of sexual abuse by clergy. Despite two court rulings ordering full disclosure, Cardinal Mahony continues to claim ‘confidentiality privileges’ that no court has recognized." Few citizens know that the Archdiocese’s lawyers still continue to drag the plaintiffs’ lawyers to court on a regular basis to evade Mahony’s promise to reveal all of the relevant secrets. It is not over, and the reason it is not over is because of the continuing tactics of truth-evasion practiced by Mahony.

The Church’s Claims of a New "Zero Tolerance" Policy Are Belied by the Evidence

Kmiec goes on to claim that "under Rome’s supervision, which the Holy Father personally reasserted just months ago in his visit to America, abusers have been defrocked and a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy is in place." But Kmiec is simply too smart to make such hollow claims. If zero-tolerance is the policy, then the Cardinal has made a mockery of it.

The facts speak for themselves. In 2006, Los Angeles police questioned church and school officials about Daniel Murphy Catholic High School’s Dean of Students, John Malburg, against whom current child sex abuse allegations were being asserted. (Malburg comes from a prominent Los Angeles family.) Yet, despite receiving clear notice from authorities that there were claims of abuse asserted against Malburg, the Archdiocese did not suspend him and kept the information secret. When Malburg was arrested and charged six months later, and parents complained that they had not been timely alerted about the allegations, the Archdiocese blamed the police, saying that they had asked that the information be kept secret. The LAPD, in the Los Angeles Times, said it had never made such a request.

And Malburg is far from the only example demonstrating the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s and sadly the larger Church’s continuing tolerance – and, indeed, protection – of alleged child abusers. Fr. Nicholas Aguilar Rivera allegedly abused at least 26 boys in Los Angeles in a mere nine months. In August 2007, church records about Aguilar were released to the public. The records indicated that then-Msgr. Thomas Curry notified Aguilar about the release of the records, leading Aguilar to escape to Mexico to avoid prosecution, where there are credible allegations that he went on to molest more children. The upshot? Far from being demoted for violating the "zero-tolerance" rule, Curry was promoted to be one of Mahony’s auxiliary bishops, and was never disciplined for putting more children within reach of a priest whom evidence strongly suggests is a serial pedophile.

Then there is Franciscan monk Gerald Chumik — an admitted child molester who has been a fugitive from his native Canada for fourteen years. Until 2005, Mahony had permitted Chumik to live in the Los Angeles Archdiocese; Chumik left only because the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and others demanded that he be turned over to the authorities. Even in the face of these reasonable demands, Mahony did not go to the authorities; instead, he let Chumik move to Missouri.

This is not remotely zero-tolerance. Rather, it is just plain tolerance of pedophiles. Mahony has not made a clean break from the internal culture and rules requiring coverup and secrecy, and his actions and omissions have obviously created danger for children in other states and countries. According to Kmiec, though, "this is not the equivalent of a federal public or corporate corruption offense meriting 20 years in the federal pen." Explain that to the kids evidence strongly suggests were abused by Malburg, the Mexican kids believed to have been abused by Rivera, or to Chumik’s acknowledged victims, wherever they may be. Explain that to the parents at Malburg’s school who surely trusted in all of the public assurances from the Pope on down about zero-tolerance, whose children attended school with a credibly accused pedophile and were told nothing about it until the authorities were involved.

Other Arguments Against the Grand Jury Investigation Are Also Completely Unconvincing

Others came to Mahony’s defense as well, including Professor G. Robert Blakey of Notre Dame Law School, who said the investigation was "outrageous" because the alleged conduct at issue is unrelated to the federal government. That is a mistake, though. It is a fact that predator priests often have been sent across state or national boundaries (see above). The national and international movement of pedophiles makes the task of a full investigation by any local district attorney impossible. Moreover, many of the perpetrators have taken their victims across state lines, frequently for "vacations" or camping trips. The United States should have been involved long ago, and one can only speculate what took the Department of Justice so long to consider investigating what are obviously federal crimes.

Professor Nicholas P. Cafardi, of Duquesne University School of Law, called the inquiry "an intrusion into the church’s First Amendment rights." For him, "It’s time for this to be over. L.A. has settled with all of their claimants." Yet it is crucial to recall that one of the very reasons the victims participated in the civil settlement was to obtain the release of the Archdiocese’s records on abusers – and recall that they continue to wait as the Archdiocese balks, claiming non-existent privileges. The First Amendment is no dispensation from the law or decency. Moreover, since when do crime victims have to choose between civil and criminal justice? Those molested deserve compensation from those responsible, those at risk deserve protection, and the rest of us deserve real justice in criminal court.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Archdiocese issued a statement referring to picketing abuse survivors as "an angry mob" and asserting that "there is no priest currently in the ministry in the archdiocese who had been found to have abused a minor." Yet the latter point offers no comfort: As I explained above, there were virtually no trials and no "findings" in the settlement involving hundreds of victims, likely because the Archdiocese did not want its sins, omissions, and crimes spelled out.

Religious Rules Against Airing "Scandal" Cannot and Should Not Be Enforced in Our Secular Justice System

Finally, it is most telling that the Archdiocese’s defenders would become so worked up over the start of a grand jury investigation. They are opposing the gathering of information and evidence. Why do they care so much, if all the information to be released is out, as they claim? And why do they care so little about children that Mahony’s recent, appalling record regarding credible child-abuse allegations does not give them pause?

The answer likely lies in culture and theology. There is an internal rule within the Church against "scandal." That is, believers are not supposed to bring shame to the Church by airing its dirty laundry in public. The same principle can be found in Orthodox Judaism, in which it is known as chilul hashem. The phrase literally means "desecration of God’s name," but is used to prohibit giving the community a bad name. The parallel is notable, for certain Orthodox Jewish organizations have become the latest religious groups whose secret coverup of child sex abuse is being exposed to the public. Despite their very different religious beliefs, the two religious groups’ organizational operations with respect to child sex abuse within their community are strikingly similar. Each has something to learn from the other. The Orthodox can learn that internal control of sex abuse never works and the Catholics can get over the destructive tendency to cling to notions of persecution when in fact they are simply on the wrong side of the law.

If U.S. Attorney O’Brien has hit upon a "novel" legal strategy, as has been alleged, so be it. We have an epidemic of child sexual abuse, which is attributable in part to a lack of imagination and sometimes political will on the part of prosecutors and courts. O’Brien should be applauded for joining the small group of federal prosecutors who are now taking a stand for children who suffer abuse in religious settings. Let’s hope that, in the Obama Administration, more U.S. Attorneys will take the same courageous stance. Making children a top priority would be a true change in federal policy.

Marci Hamilton is the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge 2008). A review of Justice Denied appeared on this site on June 25, 2008. Her previous book is God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press 2005), now available in paperback.

January 15, 2010
By John R. Ellement and Jonathan Saltzman, Globe staff

Defrocked Roman Catholic priest Paul Shanley today lost his appeal before the state’s high court, ensuring that a key figure in the priest abuse scandal that rocked the Boston Archdiocese will remain behind bars.

(Yoon S. Byun/Globe Staff/file)

The Supreme Judicial Court upheld Shanley’s convictions for two counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault and battery obtained by Middlesex prosecutors in 2005. The victim first made his accusations against Shanley in 2002, some 20 years after the abuse took place at St. Jean’s Church in Newton when the boy was between the ages of 6 and 11.

The SJC rejected defense attorney Robert F. Shaw Jr.’s contention that Shanley’s trial was flawed because the "junk science” of "repressed memory" was used by prosecutors to explain that long gap.

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.

The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has told UTV he was ashamed and shocked by the revelations of a report into 30 years of child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese.

"I’m deeply ashamed and shocked at the abuse revealed in today’s report and I want to apologise to those who suffered abuse and to their families", the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, said.

"I also want to apologise to the people of this country that the abuse was covered up and that the reputation of the church was sometimes placed above the safety and well-being of the children."

On Thursday night, the head of the Dublin Archdiocese, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, branded the revelations revolting, adding no words of apology would ever be sufficient for the horrifying abuse.

Archbishop Martin said he was offering his shame and sorrow to survivors and claimed the Archdiocese had failed to recognise the theft of childhood.

The senior cleric said the paedophile priests were devious in their attempts to excuse and deny sickening attacks.

"I would appeal to each of those people who are named in the commission as having acted in a way which put children in peril to assess their behaviour in past and behaviour today," he said.

Archbishop Martin said the numbers of victims were likely to be much higher than known.

He handed over more than 5,000 secret Church documents to the Commission in January last year, sparking a legal battle involving Cardinal Desmond Connell.

The Cardinal tried to block the publication claiming they were legally privileged or confidential.

The Archbishop declined to be drawn on whether Cardinal Connell should step aside.

"I’m pleased to see that over the last few days the judgment of Cardinal Connell is not as black and white, or almost in the black that it was over a period of time," he said.

"He’s a man who struggled with his own personal make-up and his own conscience and came out earlier than most bishops on the right side.

"Give people credit for the good things they do."

On Thursday night, Cardinal Connell asked for forgiveness from the abuse victims who suffered at the hands of paedophile priests under his control.

The senior cleric said he was distressed and bewildered that those in such a sacred position could be responsible for the heinous crimes.

The frail 83-year-old, who was among four Archbishops criticised for not handing over information to authorities on abusers, said the abuse of children was an unspeakable crime.

"Although I am all too aware that such apologies and expressions of regret can never be adequate as a response to so much hurt and violation, and, in any case, lose value through repetition, I apologise again now from my heart," he said in a statement.

"The abuse of children is an unspeakable crime," he continued.

Although critical of the Cardinal, the report gave him credit for instigating two secret canon law trials, despite strong opposition from one of the most powerful canonists in the Archdiocese, Monsignor Sheehy.

They led to two priests being defrocked.

In 1995 he also handed over files on 17 suspect priests to gardai, although it was later revealed he was aware of at least 28 at the time.

Survivors have demanded the Cardinal and other senior figures face a criminal investigation.

© UTV News

By Aimee Green,
The Oregonian

October 26, 2009

A man who claims he was molested by a Boy Scouts’ camp ranger in the 1970s is suing the organization for $5.15 million.

The man, who is now in his late 40s, says he was in his early teens when the ranger of the former Camp Mallard in Oregon sexually abused him during visits on weekends and in the summer. The suit claims that Edward Elston  sometimes gave his victim — identified only by the initials S.M. — money to keep quiet or threatened to hurt him if he told.

Elston was not charged with a crime. The plaintiff’s attorney, Kelly Clark,  said he believes Elston is dead.

The suit was filed Friday in Multnomah County Circuit Court. It is one of 11 filed in Oregon against the Boy Scouts of America by Clark in the last few years, on behalf of clients who say they were molested as children. All the suits are still pending.

S.M.’s suit claims that the Boy Scouts organization knew at least by the 1960s that pedophiles were using their scouting positions to victimize children and that the problem was institution-wide. "Despite this knowledge, these defendants did not implement adequate child sex abuse policies" by the time S.M. joined the Scouts.

The man didn’t realize how deeply the abuse had affected him psychologically until 2008, after extensive therapy sessions, Clark said.  

The Cascade Pacific Council, which is also named as a defendant in the suit, couldn’t be reached for immediate comment.

– Aimee Green

www.NPR.org
By Frank James

In scouting, trust is important, and troops act as a family to address problems. How did that backfire in Burnsville?

By JOY POWELL
Minneapolis Star Tribune
October 24, 2009

The Philadelphia Inquirer
October 23, 2009

The best way for Wilmington’s Roman Catholic Bishop W. Francis Malooly to demonstrate his stated concern for "all victims of sexual abuse by priests of our diocese" would be to give those victims their day in court.

Instead, Malooly’s eleventh-hour decision Sunday to file for bankruptcy protection effectively halted the first of eight clergy sex-abuse trials set to start the next day. That will have the net effect to further delay or perhaps thwart many victims’ long quest for justice.

The bishop wrote to the diocese’s 230,000 faithful that the "painful decision" to file for bankruptcy was intended to ensure that funds are available so that all of the victims get a fair settlement.

In other words, the bishop claims he doesn’t want one big verdict to deplete the church coffers and leave nothing for the other victims.

Puh-leeze.

Malooly denied that church leaders were trying "to dodge responsibility for past criminal misconduct by clergy – or for mistakes made by Diocesan authorities."

If true, it’s a welcome change from a church hierarchy that for decades has shielded predator priests by moving them from parish to parish. But an idiom recited by the many fine nuns in parish schools comes to mind: Actions speak louder than words.

Given the real-world impact of the bankruptcy claim, there’s no way around the perception that Delaware church officials have ducked for cover – in what one attorney for an abuse-case plaintiff called "scandal prevention."

Indeed, the first trial in a civil damages lawsuit brought by a former altar boy, John M. Vai, 57, would have revealed chilling testimony about violent sex acts by a priest from 1966 to 1970, according to Vai’s attorneys.

Now, those embarrassing allegations and many others won’t be aired in open court for months and months, if at all. Nor will the public hear any details of church leaders’ efforts to cover for predator priests.

As time goes on, it becomes increasingly difficult to mount legal claims like these because they rely heavily on victims’ testimony about long-ago abuse. So the danger is that justice delayed will mean justice denied.

The diocese’s move represents a stunning rebuke to Delaware state lawmakers, who, in 2007, voted to clear the air on the state’s clergy sex-abuse scandal.

Dover lawmakers opened a two-year window permitting civil suits by adult victims of sex abuse, even though the alleged assaults occurred years ago and the statute of limitations had lapsed.

Patterned after a California law, the measure put the First State in the forefront to give abuse victims their day in court. It gave hope to victims’ advocates in Pennsylvania, who have been stymied in their push for similar legislation in Harrisburg. That effort is opposed by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the state Catholic Conference, and others.

In Philadelphia alone, hundreds of abuse victims have been awaiting justice since a scathing grand jury report in 2005. The report concluded that 63 archdiocesan priests had sexually abused children and that top church leaders helped cover for some.

But church officials across the nation continue to fight statute moratoriums with specious claims that victims’ lawsuits will lead to parish closings, and several dioceses have resorted to the dubious bankruptcy claim.

If nothing else, the Delaware bankruptcy filing appears premature. After all, diocesan officials won’t even know the full scope of their financial liability until the abuse cases go to trial.

Legal experts said the diocese – which is a separate entity from Wilmington parishes and church schools – could have awaited the outcome of the trials before claiming it is broke.

Had Wilmington church officials allowed the civil cases to go forward, they would have avoided the perception that the cover-up continues.

The justices on Monday turned down a request by the Roman Catholic diocese in Bridgeport, Conn.

Foxnews.com
Monday, November 5th, 2009

The Supreme Court has refused to block the release of documents generated by lawsuits against priests in Connecticut for alleged sexual abuse.

The justices on Monday turned down a request by the Roman Catholic diocese in Bridgeport, Conn.

Several newspapers are seeking the release of more than 12,000 pages from 23 lawsuits against six priests.

The records have been under seal since the diocese settled the cases in 2001. Courts in Connecticut have ruled that the papers should be made public.

The high court also refused to make a decision Monday on whether to hear arguments from a group of Chinese men who have been imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for more than seven years.

The justices reviewed the case last week, but made no announcement about how they will move on the petition from the Uighurs — whose relocation has been part of a larger headache for the Obama administration, which is trying to meet its self-imposed pledge to close Gitmo by January.  The Uighurs were picked up in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks, but have steadfastly maintained they had no role in supporting the Taliban or Al Qaeda.  The Pacific island of Palau has agreed to take 12 of the remaining 13 Uighurs on a temporary basis.  Last year, a federal judge in Washington concluded the men had been detained long enough and ordered that they be released into the United States. On emergency appeal, another court blocked that decision and eventually overturned the ruling. 

FOX News’ Lee Ross and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Assemblywoman Margaret M. Markey was rushed to an Albany hospital on June 23, the last day of the Assembly’s session, and was held overnight for observation with symptoms later diagnosed as dangerously high blood pressure.

The episode, aides said, whatever its cause, capped an intensely difficult period for Ms. Markey, 62, a Queens Democrat who had been cajoling and vote-herding for months in a frantic effort to shore up support for her Child Victims Act, a bill that would loosen restrictions on lawsuits involving the sexual abuse of children.

This was the year the perennial legislation appeared to have a chance. It had already passed in the Assembly by wide margins in 2006, 2007 and 2008. And though the State Senate had blocked the bill in the past, a new Democratic majority there appeared likely to make New York one of three states with a law allowing people to sue their alleged molesters — during a specific grace period — no matter how long ago the abuse took place.

But on that day, as the clock ran out on the 2009 session, Ms. Markey had come up short: Assembly leaders were unconvinced that she had the votes to win, and had yanked her bill from the calendar — ending its prospects in the near term and raising questions about its future viability.

Opponents have declared the bill dead. Ms. Markey has assured supporters it will pass in the fall, if the governor calls a special session of the State Legislature.

In any event, the bill’s collapse was a victory for the Roman Catholic Church, which led a shrewd and relentless campaign against the measure, and a blow to abuse victims and their lawyers, who have been pressing for Ms. Markey’s bill, and others like it around the country, since the revelations in 2002 about the molestation of children by priests in Boston.

And Ms. Markey’s brief medical emergency — she returned to work the following day — only seemed to underline the intensity of the struggles already fought and still ahead for a bill that plumbs two of the most profoundly complicated issues in human experience: sexual abuse and money.

The fight has been grueling on both sides. Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of the Diocese of Brooklyn, the outspoken prelate who marshaled the church’s campaign against the legislation — calling it anti-Catholic, and warning lawmakers he would be forced to close churches and schools in their districts — was himself ordered by doctors to undergo hastily scheduled heart bypass surgery on June 16.

He and other Catholic bishops in New York said the Markey bill would impoverish the church, pointing to a 2002 law in California that prompted hundreds of lawsuits, forced the state’s dioceses to pay more than $1 billion in restitution and led the Diocese of San Diego to file for bankruptcy protection.

“Nothing I’ve been involved in during my years in politics has ever been as excruciatingly painful as the fight over this bill,” said Assemblyman Charles D. Lavine, a Long Island Democrat who is among two dozen lawmakers who supported the Markey bill in past years, but hesitated this year.

Mr. Lavine changed his mind after priests and residents in his predominantly Italian-American and Hispanic district, especially older voters, started swamping his office with phone calls last winter, expressing their opposition. The pressure, which went on for months, led him to consider — for the first time, he said — the “humongous financial burden and, frankly, the ridicule” that the Child Victims Act and resulting lawsuits would inflict on the church.

His yes votes in past sessions, he said, were made partly with the knowledge that the Republican majority leader in the Senate, Joseph L. Bruno, a staunch opponent, would never let the bill see daylight in that chamber. Mr. Bruno stepped down in 2008.

“When it was never going to fly anyway, there was a tendency for many of us who are concerned about victims’ rights to symbolically support legislation like this,” Mr. Lavine said.

In the same way, the Catholic hierarchy in New York never felt it had to mount a serious campaign against the bill as long as Mr. Bruno held the line, according to lobbyists and legislative aides. Their effort this year forced longtime backers of the bill, like Mr. Lavine, to weigh the potential consequences of that support against their empathy for abuse victims.

With 76 votes needed for a majority in the 150-member Assembly, Ms. Markey’s bill passed with close to 100 votes in past years. This year, the bill’s solid support ranged, depending on the day, between 70 and 80, Ms. Markey’s aides said.

Lobbyists and advocates on both sides say other factors contributed to the change in climate.

When the Democratic Party leadership in the Senate was toppled on June 8 by the defection of two members to the Republican ranks, wavering supporters lost an incentive to risk the church’s ire in the crucial final weeks of the Assembly session.

“If it’s going to be a one-house bill anyway, why make people take the heat?” said Assemblyman Peter J. Abbate Jr., a Brooklyn Democrat who was once a co-sponsor of Ms. Markey’s bill, but this year withdrew his support.

As originally proposed, Ms. Markey’s legislation had two main parts, one permanent and one temporary: It permanently extended the statute of limitations for filing civil suits over alleged child sexual abuse to 10 years — from the current 5 years — after a victim turns 18.

The temporary and more contentious proposal was to suspend the statute of limitations altogether for a year. Starting the day the law took effect, anyone claiming past abuse would have one year to file suit, regardless of how long ago the incident occurred. After a year, the statute of limitations would resume.

In trying to bolster her support, Ms. Markey added amendments. One gave the same rights to abuse victims who attended public schools as those from private or parochial schools, overriding the special protections public entities have under state law. One set an age limit of 53 on those who could file suits during the one-year window.

By most accounts, the amendments produced no new votes and fractured her support. Thomas K. Duane, the Senate sponsor of her bill, washed his hands of it, objecting to the age-limitation amendment. The amendment to include public schools drew fire from school and municipal officials.

Supporters of the bill, including BishopAccountability.org and Survivors for Justice, a Jewish group, have vowed to press on.

Ms. Markey’s spokesman, Mike Armstrong, said advocates are paying visits this summer to the offices of the two dozen lawmakers considered wobbly in their support, but still persuadable. “The leadership has told us they will put it on the agenda if she holds her votes with comfortable margins,” he said.

Bishop DiMarzio, whose diocese includes Queens, where Ms. Markey lives, has often mentioned her bill in sermons and his column in the diocesan newspaper.

“Retribution never brings about justice, nor will the crippling of the church’s ability to carry out its mission serve any purpose,” he wrote in his last column before entering the hospital in June. He has not addressed the issue since then. A diocesan spokesman said his quadruple bypass surgery was a success.

As it happened, the bishop was released from the hospital on June 23 — the day Ms. Markey’s bill was withdrawn.

By Catholic News Service
Posted: 6/2/2009

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (CNS) — Bridgeport diocesan officials said they were reviewing their options after a May 22 ruling by the Connecticut Supreme Court to make public sealed documents from settled sexual abuse lawsuits filed against priests in the Bridgeport Diocese.

The 4-1 ruling involves the release of documents from 23 lawsuits against six priests settled in 2001. In 2006, a Superior Court ruled that the files should be released but the diocese appealed the decision.

The Supreme Court’s decision to release the files would not take effect until it was published in the Connecticut Law Journal June 2.

According to a May 22 statement from the Bridgeport Diocese, church officials were "deeply disappointed" in the ruling.

The battle over the sealed documents began in 2002 when The New York Times filed suit to obtain the documents that it said were a key par of the church’s record of handling charges of clergy sex abuse. Three other newspapers joined in the suit: The Hartford Courant, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post.

About a dozen people, including members of the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests, delivered a letter to Bridgeport Bishop William E. Lori May 26 urging the diocese not to appeal the release of the more than 12,600 pages of documents.

SNAP director David Clohessy personally handed the letter to a diocesan official at the Catholic Center, where the diocesan offices are located. The letter urged Bishop Lori to let the court ruling stand to allow parishioners and the public "the chance to learn the truth about the crimes that were committed and concealed."

Although the group did not meet with Bishop Lori, they were handed a statement by Joseph McAleer, a spokesman for the diocese, which outlined the work the diocese has done to assist abuse victims and prevent abuse.

"We appreciate that emotions run high on this topic," the statement said. It also added that the diocese’s objection to the recent court decision "concerns judicial fairness and the fundamental right of any individual or organization to fair adjudication in any legal proceeding."

"In a state where the Catholic Church has had to vigorously fight for its constitutional rights, we are going to continue to examine any and all legal options," the statement added.

It also faulted the ruling for ignoring the state’s statute of limitations on the unsealing of court documents.

"Sadly, the history of this case has been about access by the secular media to internal church documents of cases more than 30 years ago to suggest, unfairly, that nothing has changed," the statement said.

"This is despite the extraordinary measures the Catholic Church has undertaken over the past several years to treat victims with great compassion and dignity, and to put in safeguards and educational programs to ensure that such a tragedy will not happen again."

The New York Archdiocese also released a statement about the Connecticut court ruling since Cardinal Edward M. Egan, retired archbishop of New York, was bishop of Bridgeport from 1998-2000.

A May 22 statement by Joseph Zwilling, director of communications, said the sealed documents involved five priests who were accused of sexual misconduct prior to then-Bishop Egan’s appointment to Bridgeport. One of the priests died before the bishop was appointed to the diocese and the other four were sent to a top psychiatric institution for treatment and expert evaluation, the statement said.

"They were returned to ministry only upon the written recommendation of the aforementioned institution along with the advice of experienced members of both clergy and laity," the statement said. "At the time, this was the recognized professional manner of handling cases of sexual misconduct with minors."

When new information was received about the sexual misconduct of four of the priests, two were removed from ministry, one retired and another priest was permitted to continue in a restricted ministry in a home for the aged, according to the statement.

www.OregonLive.com

by Paul Mones, guest opinion
Tuesday June 02, 2009, 8:30 AM

Our state legislators are in the midst of dealing with one of the worst fiscal crises in recent memory. No doubt they will have to make many tough, unpopular decisions this year. However there is one legislative decision they need not fret over because it is a no-brainer. House Bill 2827 is a simple piece of legislation that gives an extra measure of justice to victims of child abuse.

In the words of one of the bill’s co-sponsors Chris Garrett (D-Lake Oswego ) – the other sponsor is Rep. Andy Olson (R-Albany) – this bill "will ensure an effective civil remedy for victims of child abuse."

The bill extends the present statute of limitations by giving victims until the age of 40 to file an action against their abuser, requiring that claims be initiated by the time the victim turns 40 years old or within five years of when the injury or the connection between the abuse and the injury is discovered. The bill has unanimously passed the house but curiously has not received the same overwhelmingly positive reception in the Senate.

The extension of the statute of limitations makes common sense because it recognizes that most child victims of sexual abuse cannot confront their debilitating problems until they are mature adults. Moreover, most victims can’t even make the connection between the abuse and their psychological problems until they have some real distance from the time period of their abuse.

Child abuse is the perfect crime because its victims are too powerless, too confused to help themselves when they are actually being abused. These children travel quietly through their days interacting with teachers and passing police officers, friends and neighbors, never revealing the anguish of their existences. And if by chance someone asks them how they are being treated at home their responses will be uniformly the same: OK.

As adults we expect all human beings to escape or at least want to escape when someone injures them, but for victims of abuse, the reverse occurs. And that is in fact perhaps one of the most insidious aspects of child abuse: It binds the child closer to the abuser. The abuser’s threats and intimidation engender in the child not only fear but self-blame and embarrassment – all of which turns a child’s survival mechanisms topsy-turvy. Emotional attachment and sexual violence become so inextricably confused that even when the abuse is reported, the child will often kick and scream as they are being removed from their draconian environment by a social worker.

The other aspect that makes child abuse a perfect crime is that most adults continue to believe that child-rearing is a private matter. They don’t want a relative, friend or neighbor telling them how to raise their child so they won’t intervene in someone else’s family. While we all cherish our right to privacy, our devotion to this cornerstone of democracy is strangling the lives of thousands of children every year. Abusive parents and caretakers thrive on isolation and that is exactly what their relatives, friends and neighbors give them.

Daily, people turn a blind eye to the screams, bruises and frightened eyes of battered and molested children. Their reaction actively reinforces the offender’s omnipotence and tells the child you’re on your own, no one is going to help you. By powerful social training we are more likely to intervene on behalf of a dog being kicked by its owner than a child being mistreated by a parent. As Americans we routinely gawk at the suffering of car accident victims but we avert our eyes and ears when we see a child being backhanded in a supermarket.

It is often only when a child becomes a mature adult that he or she has the strength and emotional resources to confront the scourge of their past.

We have done much in Oregon over the past few years to protect victims of abuse, the most recent example being the passage of HB 2062, which will prevent schools from silently moving sexually abusive teachers one district to another. If the Senate saw fit just several weeks ago to join the House in ending the scandalous practice of allowing sexually abusive teachers from negotiating sweetheart deals with their school districts, then it surely should see the wisdom in HB 2062.

Paul Mones is an attorney and a children’s rights advocate.

CHILD SEX ABUSE VICTIMS GROUP SPEAKS OUT FOR STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS BILL

For Immediate Release
May 27, 2009

For More Information
Matt Nees: (503) 780 – 1965
mattn@wintreswishes.org

Beaverton, Ore—Wintre’s Wishes Foundation, an Oregon non-profit dedicated to support of child abuse survivors, today announced its support for House Bill 2827, a measure which would extend the civil statute of limitations for child abuse survivors to sue their abusers.

The bill passed the House of Representatives 60-0 in April, but has bogged down in the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator Floyd Prozanski (D – Eugene). 

The bill is set for a public hearing and vote on Thursday, May 28^th at 8:00am in Senate Hearing Room 343.

Said Matthew Nees, the father of a seven-year-old sexual abuse victim, and the founder of Wintre’s Wishes Foundation, “We believe this is a common sense bill that will both help survivors of child abuse and will help prevent future child abuse.  We thank Representative Andy Olson for his sponsorship of this bill, and we call on members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Senator Prozanski, to pass this bill.”

Under current Oregon law, victims of child abuse have until age 24 to file a civil law suit, or, until three years from the date they understand that their abuse has caused them injury.  House Bill 2827 extends those periods of time to age 40 with a five year discovery window after that.  “We know that most child abuse survivors never mention their abuse until much later in life, well into their 30’s, 40’s, or 50’s,” said Nees, “and this bill merely recognizes that reality.”

The measure has reportedly bogged down in the Senate because of political pressure from religious groups, including the Catholic Church and Mormon Church, on Senate President Peter Courtney or Chairman Prozanski.  “We call on all senators, especially Senators Courtney and Prozanski, to side with children who have been sexually abused, and not with powerful institutions that would cover up abuse,” said Nees.

###

Contact these Legislators and ask them to support passing this bill:

Chairman Floyd Prozanski (D – Eugene)
Capitol Phone: 503-986-1704
Email:sen.floydprozanski@state.or.us

Senate Pres. Peter Courtney (D – Salem)
Capitol Phone: 503-986-1600
Email: sen.petercourtney@state.or.us