Big news was made this week in a Portland priest abuse case when a Vatican agency, the “Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life,”  in charge of all religious orders throughout the world, released documents concerning pedophile priest Rev. Andrew Ronan. This release followed an order by a federal judge in Portland in April that the Vatican release such documents, so that the parties could better understand what role, if any, the Vatican played in the transfer of Ronan to Portland in the 60’s, after which he abused the plaintiff in the current lawsuit.  The judicial order is unprecedented in that no US civil court has ever ordered a congregation within the Vatican, a sovereign state, to release documents related to a civil lawsuit in the United States.  Now that the documents have been released, the Vatican attorney, Jeffrey Lena,  is claiming victory because, according to him, the documents (which are in Latin and Italian) show no Vatican knowledge of the priest’s sexual abuse of the plaintiff John Doe.  Furthermore, Lena claims that the documents also prove the Vatican did not authorize the transfer of Rev. Andrew Ronan to Portland in the 1960’s. 

With all due respect to Mr Lena, who is a good attorney, there’s more to the legal and ecclesiastical stories than simply whether the documents show a “smoking gun” kind of knowledge by the Vatican of Ronan’s history of abuse.  The question is one of “principal-agency” under Oregon law.  This is something I know more than a little about, since it was one of my cases—Fearing v Bucher and the Archdiocese of Portland—in 1999 before the Oregon Supreme Court that shaped this law, especially when it comes to sexual abuse of children by trusted adults.  So let’s look more closely at the case, and at Lena’s claims.

While it seems plain that the Sacred Congregation for Religious (the former name of the Vatican agency) did not directly make the decision to transfer Rev. Ronan from Chicago to Portland, this fact alone does not answer the central legal question in the case: whether Ronan, under Oregon law, can be considered an “agent” of the Vatican.  If so, then the Vatican, like any “principal,” can be liable for the acts of its agent, even intentional wrongdoing, such as sexual abuse.  And the test for “agency” under Oregon law is whether the principal has the “right to control” the agent in the means and manner by which the agent carries out his duties.  And here, of course, it is plain to anyone who has ever spent five minutes thinking about it, that the Vatican Congregation for Religious of course would have had the right to control—and did in fact control—the means and manner of Ronan’s priestly duties, as it did for all priests:  requiring him, for example, to live a celibate life and not to marry; setting out in great detail how and what he was to teach his parishioners in terms of Catholic doctrine and catechism; when and under what conditions he could marry a young couple, and when and under what conditions he could not marry an older couple with previous marriages;  how and in what manner he would celebrate the Eucharist or conduct baptisms—the list goes on and on of how, under canon law, the Vatican, through its Congregation for Religious, had the right to control the details of Ronan’s work.   Perhaps the most important fact is that it was the Vatican Congregation, and no one else, who had the sole power to decide whether Ronan would even remain a priest.  Indeed, one of the undisputed points in the case is that Ronan himself petitioned the Sacred Congregation for Religious to leave the priesthood.  Obviously, Ronan, his superiors in the Servite Order, the bishop in Portland, and the Vatican all understood that the power to grant such a leave remained solely in the hands of the Vatican Sacred Congregation for Religious. 

So if the legal question in the Ronan case is “agency” as understood in Oregon law—and I think it is—then in my view as a sex abuse attorney for hundreds of men and women abused as children by Catholic priests, Boy Scout leaders, Mormon Church leaders, and other trusted adults, the Vatican could be lawfully held liable by a federal jury in Portland for the acts of Ronan. 

Nor should those who claim that the Church has come in for special or discriminatory treatment under the law be taken seriously.  The Church gets the same analysis under civil law as any business or nonprofit organization.  In any large organization, a mid-level manager has the authority to monitor and perhaps transfer agents and employees from one department to another.  However, hiring and firing policies, and orders about how to carry out the work,  come from a higher source, namely, the top level administration of the company—the principal. The analysis is no different for any nonprofit organization or church—including the Catholic Church.

The question before US District Judge Michael W. Mosman concerns this principal-agent relationship.  If Judge Mosman rules that the evidence presented to him is sufficient to show that the Vatican had the right to control Ronan in the means and manner of his priestly duties, then Judge Mosman would allow the case to proceed to a jury, which would ultimately be called upon to decide if Ronan was under the direction and control of the Vatican.  Stay tuned: the case could get very interesting.

Recently we filed nine cases on behalf of former students of residential schools for “troubled teens,” in which we alleged systematic mental and physical abuse, along with some sexual abuse.  Soon, we will be filing up to twenty more.  Because the cases were brought against Mount Bachelor Academy (MBA), which was closed by the State of Oregon in 2009 amidst allegations of widespread abuse, and because MBA was run by Aspen Education Group, one of the nation’s largest operators of such schools, the filings generated widespread public interest.

Since these cases were filed, I have talked to dozens of other students, residents of other schools around the country, and I have heard consistently similar stories. So I write now to consider some of the commonalities raised by these schools and their programs.

The “troubled teens” industry has long been controversial, with continuing concern that youngsters are often isolated at such schools and subjected to consistent and serious physical and emotional abuse.  Not just “tough love,” say the critics, but outright abuse.

Likewise, writer Maia Salavitz who often writes for Time Magazine, published a full expose of the principles and practices of these residential schools in Help At Any Cost. 

The situation has become serious enough that Congress commissioned the GAO to do a study of these schools, and significant legislation has been introduced in Congress more than once to try to regulate them, since too often, states have not been diligent enough in monitoring what goes on at such places.  

Likewise, litigation against residential schools for troubled teens is on the rise.

So what is it that is so troubling about the “troubled teen” industry that it has generated such comment, inquiry and revolt? 

Well, though I am far from being an expert, at least not yet, as a longtime attorney for victims of child sexual abuse— priest abuse, Boy Scout abuse, Mormon Church abuse, and foster care abuse—I have a sense about what happens in institutions where care for children is supposed to be the order of the day, but where other agendas take over.  As we have seen with the churches and other youth organizations, and even governmental “institutions of trust” to whom children are entrusted for guidance and care, often an agenda to protect the reputation of the institution can take precedence over a common sense agenda for the well-being of children.  I have written extensively about this on this blog and elsewhere.

In the residential school context, I see  dynamics both similar and different to what has happened in the child sex abuse cases.  One similar dynamic is that as in churches or other youth programs, often in these schools there is no place for children to go with genuine complaints.  The schools often co-opt parents by telling them, up front, that student complaints were just another way that the kids try to sabotage their stay at the school, and so the parents should steel themselves to ignore such complaints. So we hear about the hopelessness of kids being abused, trying to speak to their parents, and yet being shut down or ignored. (The question of parental responsibility for the children’s plight is a complicated one, and I will address that in a subsequent blog).  Also, as mentioned, often state child welfare agencies had no mandate to regulate or monitor these schools closely, and so kids had no outside resource to whom they could take their concerns.  So, literally, these kids, stuck in a hostile and abusive environment, had no place to turn.  They were quite literally incarcerated. In fact, attorney Phil Elberg, who has brought many of these cases in the Eastern US, has called residential schools for troubled teens “private jails.”  It seems not an exaggeration. 

So abuse in the residential schools context is similar to sexual abuse in institutions of trust because in both, too often, the children had no place to go, no one to tell, what they were experiencing.

But the two contexts are significantly different in one key way.  I have often argued in child sexual abuse cases with representatives and lawyers for the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, the Mormon Church, the Seventh Day Adventist Church and others about whose ultimate responsibility it was that children were sexually abused in such places.  But the point is that whomever was at fault—the organizations, the perpetrators, parents—everyone agrees that child sexual abuse in such organizations was not supposed to happen. It was, these organizations say, the farthest thing from what was supposed to happen there.  In contrast, in the troubled teen residential schools, everyone agrees that much of what happened—we call it abuse, while they deny that—but much of what happened was part of the program; it was a fundamental aspect of the educational/mental health theory.  For example, the so-called “Lifesteps” of the Aspen model—in which kids were subject to systematic challenge and confrontation both emotional and physical, and which we claim were fundamentally abusive—were the heart of the program.  These Steps were, at least in some educational theorist’s mind, supposed to be a good thing for the kids.  This is the baffling aspect of these stories.  I cannot help but wondering, what were these people thinking?  How can it possibly be a good thing, for just one example, for a child sexual abuse survivor, in going through a Lifestep, to be forced to re-enact her abuse in front of her peers, or to be told that she was “dirty” and deserved what had happened to her as a child?  And yet, we have clients who will testify that this is exactly what happened to them.  There are other, similarly troubling incidents that occurred to students who were struggling with other problems—eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, bereavement at the death of parents—and who were subjected to the most bizarre kinds of “treatment” for their struggles.  Again, the question that screams to be answered is this: how was this supposed to work?  Help me understand how this was supposed to work?

I’m sure that in these cases we will see vigorous disputes about what actually happened at these schools—for example, in response to our suit, one lawyer for Mount Bachelor simply denied that any of it happened. 

But I expect there will be much about what happened there that will not be disputed.  We will be told that this was not abuse, no doubt, or that our students misunderstood the principles or practices of these programs.  But I expect we will also be told that much of what former residents of these schools complain about, was part and parcel of the program.  So I look forward to taking depositions and cross-examining witnesses in these “troubled teens” cases, to try to get some answers.  For now, all I can say is that the stories I am hearing and the questions that come to mind are, well, “troubling.”

My colleagues Steve Crew, Peter Janci and I filed a new Boy Scout sex abuse lawsuit in Bend Oregon today.  The Oregon Boy Scout lawsuit was filed against the Boy Scouts of America, and concerned deceased Scoutmaster Ed Dyer, who was one of Oregon’s most notorious sex abusers.  During a span of 28 years, Dyer admitted to molesting at least 15 young boys, and we believe there were many more.  Like most pedophiles and sexual abusers, Dyer used his position of authority to attract and groom young boys before sexually molesting them.  Dyer was shot and killed by one of his victims, Louis Conner, in 1986.

 It’s a sad reminder of the enormous harm done by the sexual abuse of minors.  Twenty-five years after Dyer’s death, there is still pain and suffering.  Hopefully, today’s lawsuit filing is the first step in the quest for justice and healing for one courageous young man.

Kristian Foden-Vencil | July 6, 2011 | Portland, OR OPB News

Nine former students of a boarding school near Prineville, filed suit in Multnomah County Wednesday.They claim physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their teachers.

Mt. Bachelor Academy was a school for teenagers who had either tangled with the law or had behavior problems at home.Parents paid more than $6000 a month to give their kids a ‘tough love’ education. But the school was closed by the state in 2009 — after the Department of Human Services found what it called "nine substantiated claims of abuse."

The school quickly fired back with a lawsuit.

That case was settled last year. The state withdrew its findings, but still claimed it had a "reasonable cause" to investigate.

The school has not reopened.

Now Kelly Clark, a lawyer for nine students, is going to court for $14 million dollars in damages. The lawsuit lists numerous abuses.

"Unnecessary physical restraint, denial of meals, sleep deprivation, light deprivation, sound torture. They would play the same song, over and over again. Strip searches, forced marches. Forcing the plaintiffs to beat on inanimate objects until their hands bled," Clark said.

Clark concedes that the military may use some similar techniques to break down and then build up new soldiers.

But he argues, these were children, not adults.

"There’s no 15-year-old marines. You at least theoretically signed your own name on the dotted line. And you’re there of your own volition. And I would suggest that even the most aggressive boot camp out there does not have some of the things that we’re alleging here," Clark said.

Clark says he doesn’t plan to rely on the state’s investigation for his lawsuit. He says he’ll build his own case, using the testimony of the students who are now in their 20s and 30s. The state chose not to comment on Wednesday’s lawsuit.

Mt. Bachelor Academy’s attorney issued a statement (see the complete statement below) saying the school never condoned or participated in the mistreatment or deprivation of any students.

It also says the program was specifically designed for troubled students who had failed to progress in other settings. The statement says the program aimed to help kids confront the worst of their behaviors and take ownership of them. The school says its approach proved successful at producing positive, life-changing — and, in some cases, life-saving — results.

While we have not yet had the opportunity to evaluate the allegations in the complaint filed today, we would like to go on record that Mount Bachelor Academy was successful in resolving the dispute with the Oregon Department of Human Services last fall after abundant evidence was collected that showed the allegations of abuse made to the Department were unfounded. DHS initially took action based on students’ allegations, but withdrew its orders, including the suspension of Mount Bachelor Academy’s license, after further information became available. Given the favorable terms of the settlement agreement, we agreed to dismiss our various legal proceedings against the state. We also independently decided to leave Mount Bachelor Academy closed due to the fact that the sudden and erroneous closure of the campus effectively shut the program down the year prior.

For over two decades, Mount Bachelor Academy (MBA) positively changed the lives of over 1,000 troubled young people. MBA was a program specifically designed for troubled students who had failed to progress in other settings. It was designed to help kids confront the worst of their behaviors and take ownership of them, whether that be substance abuse, sexual acting out or other issues. This approach proved successful at producing positive, life-changing – and, in some cases, life-saving – results. The numerous positive testimonials provided by families and students over the years further attest to the success of MBA.

MBA and its parent companies never condoned or participated in the mistreatment or deprivation of any students. As we understand, the plaintiffs in this lawsuit attended MBA prior to its acquisition by a nationally recognized network of therapeutic schools and programs that espouse comprehensive best practices and safety protocols. While we cannot comment on specific allegations from individual students due to HIPAA privacy regulations, we vigorously deny any and all charges of mistreatment. Greg Chaimov

POSTED: 1:42 pm PDT July 6, 2011

PORTLAND, Ore. — Nine former students of one of Oregon’s best known “tough love” boarding schools, a facility east of Prineville that was shut by the state two years ago, filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging emotional, physical and sexual abuse.The suit is being brought by attorneys Kelly Clark, Steve Crew, Gilion Dumas, Kristian Roggendorf, Peter Janci and the Portland law firm O’Donnell Clark and Crew, who often bring child abuse cases in Oregon and around the nation.The suit alleges claims of battery, negligence, and infliction of emotional distress against Mount Bachelor Academy and its parent companies, Aspen Education Group and CRC Health. The suit seeks more than $14 million in compensatory damages, and punitive damages will be sought as well.An attorney for the school’s operator later issued a statement denying the charges. That statement is in full below, after the rest of the release about the lawsuit’s allegations:Located 26 miles east of Prineville, the controversial “therapeutic boarding school” known as Mount Bachelor Academy was closed by the state of Oregon in November of 2009 based on the findings of an investigation related to charges of systemic abuse and neglect.According to a report by the Oregon Department of Human Services, Mount Bachelor Academy reportedly used “punitive, humiliating, degrading and traumatizing” tactics as “treatment” 00– an approach some say stems from the Synanon self-help group of the 1960′s, which was rejected as a cult by mainstream mental health community by the late 1970s. At the time of its closure in 2009, Mt. Bachelor Academy reportedly had more than 75 staff supervising approximately 90 students who were being charged a tuition of $6,400 per month.“The so-called ‘treatment’ that these children were forced to endure on a daily basis at Mt. Bachelor Academy is obscene. Not only did the program ‘break kids down’, it did nothing to build them back up,” said Kelly Clark, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “We intend to prove that this wasn’t education, it wasn’t treatment and it wasn’t ‘tough love’ – this was abuse.”The plaintiffs in Wednesday’s suit, who all attended Mount Bachelor Academy in the late 1990s, allege: that they were subjected to regular psychological abuse and shaming, including being required to reenact traumatic experiences (such as prior instances of child sexual abuse) in front of their peers; that they were subjected to extreme isolation and prolonged deprivations of food, water, shelter, and basic medical care; that students were required to go days with little or no sleep and were also regularly forced into “chain gang” style labor; that phone calls to their families were limited and were monitored by Mt. Bachelor Academy staff; and that parents were instructed by staff not to believe their children if they claimed malfeasance or abuse – i.e., the children will lie, it is all part of the treatment process, parents were told.The allegations in the lawsuit are consistent with the findings by the Oregon Department of Human Services. In late 2009, following a seven month investigation, DHS found multiple incidences of “abuse and neglect” and “serious violations of Oregon’s licensing standards.”The DHS report cited nine substantiated claims of abusive practices, including “punitive, humiliating, degrading and traumatizing” activities such as “sexualized role pay and reenactment of traumatic events, such as prior physical or sexual abuse.” The state also found that these were not isolated incidents; instead, “many of [the abusive] behaviors fell within the range of behavior expected, encouraged or condoned by the Mount Bachelor Academy program itself . . . .”DHS determined that “MBA poses a serious danger to public health or safety of children . . . [and] should not be permitted to continue operating as a therapeutic boarding school for children.” Thereafter, in November of 2009, the state gave Mt. Bachelor Academy 72 hours to shut down its program and remove students from its facility. The facility closed on November 3, 2009. Later, in October 2010, as part of a settlement of a suit by Mt. Bachelor against the state contesting the DHS findings of abuse, Aspen Education Group and CRC Health Group (the parent company’s of Mount Bachelor Academy) agreed that DHS had reasonable cause to believe that abuse or neglect had occurred at the school, and that DHS had a reasonable basis to investigate and to seek corrective actions.The lawsuit names Mount Bachelor Academy and its parent companies as defendants. Those include Aspen Education Group – a national conglomerate of therapeutic boarding schools which, at its peak had nearly 40 youth programs throughout the United States – as well as Aspen’s parent company, CRC Health Group. CRC Health Group is a large national healthcare corporation owned by Bain Capital, a private equity firm with $65 billion in assets.4Wednesday’s lawsuit is part of a larger response to decades of abuse and mistreatment in so-called “tough love” facilities – both inside and outside of the Aspen Education Group.According to previous news reports, at least four children have died in Aspen-owned facilities since 2004. One of those incidences occurred in Oregon in 2009 – the death of student Sergey Blashchishen during a wilderness hike in the Redmond-based Sagewalk Wilderness School.Blashchishen, a minor at the Sagewalk facility, collapsed in August of 2009 while hiking on his second day Aspen’s Sagewalk program. Staff had reportedly ignored repeated signs of a serious medical problem, and the boy died at the scene. The lead sherif’s investigator on the Sagewalk case recommended that the Lake County district attorney file homicide charges. Sagewalk had previously been the subject of the nationally broadcast ABC television series “Brat Camp” in 2005.As Peter Janci, one of the Plaintiffs’ attorneys explained,“Many ‘tough love’ schools have been a breeding ground for abuse – isolating vulnerable kids and subjecting them to debunked so-called ‘treatments’ by unqualified staff, while their parents are kept in the dark and bilked out of tens of thousands of dollars.”Problems of abuse, injury and even death are present throughout the “tough love” industry. Some reports indicate that more than two dozen teenagers died in such facilities between 1990 and 2001.The lawsuit is one in a growing number of actions by individuals who survived these facilities, only to be left with serious, long-term psychological injuries. Several weeks ago, a civil suit was filed against Silverado Academy in Utah for claims related to a staff member’s sexual abuse of at least 10 boys.Previously, in 2006, attorneys for another group of individuals filed a major lawsuit alleging neglect, fraud and abuse against the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools and related entities. That suit is still pending in federal court in Utah, and now includes 353 plaintiffs who allege they were wronged by therapeutic boarding schools and their related entities.“This is a watershed moment in exposing organizations that have profited from broken promises to desperate families,” said Clark. “We believe that institutions like Mount Bachelor Academy need to be exposed for what they are and held accountable for the permanent damage they have done to the lives of vulnerable teenagers entrusted to their care.”Clark and his firm are among the most prominent child sexual abuse attorneys in the nation, having brought over 300 claims against such organizations as the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, the Boy Scouts of America and dozens of other youth-serving organizations.Clark has twice won landmark child abuse cases at the Oregon Supreme Court, and last year was lead counsel in a six week sex abuse trial against the Boy Scouts of America resulting in a jury verdict of nearly $20 million.—A response from Greg Chaimov, a lawyer with Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, on behalf of client Mount Bachelor AcademyWhile we have not yet had the opportunity to evaluate the allegations in the complaint filed today, we would like to go on record that Mount Bachelor Academy was successful in resolving the dispute with the Oregon Department of Human Services last fall after abundant evidence was collected that showed the allegations of abuse made to the Department were unfounded.DHS initially took action based on students’ allegations, but withdrew its orders, including the suspension of Mount Bachelor Academy’s license, after further information became available. Given the favorable terms of the settlement agreement, we agreed to dismiss our various legal proceedings against the state. We also independently decided to leave Mount Bachelor Academy closed due to the fact that the sudden and erroneous closure of the campus effectively shut the program down the year prior.For over two decades, Mount Bachelor Academy (MBA) positively changed the lives of over 1,000 troubled young people. MBA was a program specifically designed for troubled students who had failed to progress in other settings. It was designed to help kids confront the worst of their behaviors and take ownership of them, whether that be substance abuse, sexual acting out or other issues. This approach proved successful at producing positive, life-changing – and, in some cases, life-saving – results. The numerous positive testimonials provided by families and students over the years further attest to the success of MBA.MBA and its parent companies never condoned or participated in the mistreatment or deprivation of any students. As we understand, the plaintiffs in this lawsuit attended MBA prior to its acquisition by a nationally recognized network of therapeutic schools and programs that espouse comprehensive best practices and safety protocols. While we cannot comment on specific allegations from individual students due to HIPAA privacy regulations, we vigorously deny any and all charges of mistreatment.

Nine ex-students sue, say they were mistreated at central Oregon school for troubled teens

Published: Wednesday, July 06, 2011, 3:02 PM     Updated: Wednesday, July 06, 2011, 8:16 PM

By Helen Jung, The Oregonian The Oregonian

Nine former students of a Prineville-area school for troubled teens are suing the now-defunct school’s parent company, saying teachers and staff humiliated, isolated and abused them as part of its curriculum.

The complaint, which was filed today in Multnomah County Circuit Court, detailed students’ accusations:

One teen, a girl who had suffered sexual abuse as a child, was forced to repeatedly engage in provocative role-playing with older males, the complaint states. Another student, who suffered from asthma, was forced to sleep outdoors in below-freezing temperatures. Staff members also denied him food, sleep and use of a restroom and withheld his asthma inhaler despite asthma attacks that were brought on by their tactics.

The suit seeks nearly $14.3 million from the Mount Bachelor Academy, its parent company Aspen Education Group, and Aspen’s parent company, CDC Health Group Inc.

The school shut down in December 2009, about a month after receiving an emergency suspension order from the state’s Department of Human Services, which had investigated the abuse allegations.

"The so-called treatment," said Kelly Clark, an attorney for the plaintiffs, "was not education, was not treatment and was not therapeutic. We intend to prove that it was abuse, pure and simple."

 The company issued a statement saying that it had not had the opportunity to review the claims. But it argued that it had resolved its dispute with the state and noted that the state withdrew its emergency order to close the school.

 That September 2010 settlement notes that the state agreed to withdraw its emergency suspension order because the school was already closed.

Clark and his law firm have pressed hundreds of claims against the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church and the Boy Scouts of America. Clark last year won a nearly $20 million judgment from the Boy Scouts of America on behalf of a sex-abuse victim last year.

This story will be updated with more information.

– Helen Jung

Reading about a recent criminal sex abuse trial in Medford, Oregon recently, I was stunned at what I learned.  A child was asked to "demonstrate" how she was abused by her stepfather, complete with a mattress being brought into the courtroom.  Now, of course, I have no right to an opinion about whether the man is guilty or not.  But, as this well-written Mail Tribune editorial points out, assuming that the child was abused– which is what any judge must do in such a situation– did no one in the courtroom, judge, prosecutor, victim’s advocate, see what this was likely to do to a child who has been abused?  It is the worst kind of re-creation of trauma: done in public with hostile adults standing by ready to shame the child!  I don’t of course question the motive of the judge or prosecutor: I do question their judgment.   It tells me how far we still have to go in helping even the legal profession understand the life-scarring impact of abuse.

The news that the John Jay College has determined that the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church had as its cause under-trained and under-supported priests, coupled with the turmoil of the 1960′s–and not celibacy or homosexuality as its cause– has generated all sorts of comments and criticisms. Many of these comments are accurate, like the criticism from SNAP– Survivors’ Network of Abuse by Priests– that the report is wholly silent about the role that the bishops and their naivete, denial and cover ups played.

Now, it may come as a surprise, but I do not think the study is wholly wrong in its basic conclusion– that the pedophilia problem was not "caused" by celibacy or homosexuality. I have written on this very topic before. To state the obvious, the modern problem of abuse of children by priests was caused by extraordinary high numbers of pedophiles in the priesthood– either drawn to the priesthood because of their pedophilia or as "products of the system." Less obvious, the problem was made worse by the Church’s abysmal system for selecting, training and monitoring priests; by a systematic failure of the Church to educate priests about how to live a celibate life and yet still be balanced and whole persons; and by bishops who made the problem worse by recirculating dangerous priests. My friend Richard Sipe, a former priest who has studied and written about the abuse problem in the Church for forty years, and who has testified on behalf of victims in hundreds of cases, has written about all of this extensively– most interestingly that the "cause" is not celibacy.

But the question that the John Jay Study does not answer– indeed the question that John Jay was not apparently asked– is how did the pedophilia "problem" become a full on "scandal," one that not only devastated thousands of innocent children, but also deeply, irrevocably scarred the image and credibility of the Catholic Church? For I take it as a given that society would not have been wholly shocked over the last ten or fifteen years by revelations that the Catholic Church had an active pedophilia problem. Indeed, similar revelations have come out about the Boy Scouts of America, the LDS (Mormon) Church, and other such organizations, and as of yet no great national scandal has resulted. I say this because, as of yet, the public has not yet been saturated with story after story of how the hierarchies of these organizations engaged in a systematic and calculated cover up of the problem. But the "problem" of abuse in the Catholic Church became a worldwide "scandal" once it began to become clear that this was not just a problem of the actions of a number of sick and twisted priests, but was fundamentally a problem of disintegrating spiritual integrity, and the actions of too many bishops, cardinals and others in high places who, over and over again, here, there, and seemingly everywhere, refused to act in the Spirit of Christ and do the right thing. This is the "cause" of the scandal.

And it is truly tragic: not only did it visit unfathomable suffering upon the most vulnerable and innocent members of the Church, the children, but it scarred, perhaps permanently, the respect that society once bestowed upon the Catholic Church. As a Christian, when I hear radical secularists ridiculing Christianity, especially Catholicism, because of the child abuse scandals, I cringe at the knowledge that it was the actions of the Church leadership– at least if not moreso than the actions of the pedophiles themselves– that provided the ammunition for the Church’s enemies to use against it.

So the John Jay study is perhaps not so flawed, at least as far as it goes. The problem is that it does not go far enough. It does not ask the biggest question– not what caused the "pedophilia problem," but rather, what caused the "pedophilia scandal?" It is not John Jay’s fault that they did not answer this question; after all, they were not asked.

Peter Robert Stibal, a former Boy Scout Troop Leader, has been found guilty of 4 felony counts of sexual assault on 4 former minor troop members. Stibal sentencing is likely in June. The first degree sexual assault charges carry with them stiff penalties including more than 14 years in prison each. Prosecutors have already vowed to seek the high end of the guidelines due to the aggravating circumstances of the particular crimes. In addition to the charges for which a jury found him guilty, Stibal will be tried on separate counts for the possession of child pornography on his computer. Stibal’s arrest and conviction is the latest of legal troubles for the Boy Scouts of America nationally. The sexual abuse of minor boys has plagued the organization for years now and the resulting lawsuits has demonstrated the Boy Scouts lack of adherence to their own mandated policies for the protection of children.

News reports that a woman in Arizona had been known to officials in the Mormon Church to have been having a sexual relationship with a teenage boy have come to light, and have caused quite a stir, given that the woman is married to a prominent local politician.  This week it appeared from a story in the New York Times that denials from LDS (Mormon Church) officials about what they knew of this matter may have been untruthful.  Whatever the facts of this particular situation may be, they raise some good questions concerning sexual abuse in the Mormon Church—has the Church had a significant problem with child abuse, when did the Church realize that it had such a problem, and what did Mormon Church officials do once they did realized it? As an attorney who has handled over a dozen sexual abuse claims against the Mormon Church, and hundreds against other institutions of trust such as the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts and other similar organizations, I have some thoughts on these questions. 

It is my view that the child sexual abuse problem in the Mormon Church, broadly defined to include inter-family abuse, has been persistent and substantial for a long, long, time. Perhaps if we recall that in its early decades the Church condoned polygamy, coupled with the fact that historically girls far younger than 18 were considered appropriate for one of these multiple marriages, then we can see at least some reasons why the LDS Church has historically had blurred boundaries around what is, and is not, appropriate sexual behavior involving minors.  

One other source of the problem, however, is, to my mind also responsible for the kind of situation reported in Arizona.  And that is the extent to which members of the LDS Church have been taught to “go to the Bishop” with almost any kind of problem, including some kinds of problems that should not “go to the Bishop,” but instead should go to law enforcement—like problems with child sexual abuse. In fact, I think it is still the formal policy of the LDS Church that not all credible allegations of child abuse in an LDS Ward must be reported to law enforcement; rather, only if the recipient of the information is legally required to report to law enforcement are they to do so, under LDS policy. In other words, the policy of the LDS Church is still not to require that all allegations of child abuse always be reported to law enforcement.  Now, it is all well and good for church members to have the support of a church leader at times of life crisis. But that does not mean that going to the bishop is the only thing to do at times like these: indeed church members and leaders, including bishops,  should be required and trained by the LDS Church  to report every credible allegation of child abuse to law enforcement. In other words, they should be trained to act as “mandatory reporters” – even if, under their state’s laws, they are not.  Churches should be on the leading edge of child abuse prevention, not reluctantly doing the minimum that they are required to do under the law.

Whatever the particulars are of the Arizona situation, and whatever LDS Church officials knew about this particular situation of child sexual abuse, the larger lessons are about the practices and policies of the Mormon Church, now and in the past, when it comes to child sexual abuse.  It is not enough to “go to the Bishop.”

The father of The 5 Browns, a renowned Mormon piano group, has been sentenced to prison for a minimum of 10 years for the sexual abuse of his own daughters.  Keith S. Brown pleaded guilty one felony count of sodomy and two felony counts of sexual abuse.

Judge David Mortensen sentenced the 55-year-old to 10 years to life on the first count, and 15 years to life for each of the others.

The abuse occurred when the daughters were children in the 1990’s.  Now adults, the daughters reported the sexual abuse to law enforcement authorities last year.

The 5 Browns are a family musical group that performs classical music around the country.  The daughters were not at the sentencing hearing of their father since they were on tour in Florida. 

November 11, 2010
By Dan Boniface

9News.com

DENVER – A controversial self-published book that offered advice to pedophiles has apparently been pulled from the website that was selling it.

Amazon.com no longer had a listing for "The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct" on Thursday.

A search of the site produced a link to Pueblo author Philip R. Greaves II’s book, but the link now leads to a dead end. The listing apparently has been deleted.

The online bookseller came under fire Wednesday when some of its customers threatened to boycott the site because of the book.

Amazon had issued the following statement Wednesday:

"Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions."

Greaves had defended the book on Wednesday.

"Every time you see them on television, they’re either murderers, rapists or kidnappers, and, you know, that’s just not an accurate presentation of that particular sexuality, it’s not."

Amazon.com did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

PRESS RELEASE – ‘WHAT THE POPE KNEW’
A CNN Special Investigation CNN national correspondent Gary Tuchman,reports for What the Pope Knew , investigating some of the most notorious pedophile priest cases in the United States and finds that the pope, as Cardinal Ratzinger, had direct responsibility for how they were handled. CNN’s investigation reveals that Ratzinger opposed or slowed down the defrocking of some priests, including convicted child molesters.

What the Pope Knew
Saturday, Sept. 25 at 8:00pm ET and PT
CNN and CNN International.

Brian Rokus and Scott Bronstein, from CNN’s Special Investigations and Documentaries unit, are the producers and writers for What the Pope Knew. Kathy Slobogin is managing editor, Scott Matthews is the executive producer.

Details:
During his first papal visit to the U.S., Pope Benedict XVI reached out to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, unprecedented for the Vatican. He became the first pope to directly and personally apologize to victims for their trauma. He was the first to acknowledge publicly that the Church had systemically erred in the way that it had transferred offending priests to new parishes, putting more children at risk, instead of reporting offenders to law enforcement. A new era of accountability seemed to have dawned. But Benedict’s role in managing the child sex abuse scandal while he was Archbishop of Munich and Freising, and as a powerful cardinal at the Vatican, has now come under scrutiny.

Conflicting portraits of the former Joseph Ratzinger have emerged. While defenders of this pope insist he has done more than any other church authority to change the Vatican’s policies and, apologize for the abuses. Others point out that he has been in positions of power for nearly 30 years and could have done more. “Joseph Ratzinger was not and is not the villain of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in no way shape or form. Yet, he’s not the hero either. He was part of the culture,” says David Gibson, the pope’s biographer, in the documentary.

The documentary features insights from Vatican insiders and internal church documents about abusive priests. It also features a rare interview with the “Vatican’s prosecutor,” Charles Scicluna, as well as an exclusive interview with the first victim to personally sue Pope Benedict. CNN’s investigation is a complex portrait of the pope; while he seemed to move with rapidity to discipline priests whose values he felt strayed too far from Catholic orthodoxy, his delays and deliberations on even the most egregious of the child abuse cases baffles and infuriates those waiting for justice.

Various stories and sections of the documentary will also be available on CNN.com. CNN Worldwide, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner Company, is the most trusted source for news and information. Its reach extends to nine cable and satellite television networks; one private place-based network; two radio networks; wireless devices around the world; CNN Digital Network, the No. 1 network of news Web sites in the United States; CNN Newsource, the world’s most extensively-syndicated news service; and strategic international partnerships within both television and the digital media.

By SCOTT K. PARKS / The Dallas Morning News
sparks@dallasnews.com

The Boy Scouts of America calls them the "perversion files."

MIKE DAVIS/Special Contributor

Kelly Clark (left) and Paul Mones, attorneys for former Scout Kerry Lewis, gained access to ‘ineligible volunteer files’ and won an $18.5 million jury verdict against the Boy Scouts in April. They argued officials could have used the files to gauge their pedophilia problem.

The stories locked inside a neat row of metal file cabinets at BSA headquarters in Irving would sicken the most callous reader. Many of them document the activities of a pedophile banned from Scouting for molesting boys in tents, on hikes or while helping them earn merit badges.

The BSA, the nation’s premier youth organization, its wholesome image honed by iconic Norman Rockwell paintings throughout the 20th century, has meticulously kept the files since the 1920s.

They number in the thousands, but no one knows much about them because Scout executives and their lawyers insist they remain confidential.

Now, a growing chorus of critics is calling on the Scouts to open their sexual secrets to public scrutiny. They argue that the files contain a treasure trove of misdeeds that academic researchers and law enforcement might use to learn more about man-on-boy pedophilia.

"These files represent the largest reservoir of information ever gathered on the sexual abuse of boys in the United States, bar none," said Paul Mones, an Oregon lawyer who represents former Scouts who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of adult Scoutmasters.

"Even before the pediatric medical community and the law enforcement community knew the extent of the problem, the Boy Scouts knew about it and kept it a secret," Mones said.

Another lawyer, from Seattle, who also represents former Scouts in sex abuse cases against the BSA, provided The Dallas Morning News with a hint of what the files contain – spreadsheets indexing 5,133 files opened between 1947 and 2005. The News has not seen the actual files.

The Scouts regularly open new files. But they insist the information be kept confidential to protect those who report sexual abuse from retaliation, to shield child victims from exposure and to protect the Scouts from defamation claims brought by suspected pedophiles named in the files.

Scouting executives say the perversion files represent a tiny fraction of the millions of adult volunteers involved in Scouting over the years, and they contend that the pedophile problem is no worse in Scouting than in public schools or in other youth organizations.

The BSA also insists the files hold no value for academic or law enforcement researchers hoping to gain greater insight into pedophilia.

"Accordingly, while local Boy Scout councils are required to report any suspicion of inappropriate conduct to law enforcement, The BSA believes – and third parties have confirmed – that the files are not useful from a research perspective," Scout executives wrote in a prepared statement to The Dallas Morning News.

Formally, the Scouts refer to the files as "the ineligible volunteer files," or the "I.V. files." Each one is labeled with the name of a Scoutmaster, Cub Scout den leader or other adult volunteer who has been banned from Scouting for wrongdoing. Nathaniel Marshall, the Scout executive who keeps the files, says they are separated into six categories:

• C-Criminal (murderers, robbers and such)

• F-Financial (thieves who steal from the Scouts or others)

• M-Moral (gays banned from Scouting)

• L-Leadership (bad-tempered or mean volunteers)

• R-Religious (atheists or agnostics banned from Scouting)

• P-Perversion (pedophilia, rape, child pornography, public lewdness and other sex-related crimes or incidents)

A few of the files involve men who never even made it into Scouting. Their misdeeds were noted by local Scout executives and a file was opened just in case they ever applied to get involved in Scouting.

But the vast majority of the I.V. files involve pedophile adult volunteers and some paid Scout leaders. They run the gamut from those only suspected of wrongdoing to those serving prison time after criminal convictions.

Some files are thin, with only basic information about the pedophile. Others are thick and stuffed with court records, witness statements and other investigative material.

All of the files end up in the innocuously named "membership resources office." There is only one set of keys to the file cabinets, Marshall said.

Scout executives say they use the perversion files for only one reason: to keep pedophiles or other sexual deviants out of Scouting. When someone attempts to register as an adult volunteer, the application goes to the membership office. Clerks make sure the prospective volunteer is not someone named in an I.V. file.

The BSA also performs criminal background checks for all volunteer applicants. Successful applicants are subject to background checks every three years.

Notations in the file indices obtained by The News indicate the system often works. Pedophiles caught and banned by the BSA have tried to reapply to become Scoutmasters. But their applications have been denied for wrongdoings logged into the I.V. files.

Scout executives say they’ve never analyzed the files or used them to generate statistics on pedophilia in Scouting. Nor have they used them to determine whether their policies to protect Scouts from pedophiles are working.

Are the pedophile Scoutmasters married or single? Do they have children in the troop? How old are they? Where did the molestation occur? In a tent on a campout? On a hike? In a school or church basement? In the pedophile’s home or apartment? Did the pedophile groom a single victim during a long-term relationship, or did he victimize several Scouts in a troop?

Scout executives haven’t used the I.V. files to find the answers, but they insist they are aggressively pursuing improvements in their Youth Protection Program.

"The more we learned about pedophilia, we got tuned in to that very quickly," James Terry, the assistant chief Scout executive, told The News. "We got serious about it."

Critics disagree. They say the Scouts could redact the I.V. files – black out the names of alleged pedophiles, victims and those who reported the abuse – and then share them with experts to learn more about pedophilia and the effectiveness of Scout policies.

In the mid-1980s, as their awareness of pedophilia grew, the Scouts instituted the "two-deep leadership" rule that forbids Scoutmasters and other volunteers to be alone with a Scout.

And, yet, the Scouts acknowledge that they have never searched the I.V. files to see if the policy is working.

Even child sexual abuse experts sympathetic to the BSA’s cause question their reluctance to share the files or expand their use.

Dr. David Finkelhor, a well-known expert in crimes against children, once was a member of the BSA’s Youth Protection Expert Advisory Panel, a working group of Scout executives and outsiders from academia and law enforcement. The committee was supposed to be working on programs to educate Scouts about pedophiles and other dangerous people.

In April 2009, Finkelhor testified in a sworn deposition that he had become frustrated with Scout executives because they refused to allow him or anyone else to examine the perversion files to see if youth protection policies were working.

"It never seemed to get on their agenda," said Finkelhor, who runs the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

He wasn’t the only child safety expert who became disenchanted with the Scouts and the Youth Protection Program.

Kenneth V. Lanning, a retired FBI agent who specializes in crimes against children, also served on the BSA’s expert advisory panel for almost 10 years. In April 2005, he sent a letter to Boy Scout headquarters announcing his resignation from the volunteer group.

Lanning said his resignation stemmed from "my perception that the BSA response to and attitude regarding [the advisory panel] fails to convey an adequate understanding and recognition of the problem of the sexual exploitation of children."

No one knows how many I.V. files exist. The BSA won’t provide numbers. But the public has gotten glimpses from court records when former Scouts file personal injury suits alleging that the BSA and its local troop councils failed to prevent abuse by Scoutmasters or assistant Scoutmasters.

Last April, a Portland, Ore., jury awarded former Scout Kerry Lewis $18.5 million in punitive damages after finding the BSA negligent for not protecting him against abuse by a known pedophile Scoutmaster in the 1980s.

Throughout the trial, Lewis’ lawyers argued that Scout executives acted irresponsibly by not using the I.V. files to get a more complete picture of their pedophilia problem, and the jury apparently agreed.

The verdict jolted the Scouts. Since April, the BSA has instituted mandatory youth protection training for all Scoutmasters and other registered volunteers.

Last month, the BSA hired Michael V. Johnson, a respected detective recently retired from the Plano Police Department, as its director of youth protection.

"One of the reasons I accepted this job is the commitment of [top Scout executives] that they want to be on the forefront of youth protection," Johnson said.

Johnson said he has not formed an opinion about what, if anything, to do with the I.V. files.

The $18.5 million jury verdict in Portland also drove the BSA to settle five similar sex abuse cases late last month. But the Scouts still face numerous other cases across the U.S.

During the Portland trial, the Scouts were forced to give Lewis’ lawyers 1,587 I.V. files opened between 1965 and 1985. The vast majority, 1,123 files, were in the perversion category.

Janet Warren, an expert witness hired by the Scouts, testified that she reviewed many of the files in preparation for the trial.

"It was very limited what you could learn from these files," testified Warren, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia.

Warren also cautioned jurors to put the number of abuse incidents into perspective.

"By contrast, there would be somewhere between 100,000 and a million incidents where Boy Scouts went on camping trips or went to the home of their Scout leader to do a merit badge and was not accosted or hurt in any way," she said.

Even though the I.V. files from 1965 to 1985 were entered into evidence during the Lewis trial, a procedure that usually makes information public, the Scouts are fighting to keep them confidential. And the judge in the Lewis case has issued a protective order to keep the files secret.

The Associated Press and several other news organizations have filed a motion with the Oregon Supreme Court to make the files public. The court has yet to rule.

The public got another glimpse of the I.V. files in a similar series of lawsuits filed by former Scouts against the BSA in the state of Washington.

Tim Kosnoff, one of the plaintiff lawyers, prepared spreadsheets indexing 5,133 I.V. files opened between 1947 and 2005. He has read the material in hundreds of those files.

"To the extent there are any Scouts reasonably safe today, it has nothing to do with Scouting," he said. "It is parents. Show me a troop where parents are actively involved and I’ll show you a safe troop.

"For too many parents, Scouting is a free baby-sitting service. And pedophiles don’t go after the kids whose dads are active. They look for the kid who is craving adult male attention."

Dr. Gary Schoener, a Minneapolis psychologist, testified as an expert witness for the plaintiff in the Portland case.

The perversion files started as a noble idea, an effective tool to keep track of pedophiles, he said.

But somewhere along the way, the Scouts became concerned about the possible legal liabilities of storing vast amounts of raw data about pedophiles and their victims. The reluctance to analyze the data seems designed to limit liability, Schoener said.

Even so, Schoener and other critics acknowledge the good things that BSA has done for youth around the world during the last 100 years.

"The Boy Scouts have done some fine work, but they could do it better," he said. "This is about the good guys not being good enough."

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