Boy Scouts of America Loses in Abuse Lawsuit Trial

Posted on Apr 13, 2010

Flickr user dbking (CC-BY)

The Boy Scout Memorial in Washington, D.C., might have been a tip-off that all was not well in the world of Scouts.

An Oregon jury on Tuesday hit the Boy Scouts of America with a $1.4 million verdict and potentially a lot more in punitive damages. Jurors determined that the national organization was negligent in the case of an assistant Scoutmaster who had admitted to abusing Scouts.

Timur Dykes, the assistant Scoutmaster in question, has done time for molestation and admitted before trial to abusing the plaintiff. Dykes once confessed his sins to a bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormon church, believe it or not, was at one time involved with as many as half the Boy Scout groups in the country.

Lawyers for the plaintiff were able to access “perversion files” maintained by the Scouts and used those documents and Dykes’ confession to argue their case.

AP via Google:

Kelly Clark, an attorney for [the victim], introduced the confidential files to argue that the Boy Scouts was negligent because the files were not used to protect boys from alleged sex abusers but instead were kept secret.

Although the existence of “perversion files” kept by the Boy Scouts at its national headquarters has been known for awhile, the Portland case is believed to be only the second time any of the documents have been seen by a jury.

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