Boy Scout sex-abuse suit involving Floridian could open floodgates for more victim claims

For nearly three years starting in 1993, several Boy Scouts were subject to sexual abuse at the hands of an assistant scoutmaster in their Gainesville troop, one of the scouts says in lawsuit.

The alleged abuse occurred at a Boy Scout camp, in the assistant scoutmaster’s truck and at parties at the assistant scoutmaster’s house, which the former scout said he and the rest of the troop were encouraged to attend by the troop’s leaders.

“It skewed my trust in people,” said the former scout, who asked not to be identified. “Looking back, there are so many red flags that were overlooked.”

The former Gainesville scout, who now lives in Colorado, is one of eight men who filed suit Monday in Washington, D.C., against the Boy Scouts of America for abuse they say they suffered as scouts in the organization.

While it’s more common for such lawsuits to be filed in the jurisdiction in which the alleged abuse occurred, the eight men in the suit were allegedly abused in states in which they would currently be barred from suing the organization because the statute of limitations has passed on filing for civil claims.

The lawsuit, brought by a consortium of law firms called Abused in Scouting, takes a novel approach by seeking to take advantage of a two-year window in Washington, D.C., law — from May 2019 until May 2021 — in which victims of childhood sexual abuse previously subject to the statute of limitations on bringing legal action can bring civil suits against perpetrators or institutions.

If successful, the lawsuit could open the floodgates for other former scouts who were victims of sexual abuse to bring suit against the organization, even if they are barred from doing so under the laws in those states in which the alleged abuse took place.

“I think this is an opportunity for people who otherwise might not have any avenue,” said Aitan Goelman, one of the lawyers who filed the lawsuit. “We are hopeful that this will not be the last suit of its kind.”

While the Boy Scouts of America is headquartered in Texas, the lawsuit argues that the District of Columbia is a suitable venue because the organization was incorporated in Washington D.C., in 1910 and received a congressional charter six years later. Federal code lists Washington, D.C., as the organization’s permanent home and requires the group to provide an annual report to Congress.

The organization provided a statement in response to questions about the lawsuit:

“First and foremost, we care deeply about all victims of child abuse and sincerely apologize to anyone who was harmed during their time in scouting. We are outraged that there have been times when individuals took advantage of our program to abuse innocent children. We believe victims, we support them, we pay for counseling by a provider of their choice and we encourage them to come forward. It is the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) policy that all incidents of suspected abuse are reported to law enforcement.

“The Boy Scouts of America is committed to fulfilling our social and moral responsibility to fairly compensate victims who suffered abuse during their time in Scouting, while also ensuring that we carry out our mission to serve youth, families and local communities through our programs.... The BSA has a multi-layered process of safeguards informed by experts, including... a leadership policy that requires at least two youth-protection trained adults be present with youth at all times and bans one-on-one situations where adults would have any interactions alone with children — either in person, online, or via text; a thorough screening process for adult leaders and staff including criminal background checks, and the prompt mandatory reporting of any allegation or suspicion of abuse.”

Secrets revealed

Over the past two decades, as revelations have emerged about sexual abuse of children in organizations such as the Boy Scouts and the Catholic church, 16 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws opening up windows of varying lengths for victims of childhood sexual offenses to bring civil claims against their abusers, and in some cases, against organizations or the government for inaction to prevent the abuse from occurring, according to CHILD USA, a non-profit group focused on child abuse.

“What they remedy is the way that the legal system has silenced the victims,” said Marci Hamilton, the founder of the non-profit group and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Many times the victims would come to lawyers when they were ready and what the lawyer would say is you’re out of options.”

Florida is not among the states that have opened up such a window, but a bill introduced in December by state Sen. Lauren Book, a Democrat from Plantation, herself a victim of childhood sexual abuse, would give other such victims previously barred by statute-of-limitations laws a one-year window to file civil claims. Book has said that she was inspired to introduce the legislation in part by the Miami Herald’s Perversion of Justice series, which detailed the case of serial sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, who sexually abused underage girls more than a decade earlier.

The Washington, D.C., lawsuit argues that the scouting organization was negligent in not taking steps to “prevent, respond to, and warn of child sex abuse in its ranks.” The suit also claims that the organization “fraudulently concealed” from Congress and the public its knowledge that pedophiles had served in the organization.

The lawsuit reflects a growing understanding of the role that organizations played in allowing abuse to occur, said Rose Zoltek-Jick, a law professor at Northeastern University.

“What we have now understood in a way that we did not a couple of decades ago is the rampant cover-up,” Zoltek-Jick said. “The idea of corporate or organizational responsibility is now coming into the courts.”

The Boy Scouts maintained records for more than 100 years of “ineligible volunteers” who were barred from serving in the organization, many of whom were pedophiles, the lawsuit states. The organization was forced to divulge the names of some of the abusers in sealed lawsuits, but the names weren’t publicly revealed until a Los Angeles Times investigation in 2012 that presented the names of more than 5,000 abusers in the records, which have come to be known as the “perversion files.”

The former Gainesville scout said he was dismayed not to see his former assistant scoutmaster’s name among those revealed publicly.

The assistant scoutmaster, George V. Cooper, was arrested in 1997 for sexually abusing a player on a youth baseball team he coached and forced to register as a sexual offender after being convicted in 1998 of a lewd and lascivious act on a child.

Cooper didn’t respond to multiple messages left at a phone number connected to his address.

The former scout said no one associated with the scouts ever contacted him or his family to alert him to the conviction of the former assistant scoutmaster or to ask whether he had experienced anything similar.

Hamilton, the founder of CHILD USA, said that organizations such as the Boy Scouts, which experienced sex abuse scandals, have often kept such information a secret from current and former members because of liability concerns.

“The real issue here is that for so long the institutions, especially on the advice of insurance companies, operated as though secrecy was their best friend,” said Hamilton. “They completely lost their way and that endangered children.”

The organization, subject to hundreds of lawsuits brought by former scouts who alleged they were abused by scoutmasters and other leaders, indicated in 2018 that it is considering the possibility of filing for bankruptcy.

The former scout, for his part, says he hopes that the lawsuit he filed won’t destroy the organization, but rather will lead the organization to admit its mistakes and make changes to better protect scouts.

“I would love if I were fortunate enough to have sons one day to encourage them to go through scouts,” he said. “But not without some change.”