2 Former Dearborn Boy Scout Leaders Named in Child Sex Abuse Documents

A Los Angeles Times database with information about thousands of leaders and volunteers ex­pelled or blacklisted from the Boy Scouts of Amer­ica amid sus­pi­cions of sexu­al ab­use includes a case from Utica.

Last week, 14,500 pages of confidential files kept by the Boy Scouts of America on individuals suspected of child sex abuse were released by order of Oregon's highest court, according to the Associated Press.

Those files included 171 cases in Michigan, including two in Dearborn.

A Portland, Ore., attorney, who won a landmark case against the Boy Scouts on behalf of a plaintiff molested by an assistant scoutmaster in the 1980s, released the documents to the public at kellyclarkattorney.com. The files cover a 20-year period, from 1965 to 1985.

But the Los Angeles Times, using the newly released files and other data from other cases, built a database and interactive map of its own. 

The Boy Scouts of America posted a statement on its website about the documents, known as the "ineligible volunteer" files:

"There have been instances where people misused their positions in Scouting to abuse children, and in certain cases, our response to these incidents and our efforts to protect youth were plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong," national president Wayne Perry said. "Where those involved in Scouting failed to protect, or worse, inflicted harm on children, we extend our deepest apologies to victims and their families."

In most cases, the men accused of sexual abuse were not reported to authorities, but kept in a file to prevent them from volunteering with the organization again.

One of Dearborn's cases involved a 50-year-old resident who served as a scoutmaster for a local troop. In 1969, allegations arose from members of the troop that the man made "advances" toward them. According to letters inculded in the BSA files, the man admitted to the charges and resigned from his post as scoutmaster.

The other case, from 1961, involved a 23-year-old man and included similar accusations of innappropriate advances or suggestions made toward scouts. The man denied the accusations, but was still banned from involvement in BSA.

Neither man was officially charged in court, nor were the cases reported to law enforcement officials.

Because many of the men listed in the decades-old Boys Scout files have not been charged or convicted of crimes, some media outlets, including Dearborn Patch, have refrained from naming them without further investigating the allegations.

Other coverage

• Associated Press: "Perversion Files" Show Locals Helped Cover Up

Michigan Regional Editor Clare Pfeiffer Ramsey, Dearborn Editor Jessica Carreras and Royal Oak Editor Judy Davids contributed to this report.