Papers: Scouts often covered up sex abuse

The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Again and again, decade after decade, an array of authorities -- police chiefs, prosecutors, pastors and local Boy Scout leaders among them -- quietly shielded Scoutmasters and others accused of molesting children, newly released confidential papers show.

At the time, those authorities justified their actions as necessary to protect the good name and good works of Scouting. But the 14,500 pages of secret "perversion files" ordered released yesterday by the Oregon Supreme Court show their maneuvers allowed sexual predators to go free while victims suffered in silence. Most of the files were from 1959 to 1985, with a handful from later years.

The allegations stretch across the country, from Los Angeles to Long Island.

At a news conference, Portland attorney Kelly Clark blasted the Boy Scouts for continuing legal battles to keep yet more files secret. "You do not keep secrets hidden about dangers to children," said Clark, who in 2010 won a lawsuit against the Scouts for a plaintiff molested by an assistant Scoutmaster in the 1980s.

In many instances -- more than a third, according to the Scouts' own count -- police weren't told about the reports of abuse. Even when they were, sometimes local law enforcement still did nothing.

On Aug. 10, 1965, a distraught mother walked into a sheriff's office in northeast Louisiana. A 31-year-old Scoutmaster, she said, had raped one of her sons and molested two others.

The Scoutmaster confessed, but a week later, a decision was made not to prosecute him. The reason, said a confidential letter from a Louisiana Scouts executive, was "to save the name of Scouting."

In a statement Thursday, Scouts spokesman Deron Smith said there were times when responses to sex abuse allegations were "plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong."

There were at least 10 Long Island men in the files, including Anders Quintano of Williston Park and Robert Izzo of Hicksville, both convicted in the early 1990s of sexually abusing minors. With Robert Lewis