WILMINGTON, Del. —The Boy Scouts of America should release a list of more than 7,800 abusers it has compiled over the years as it tried to block sexual predators from its ranks, lawyers for victims suing the youth organization said Wednesday.
“We are not here because the Boy Scouts do such a great job of protecting boys,” attorney James Stang said at the nonprofit corporation’s first day in bankruptcy court in Wilmington on Wednesday. The list of abusers “is where we will get the story, the dark history of the Boy Scouts.”
The 110-year-old youth organization filed bankruptcy Tuesday to deal with a surge of lawsuits from men who say they were sexually assaulted while they were scouts. The Irving, Texas-based group plans to set up a trust fund to compensate victims.
One of the first legal disputes will involve a so-called data room being set up so victim lawyers can study the Boy Scouts’ assets and other documents as the two sides negotiate. That data room must include the names of abusers, and those names must become public, victims’ attorney Michael G. Finnegan said in court.
“Parents need to know,” Finnegan said in an interview during a break in the hearing. “Communities need to know so they can keep their children safe.”
Since at least the 1920s, the Boy Scouts have kept a list of people it wouldn’t allow to volunteer for the organization. The scouts have kept “perversion files” on thousands of people that the Boy Scouts concluded were likely to sexually abuse children, victims’ attorney Paul Mones said in court.
The goal of the Chapter 11 case is to quickly negotiate a deal to give victims “equitable compensation” that still leaves the Boy Scouts with enough money to continue its mission, said Jessica Boelter, an attorney for the BSA, in court Wednesday.
“We know our scouting families are strong and resilient,” Boelter told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Silverstein. “We need to move through this bankruptcy as quickly as possible.”
Silverstein gave the scouts permission to continue operating normally while under court supervision.
As the case moves forward, lawyers for victims and the Boy Scouts will likely clash over whether and how much local troops and insurance companies must contribute to the proposed victims trust.
The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, or the Mormons, said at the hearing that it planned to be involved in the bankruptcy case. The church has been named as a co-defendant in some abuse lawsuits and until recently had about 400,000 children involved in the Boy Scouts. The church has said that it plans to form its own scouting organization and leave the Boy Scouts.
Other religious organizations that have long ties to the Boy Scouts may also wind up being pulled into the bankruptcy case as the victims try to collect as many assets as possible to fund the proposed trust.
The Boy Scouts plan to ask Silverstein to appoint a judicial mediator to help negotiate a settlement. The scouts face as many 1,700 sexual abuse claims.