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Lawyers representing dozens of boys released the names of 130 Boy Scout leaders in New York who have been accused of sexually assaulting them.
While detailing decades of alleged abuse, the attorneys said they plan on filing multiple lawsuits against the non-profit Boy Scouts of America, the New York Daily News reported on Tuesday.
The announcement was made in conjunction with another claim that was filed in New Jersey where lawyers named 50 more Boy Scouts leaders accused of hurting young boys.
“The alarming thing about this is not just the numbers,” said attorney Jeff Anderson, whose Manhattan law firm specializes in child sexual abuse cases. “The fact is that the Boy Scouts of America has never actually released these names in any form that can be known to the public. They may have removed them from scouting, they may have kept them in their perversion file but they never alerted the community.”
Anderson claimed the Scouts have filed dating back to the 1940s that conceal the identities of an untold number of potential abusers.
“This is a real peril,” Anderson said. “It’s a systematic problem. These are perversion files and secrets held by the Boy Scouts of America.”
The Boy Scouts of America responded by saying they “care deeply about all victims of child sex abuse and sincerely apologize to anyone who was harmed during their time in Scouting.
“We believe victims, we support them, and we have paid for unlimited counseling by a provider of their choice,” the organization said. “Nothing is more important than the safety and protection of children in Scouting and we are outraged that there have been times when individuals took advantage of our programs to abuse innocent children.”
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