Boy Scouts
As reported by The News Journal on December 13, 2012, a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts was filed in Philadelphia on December 12, 2012 alleging that a young teenager was sexually abused by his scoutmaster in the late 1990’s while he was a member of Troop 84 in Downingtown, PA. The scoutmaster would use tactics such as rewards and membership in a special brotherhood to groom and entice his victim. The Journal reports that the suit alleges that the Boy Scouts of America knew for decades that sexual predators had infiltrated the Scouts to gain access to victims as evidence by their perversion files, a subset of their ineligible volunteer files. The News Journal also reports that at least 14 of those files involve Boy Scout leaders in the Delaware area.
Jacobs & Crumplar represents two survivors of abuse by scoutmasters who led Delaware Boy Scout troops who similarly alleged that the Boy Scouts of America knew or should have known it had a problem of childhood sexual abusers in its midst and failed to take the right steps to prevent the abuse. The lawsuits of John Doe # 6 and John Doe # 7 were filed under the Child Victim’s Act and were the first sexual abuse suits against the Boy Scouts of America to be filed in Delaware. Trial is set for the summer of 2013 and the parties are awaiting a decision from the Superior Court regarding the production of earlier years of ineligible volunteer files than those released to the public by attorney Kelly Clark, as reported by The News Journal on November 4, 2012.