PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Thousands of pages of newly-released documents show that for decades, scoutmasters and others who were accused of molesting children were protected by police, prosecutors, pastors and local Boy Scout leaders.
At the time, those authorities justified their actions as being necessary to protect the good name and good works of the Scouts.
But the nearly 15,000 pages of "perversion" files that were released today reveal that they were allowing sexual predators to go free while victims suffered in silence.
The files are part of a much larger collection that the Boy Scouts of America began keeping soon after the organization was founded in 1910. The files were released by order of the Oregon Supreme Court.
They include details of a 1965 case in Louisiana, in which a mother told sheriff's deputies that a scoutmaster had raped one of her sons and molested two others. Days later, the scoutmaster confessed. But a decision was made not to pursue charges against him.
A Louisiana Scouts executive wrote to the organization's national office, saying that the man wasn't prosecuted "to save the name of Scouting."
The documents released Thursday are part of one database compiled by a Portland attorney. Another database compiled by the Los Angeles Times over several years includes related documents and notations of cases from the late 1950s through the present.
A WDRB News review Thursday found 13 Louisville area cases in the Times database.
It shows seven alleged abuse cases in Louisville, two in New Albany, Ind., and one each in Charlestown, Ind.; Crestwood, Ky., and Elizabethtown, Ky. between 1961 and 2002.
The Times database so far lists only the hometowns of people "expelled" for alleged abuse and when the Boy Scouts opened a file on each case.
The attorney's documents released in Portland included six sets of Louisville files as late as 1977. They contained official Boy Scouts documents from the local scout council office and national headquarters that named men to be placed on the "confidential list" -- a list of people not to be registered or re-registered to take part in scouting activities.
The six Louisville men named were accused in incidents in the 1960s and one in 1977. The paperwork for them, in general, describes a pattern by local Boy Scout Council executives, the council president, a sponsoring church's minister and even a local circuit judge to meet with suspected abusers -- and "encourage" them to resign from the Scouts. It also shows forms filled out to report these people to national HQ for the "confidential list".
The documents are partially redacted but do name each of the men. None of the documents show the Boy Scouts executives referred any of the complaints to police; though in one instance, they met with police to review "police files" about a group of Louisville men who allegedly took liberties with a group of minor boys. This was in the mid-1960s.
A 1977 case file contains a letter from an alleged victim's mother in which she writes of hesitating to contact police because she was assured the situation involving her son would be handled by Scouting authorities. She wrote after not receiving word soon enough. It was not clear the outcome of the case.
Read the six Louisville "confidential list" or "pedophile list" files released by searching the database at www.kellyclarkattorney.com. Search by state and city for individual PDF files of documents.
Search the Los Angeles Times Boy Scouts sex abuse database at http://spreadsheets.latimes.com/boyscouts-cases/.
The national Scouting headquarters provides a lengthy response, including a description of its current abuse prevention efforts and volunteer screening requirements at http://www.scouting.org/Media/PressReleases/2012/20121018.aspx.
Copyright 2012 WDRB News and The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
WDRB reporter Chris Turner provided added Louisville area information for this story.
