Boy Scouts release 20 years of 'perversion' files - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

There are new details about sexual abuse complaints against hundreds of former Boy Scout leaders, including some in Indiana.

As the Boy Scouts ran recruitment ads in the 1970s some adult scout leaders and volunteers were already sexually abusing boy scouts. According to newly released data, Indiana would eventually log 100 suspected cases.

"To the extent we didn't know enough 30 years ago, that's sad," says Scott Clabaugh, Scout Executive with Crossroads of America Scout Council.

Clabaugh says it's a different world today from the 70's when he was a troop volunteer.

"We have learned a great deal over the last 30 years about how to keep kids safer," he said.

But in 1982, the newly released "perversion files" show one Indianapolis adult volunteer was dropped from three Indianapolis scout troops over alleged sexual misconduct. There is no name, the volunteer is just called "Number 8."

The troops were mostly from Indianapolis, but also from towns like Brownsburg, Lebanon and Kokomo - everywhere from Evansville to tiny Russiaville.

In two cases, men dropped from Hoosier units ended up dropped from out-of-state troops, too.

Nathaniel Cantwell, a 15-year-old Indianapolis Eagle Scout says the old reports are "very surprising."

"It's disgusting frankly," he said.

Cantwell says scouting today is all about protecting youth.

"Encouraged involvement of parents and the training the youth leaders have to do, I believe everybody's prepared for that sort of thing," Cantwell said.

Scouts must train to recognize, respond and report abuse - the three R's. Volunteers like his mom Camille train, too, every two years.

"See something that isn't appropriate, as an adult leader, I'm responsible to go make sure they're following the rules and reporting it if they are not," she said.

From the Associated Press:

A trove of some 14,500 pages from the Boy Scouts' so-called "perversion files" have been made public, and the files show that on numerous occasions local officials helped cover up abuse allegations.

A Portland attorney held a news conference on Thursday after which he made the files available.

The documents date from 1959 to 1985. This is the first time the earliest documents - those from 1959 to 1971 - have been made public.

The documents show that in many instances the files succeeded in keeping pedophiles out of Scouting, but many times they did not.

The Associated Press obtained copies of the files weeks in advance and conducted an extensive review of them.

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