Montana News

Billings, Butte cases included in Boy Scouts documents

Posted: Oct 18, 2012 10:26 PM by Drew Trafton, Erin Schattauer - MTN News
Updated: Oct 18, 2012 10:26 PM

BILLINGS - The Boy Scouts of America released more than 20,000 confidential documents today, identifying more than 1,200 leaders and volunteers banned from the group for accusations of sexual or inappropriate conduct with boys.

The Oregon Supreme Court ordered the release of the Boy Scout's "perversion" files. They reveal details on adult leaders banned from the Scouts, for convictions and accusations of sexual assault, most dating from the 1960s through the 1980s.

Six of those files come from the Montana Council of the Boys Scouts of America. Two files come from Powell and Basin, Wyoming.

Two of the Montana files profile former Billings scout leaders. One was in Butte.

Both of the men involved in the Billings cases still live there at the same addresses provided by the Boy Scouts in 1976 and 1977when the accused assaults took place.

One of the men served a 15-year sentence in the Montana State Prison after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl in 1977. However, the man is not registered as a sexual offender because he served his sentence prior to the establishment of the Montana Sexual or Violent Offenders Registration Act in 1989.

The other alleged assault directly involved a Boy Scout. As a Troop Master, he allegedly sexually assaulted an 11-year-old Boy Scout on a camping trip he chaperoned in 1976. He was never charged of the crime.

A week after being confronted with the information by local Boy Scout leadership, he stepped down from his post as a Troop Master and was banned from participating in Boy Scouts.

In a letter detailing the confrontation, local leadership told the man his resignation would "save embarrassment on both your part and ours."

The man from Butte involves an incident dating back to the 1960s.

A letter from 1962 from a scout executive to the Director of Registration for the Boy Scouts of America in New Jersey, notes that the man had recently been found guilty of a molesting charge, involving two little girls.

"According to his wife, who has divorced him, he was in similar trouble one other time prior to getting into scouting so we have every reason to believe he will attempt to get back into the movement whenever he is discharged," the letter states.

Another letter from the assistant director of registration service dated Aug. 9, 1962 acknowledges that the letter was received and says that the man's name would be deleted from the record of Troop 27. The man was 36 years old at that time.

Of those thousands of files, hundreds involve alleged sexual assaults never reported to law enforcement.