Man Files Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Against Boy Scouts of Alaska, America

Annie Feidt, APRN – Anchorage

An Anchorage man filed a lawsuit today alleging he was sexually abused by his former Boy Scout leader. The plaintiff, identified only as Barry Doe, says volunteer scout leader Dean Wendall You molested him in the 1970′s. You is a registered sex offender in Alaska. The plantiff’s lawyers are Ken Roosa and Kelly Clark, both well known for their work prosecuting sex abuse cases against the Catholic Church. Roosa says the abuse took place when his client was 10 or 11 years old.

Clark was lead counsel in a trial last year in Portland that resulted in a $20 million verdict against the Boy Scouts of America.  Clark says the facts in this case will be largely the same.

Clark says there have been child sex abuse cases against the Boy Scouts for decades, but they have not had a very high profile. He calls the Portland trial the “watershed case,” because it’s the first time the so called “perversion files” were made public. He says it was a system the organization used for keeping track of bad scout leaders. The perversion files included information on leaders who were gay or child molesters.

During and after the seven week trial, Clark says his office received over 600 calls from people who told stories of being abused as kids by the Boy Scouts. He says the lawsuit filed in Anchorage today is the result of one of those calls. Attorney Ken Roosa says the abuse claims against the Boy Scouts have a lot in common with those against the Catholic Church.

The Great Alaska Council of the Boy Scouts released a statement this afternoon saying they couldn’t comment on the litigation. But the statement goes on to say “Youth protection has always been of paramount importance to the Boy Scouts of America, and we continue to enhance our youth protection programs.”

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