More than 200 individuals have come forward with new allegations of sexual abuse by members of the Boy Scouts of America in recent weeks as a trio of law firms seek to uncover unidentified child abusers.
A few of the victims are young, still underage or in their 20s, but many have held their secrets close for decades.
"Nobody would have listened to me," said James Kretschmer, 56, who says a leader groped him at a Boy Scouts camp when he was in middle school. "The problem is, then you think, ‘Is it something I did? What was I doing, was it my fault? If I hadn’t done whatever, he wouldn’t have done that.’ It took me years and years to realize it wasn’t that little child’s fault. It was the adult who had control."...
In response to those proposals,“organizations like BSA and the Catholic Church are now taking legal maneuvers to try to prevent victims from bringing these cases,” Rothweiler said.
Bankruptcy would create a limited window for victims to file claims. Those filings would be confidential, meaning names of perpetrators would not be made public.Afterward, Scouts BSA would emerge as a reorganized debtor and would not have to face civil litigation for – or negative publicity about – claims of wrongdoing.
“That’s why they’re going into bankruptcy, not because they don’t have the money," Kosnoff said. "They’re going into bankruptcy to hide, to hide these dirty secrets.”