Former Grosse Pointe Farms Boys Scout Leader’s Name Surfaces in Child Sex Abuse Documents

A Los Angeles Times database with information about thousands of leaders and volunteers ex­pelled or blacklisted from the Boy Scouts of Amer­ica amid sus­pi­cions of sexu­al ab­use includes a case from Grosse Pointe Farms.

Last week, 14,500 pages of confidential files kept by the Boy Scouts of America on individuals suspected of child sex abuse were released by order of Oregon's highest court, according to the Associated Press.

Those files included 171 cases in Michigan, including one in Grosse Pointe Farms.

A Portland, Ore., attorney, who won a landmark case against the Boy Scouts on behalf of a plaintiff molested by an assistant scoutmaster in the 1980s, released the documents to the public at kellyclarkattorney.com. The files cover a 20-year period, from 1965 to 1985.

But the Los Angeles Times, using the newly released files and other data from other cases, built a database and interactive map of its own. 

The Boy Scouts of America posted a statement on its website about the documents, known as the "ineligible volunteer" files:

"There have been instances where people misused their positions in Scouting to abuse children, and in certain cases, our response to these incidents and our efforts to protect youth were plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong," national president Wayne Perry said. "Where those involved in Scouting failed to protect, or worse, inflicted harm on children, we extend our deepest apologies to victims and their families."

In most cases, the men accused of sexual abuse were not reported to authorities, but kept in a file to prevent them from volunteering with the organization again.

The allegations against a Grosse Pointe man occurred in 1978. According to documents, the man was the scoutmaster of Troop 156, District 7, Council 262 in Grosse Pointe Farms.

The allegations were found to be "substantiated," and the man voluntarily dropped out of scouting.

Because many of the men listed in the decades-old Boys Scout files have not been charged or convicted of crimes, some media outlets, including the Boston Globe, have refrained from naming them without further investigating the allegations. Grosse Pointe Patch believes that is a reasonable precaution.

Other coverage

• Associated Press: "Perversion Files" Show Locals Helped Cover Up

Michigan Regional Editor Clare Pfeiffer Ramsey and Royal Oak Editor Judy Davids contributed to this report.