15 November, 2020

Sex-Abuse Claims Against Boy Scouts Now Surpass 81,000

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/15/us/boy-scouts-abuse-claims-bankruptcy.html

 More than 81,000 people have come forward with sex-abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America, describing a decades-long accumulation of assaults at the hands of scout leaders across the nation who had been trusted as role models.

The claims, which lawyers said far eclipsed the number of abuse accusations filed in Catholic Church cases, continued to mount ahead of a Monday deadline established in bankruptcy court in Delaware, where the Boy Scouts had sought refuge this year in a bid to survive.

Paul Mones, a lawyer who has been working on Boy Scouts cases for nearly two decades, said the prevalence of abuse detailed in the filings was breathtaking and might reflect only a fraction of victims.

“I knew there were a lot of cases,” Mr. Mones said. “I never contemplated it would be a number close to this.”