Boy Scouts of America sex abuse survivors claim censorship, object to bankruptcy exit plans
Cara Kelly, USA TODAY 9 hrs ago
More than a year into the Boy Scouts of America’s bankruptcy proceedings, frustration is at a boiling point for sex abuse survivors who say the nonprofit organization is doing little to put forth meaningful reparations for their trauma.
Their anger has extended to the bankruptcy court itself, which is redacting hundreds of letters sent to Judge Laurie Silverstein, preventing the public from understanding the full extent of the abuse they say they suffered as children.
On Monday, the Torts Claimants Committee, the official body chosen to represent abuse survivors in the case, filed an objection to the Scouts’ latest bankruptcy reorganization plan, saying it "minimizes the organization’s history of failing to protect children from sexual predators."
The scathing objection says this strategy has been on display since day one, when an attorney for the organization failed to mention the abuse for the first 15 minutes of her opening presentation to the court, "well after her recitation of the Boy Scout Oath and Law."
Comprised of nine men who say they were abused as children at the hands of Scout leaders, the committee said it has concluded over hours of meetings that "the Boy Scouts is either tone deaf or purposely minimizing the childhood sexual abuse claims that led to this Chapter 11 case."
Central to the objection is what the committee calls a small sum that the Boy Scouts has offered to put toward a trust for survivors as well as a lack of "the most basic information necessary" for survivors to ensure they are getting a fair deal. That includes financial details of local Scout councils and sponsoring organizations, some of which attorneys maintain are as liable as the national organization for the abuse.
The two camps differ wildly on estimated costs of the abuse. The Boy Scouts said in its latest plan that its claims expert estimates the cost of settling the claims at between $2.4 billion and $7.1 billion. The claimants' committee says it will be more than $100 billion.
Nearly 95,000 abuse claims were filed by the November deadline, though that number is expected to drop by about 10% after duplicates are removed.
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