Church Named in Scout Suit

By Canda Fuqua
Corvallis Gazette-Times
December 7, 2012

http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/church-named-in-scout-suit/article_cc8dd8b0-3f3a-11e2-b72e-0019bb2963f4.html

A Corvallis church is coming to grips with being named as a defendant in a $5 million sexual abuse lawsuit.

Portland law firm

O’Donnell Clark & Crew filed suit in Benton County Circuit Court on Tuesday, claiming that the Boy Scouts of America and the host of Troop 2 in Corvallis, the First United Methodist Church, did not install proper safeguards or take precautions that could have prevented alleged abuse between a Scout leader and an 11-year-old boy.

The lawsuit alleges that former Scout leader, James “JJ” Jones, abused the firm’s client, referred to in documents by the pseudonym “Henry Doe,” about 50 times over the course of roughly one year starting in September 1984.

According to the complaint, the sexual abuse took place in the leader’s Scouting office at the church, on camping and hiking trips with the Scouts, at Jones’ home and other locations.

A Corvallis resident who now is in his 70s, Jones denies allegations of abuse.

“It will all come out in court,” he told the Gazette-Times on Wednesday.

The Boy Scouts of America did not respond specifically to the lawsuit, but provided a prepared statement that outlined the organization’s policies and procedures to prevent abuse.

The pastor of the Methodist Church sent out a note to the congregation Wednesday morning, lay leader Hal Salwasser said, informing members about the lawsuit and what was alleged to have occurred.

“We are consulting the higher-ups in the denomination,” Salwasser said Wednesday. “We don’t have any experience with this so we’re trying to get some expert advice.”

Salwasser said that he is appalled at instances of sex abuse in institutions such as the Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic Church.

Regardless of whether the specfic abuse occurred as the lawsuit claims, he said, victims and people are hurting.

Troop 2 has been chartered to the First United Methodist Church in Corvallis since 1920, according to its website. Jones was listed as Troop 2’s scoutmaster from 1982-87, though he was named in the lawsuit as the assistant scoutmaster during the time of the alleged abuse.

Jones is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, nor was he ever charged with a crime in connection with the alleged abuse. Attorney Kelly Clark said that he does not know whether the Boy Scouts of America and the church suspected him of abuse.

The Portland law firm chose not to name Jones as a defendant, attorney Gilion Dumas said, because the lawsuit is based on negligence and fraud of the part of the institutions, not the person accused of performing the actual abuse.