Man Files Sex Abuse Lawsuit against Boy Scouts

By Peter Hall
Morning Call
December 12, 2012

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-print-pa-sex-abuse-boy-scouts-lawsuit-2-20121212,0,6859333.story

A man who claims he was sexually abused by a Chester County scoutmaster — sometimes at a Scout camp in the Poconos — has sued the Boy Scouts of America and the Mormon church.

The suit, filed Wednesday in Philadelphia County Court, alleges that the Scouts knew pedophiles were attracted to the organization but didn't do enough to track those suspected of abuse or warn parents of their presence in Scouting.

It is the first lawsuit against the Scouts in Pennsylvania since the release in October of thousands of pages of the Scouts' secret "perversion files." The files detail the cases of leaders kicked out of the Boy Scouts from the 1960s into the 1980s because they were accused of molesting Scouts.

In many cases, including two from the Lehigh Valley, the Boy Scouts dealt with accusations of abuse privately rather than calling on authorities to investigate, the files show.

Melvin Nowak, the New Castle, Del., man who is suing the Scouts and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, told his parents that Scoutmaster Vance Hein had sexually abused him in 1998 and 1999 on Scout trips, and during a special trip with Hein to Canada.

Hein, who was a youth leader at Nowak's Mormon meeting house near Downingtown, Chester County, and a scoutmaster in the church-sponsored Scout troop, pleaded guilty to the abuse and was sentenced to 15 years' probation.

He was sent to state prison for 15 to 30 years in 2011 after he was found to have child pornography on his computer.

Although The Morning Call does not usually identify victims of sexual abuse, Nowak said he wants to go public as a survivor of sexual abuse to raise awareness of the issue. Now 28, Nowak said the abuse made him "a quitter" when it came to school and jobs, and plunged him into years of substance abuse.

"After all that, my childhood just fell apart," Novak said. "It took away a lot of accomplishments and experiences I can't get back."

Nowak's attorney, Stewart Eisenberg, said Hein's case fits a profile of abusers who were able to continue victimizing boys because the Scouts did not effectively track those accused of abuse. Hein was involved in an incident as a Scout leader in California before he moved to Pennsylvania, Eisenberg said.

"Either the Boy Scouts knew or should have known or the Mormon church should have known that he was not fit to be a Boy Scout leader," Eisenberg said.

The Boy Scouts' Chester County Council issued a statement Wednesday in which it called child abuse intolerable and unacceptable.

"We deeply regret there have been times when Scouts were abused," Assistant Scout Executive Tom Dintaman said.

Boy Scouts of America has said its decades-long database of leaders accused of misconduct, variously called the red list, perversion files and ineligible volunteer files, was designed to protect youth.

The organization calls itself a leader in youth protection through a combination of education for youth and adult members, background checks, and requirements that adult members report even suspected abuse to law enforcement.

A spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said he had no information about the lawsuit, but that the church has zero tolerance for abuse of any kind.

Contact: peter.hall@mcall.com

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