Suit Targets Boy Scouts

By Mike Chalmers
News Journal
December 13, 2012

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20121213/NATIONAL/312130056/Suit-targets-Boy-Scouts?nclick_check=1

The grooming of young Melvin Novak as a sexual abuse victim began with role-playing games.

What would the teenager do, his scoutmaster would ask, to save a friend in trouble?

“Would you get undressed if that was necessary to save your friend?” he’d say, according to a lawsuit Novak filed Wednesday in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

The progressively sexual games were part of Novak’s initiation into a bogus “special brotherhood,” complete with achievement levels and gifts for reaching them, he said. “Everything had a reward at the end,” said Novak, now 28, of Newark. “From the time I was 8 years old, this guy was Santa Claus.”

The former scoutmaster, Vance P. Hein, was convicted of molesting Novak in 2000 and recently began serving a 15- to 30-year prison sentence on child pornography charges in Pennsylvania.

Novak’s suit claims the abuse happened in 1998 and 1999 while Novak was a member of Troop 84 in Downington, Pa. He and his family were living in New London, Pa., and Novak was a student at Avon Grove High School.

The suit names Hein, the Boy Scouts’ Chester County Council and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which sponsored Troop 84. The Scouts and the church should have better protected Novak, the suit argues.

Tom Dintaman, assistant Scout executive for the Chester County Council, said he could not comment on the allegations of the lawsuit but apologized for the abuse that some scouts have suffered.

“Any instance of child victimization or abuse is intolerable and unacceptable,” Dintaman said in a written statement. “We deeply regret there have been times when scouts were abused. For that we are very sorry and extend our deepest sympathies to victims.”

Dintaman said the group has developed extensive training programs, background checks and safety policies to protect Scouts.

Officials with the Mormon church could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Novak’s attorney, Stewart Eisenberg, said the national Boy Scout organization knew for decades that sexual predators had “infiltrated” the group to gain access to victims. The Scouts’ “ineligible volunteer” files, sometimes called the “perversion files,” now being released as part of several court cases are evidence of that knowledge, he said.

But the Scouts did not do enough to protect members, he said. In some cases, leaders suspected of sexual abuse were allowed to rejoin other Scout units, the files show.

“They had a pattern of secrecy and secret files on child abuse,” Eisenberg said. “They knew about this conduct, and they covered it up in the most dispicable way.”

At least 14 of those files involve Boy Scout leaders in the Delaware area, The News Journal found.

The files show the Scouts’ system to protect children often worked but occasionally fell short. Those local leaders who slipped through the cracks apparently did not go on to abuse other children, the files and court records show.

Eisenberg said Hein left a Boy Scout unit in California, then came to the Chester County troop in the early 1990s.

“Something happened in California that we don’t know about yet, but that will be part of discovery,” Eisenberg said.

Hein, a computer specialist, was also a youth leader at the Mormon church, then known as Marshallton Second Ward in the Valley Forge Stake. Novak said Hein was considered a respected member of the church and a mentor to him and other scouts.

Novak said he was 14 years old when the abuse began.

According to the lawsuit, Hein groped and fondled Novak, hit him with a stick while Novak was naked, made him watch pornographic movies and performed other lewd acts. The abuse happened at Hein’s home in Downingtown, Pa., as well as local parks and Scouting events, the suit claims.

Hein made Novak believe that such acts would give him the privilege of joining a “brotherhood,” according to the lawsuit.

“It was a complete hoax, and it was a sick, sick game he was playing,” Eisenberg said.

The abuse caused Novak to skip school, run away from home and get into trouble, he said. Counseling had failed, and his family was suffering from his behavior.

In 1999, Hein took Novak along on a business trip to Montreal, telling him and his parents that he would learn computer software and programming skills. Instead, Hein sexually assaulted him, Novak said.

It was after the Canada trip that Novak said he finally told his mother about the abuse.

“I was ashamed of everything I was doing. I didn’t understand why I let it go as far as it did. I just wanted everything to stop,” Novak said.

The Novak family contacted police, who charged Hein with sexual abuse. In 2000, Hein was sentenced to 15 years of probation. In August, Hein was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in state prison following the discovery of 84 pictures and eight videos involving child pornography on his home computer.

The abuse, though, had taken a long-term toll on Novak, he said.

Novak said he never achieved the top rank of Eagle Scout, even though the only remaining requirement was a community service project. He developed a substance-abuse problem. He bounced around to various jobs and had trouble settling on anything. He now manages a GameStop store .

Novak’s father, also named Melvin Novak, said the abuse did not shake his Mormon faith.

“My faith in Jesus Christ and my faith in the church isn’t changed by the fact this evil man perpetrated this crime on my son,” the father said. “Evil people can fool us all.”