Jeff Anderson to File Sex-abuse Suit against Ex-scout Master, Troop's Sponsor

By Paul Walsh
Minneapolis Star Tribune
July 19, 2013

http://www.startribune.com/local/216196181.html

A lawsuit to be filed next week implicates a former Boy Scout leader in the sexual abuse of two children.

St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson said Friday that the suit will be filed Monday in Rochester against a convicted child molester, the Boy Scouts of America, the Gamehaven Scout Council and troop sponsor St. Pius X Church in Rochester.

The suit will be the first involving the Boy Scouts of America filed under the new Minnesota law that drops the civil statute of limitations and allows a three-year window for victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue their abusers and/or institutions that may have allowed the abuse. Anderson has filed similar suits against Catholic dioceses since the law took effect in May.

Anderson said the suit is being filed on behalf of two former members of Troop 210 who were abused in the 1970s by the convicted molester, who now lives in Faribault, Minn. Anderson said the man spent 22 years as a Scout leader and held other positions in the Rochester area involving youth activities.

One of the former scouts will speak at a news conference in Rochester on Monday.

The suit, Anderson said, will address “the failings of multiple adults involved at St. Pius X, with the troop and the Boy Scouts, who received information in the early 1970s pertaining” to the abuse “and failed to act to protect the children.”

In October 2012, the Boy Scouts of America released about 1,200 files documenting reports of sexual abuse by scoutmasters and adult leaders from 1965 to 1985, including 23 Scout leaders from Minnesota.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482