WEST VIRGINIA
The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register
October 28, 2012
By FRED CONNORS – Senior Staff Writer , The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register
GLEN DALE – In some states, including West Virginia, child sexual predators named earlier this month in the Boy Scouts of America’s so-called “perversion files” can still be prosecuted.
West Virginia law has no statute of limitations on a felony. In Ohio, the statute in child sex cases limits prosecution to a time period of 21 years either from when the child turns 18 or when it was first reported to an adult.
Portland, Ore. Attorney Kelly Clark released the BSA documents on Oct. 18 after the Oregon Supreme Court ruled they could be made public.
The 14,500-page file reveals decades of alleged child sexual abuse involving scout leaders but never reported to law enforcement. It contains allegations of abuse of more than 1,000 Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts across the country and internal memos and reports between scouting officials and letters from victims. More than 1,200 offenders are named in alleged sexual assaults from 1965-85.
Locally, a Glen Dale man who served as scoutmaster for Troop 82 sponsored by the P.T.A. at Glen Dale Elementary School is named as an offender. Six boys reported allegations against the man, according to the BSA files.
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