Posted on 02/10/2013 10:44:37 AM PST by Colofornian
PORTLAND, Oregon The Boys Scouts of America and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a Portland man who said they didn't do enough to stop a Scout troop leader from sexually abusing children.
A document filed Nov. 15 in U.S. District Court in Boise said both sides agreed to an undisclosed monetary settlement.
SNIP
The lawsuit alleges the leader of a Boy Scout troop in Nampa in southwestern Idaho sexually abused the plaintiff over three years in both Idaho and Oregon starting in 1967, and that the abuse left him with debilitating physical, emotional and mental injuries.
The lawsuit was initially filed in February 2008 in Malheur County Circuit Court in Vale, Ore., by a then 53-year-old man who sought $5 million in damages and contended the Scouts and church didn't do enough to stop the troop leader from sexually abusing children...
The suit said the troop was jointly operated by the Boy Scouts and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Nampa ward of the church "called" the troop leader to educate and minister to LDS families and their kids, the lawsuit said.
A federal judge in August 2010 ruled the lawsuit must focus on alleged sexual abuse suffered in Oregon because it was too late to sue over similar claims in Idaho. The judge found Idaho's statute of limitations prevented the plaintiff from suing in that state. The judge also found that Idaho's two-year statute of limitations prohibited the plaintiff from suing over the immediate damages he suffered from the alleged sexual abuse in Idaho, since he claimed the abuse happened between 1967 and 1970.
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonherald.com ...
And then there is the problem of false memory syndrome and fake lawsuits.
I'm not saying abuse didn't occur, I'm just wondering why it took so many years for the suit to happen. Is there a “paper trail” suggesting he revealed it in the past to a counselor etc?
You always post about abuse, so maybe you might want to know that 20 percent of gay teenaged boys and 5 percent of heterosexual teenaged boys have had intercourse below age 13, according to the CDC.
So you can’t just point fingers at a church you dislike when a sexual predator pretends to be religious to target kids.
This is FAR from the only case involving Lds Boy Scout leaders.
Here -- go to Mormon (Latter Day Saints) Sexual Abuse Lawyer (Perhaps FREEPER Washi can find a parallel "Evangelical Sexual Abuse Lawyer" Web site).
Per this Web site:
We began fighting for those abused in the context of the Mormon Church in 2005, and since then have represented several dozen men and women who were abused by missionaries, home teachers, bishops, Scout leaders and others in positions of LDS callings. In 2007, Kelly Clark, along with Gilion Dumas and Kristian Roggendorf, won major pretrial victories against the LDS Church on disputed legal questions such as the statute of limitations, punitive damages and most significantly won a ruling from the trial court, backed up by the Oregon Supreme Court, that the Church release its financial records. Perhaps not surprisingly, the case settled immediately after that decision. Beginning in 2007, we brought a case on behalf of six men against the LDS Church, with claims of harboring a serial child abuser in Portland, a Scout leader, who had confessed to his bishop to molesting 17 boys in the troop, and yet was allowed by this bishop to resume Scouting leadership within only a few months. The LDS settled out of that case in 2009, and in 2010 we proceeded to trial against only the BSA, winning a record verdict of nearly $20 million, including punitive damages of $18.5 million. Since that trial, we have continued to advocate for survivors of abuse in the LDS context, and in 2012, for example, Gilion Dumas and our firm defeated comprehensive motions brought by the Church in a case in federal court in Boise, Idaho. gain, that case settled just after the courts ruling, as we were preparing to head to trial. Those whove survived Mormon abuse often have conflicting feelings of doubt, shame, anger, and an aversion to religion. At the same time, many remain deeply loyal to the Church. But all have been betrayed by an authority figure from that Church. This dynamic leads to much confusion and disillusionment for survivors of abuse in Mormonism. We understand this confusion, and while we never suggest that a person abandon his or her faith, we do believe that, for some survivors, securing justice for themselves and accountability for their abusers and those who may have enabled it is an important part of the healing process.
In the case re: this article, Gilion Dumas (mentioned above) was the attorney on behalf of the victim.
If you review the circumstances of MOST of these 2011 cases below, you'll find a common theme: Lds leaders were REPORTED to have KNOWN about reports of abuse, yet failed to act responsibly in addressing them...the odds of this happening in so many recent cases for ANY given SMALL denomination or sect would be astounding...which is why this SHOUTS for a response!
2011
* December, 2011: Judge weighing whether Mormon bishop should stand trial for failure to report abuse
* Mid-November, 2011: Provo city to file charges against LDS bishop
* April, 2011: Mormon Church Denies Prior Knowledge of Susan Brock Affair With Teen Boy, Which is a Lie
* March, 2011: Sacramento News & Review
* February, 2011: Father of The 5 Browns pleads guilty to sexually abusing his daughters
Also, are you consistent here? For a while, there wasn't a week gone by that the MSM wasn't reporting of yet another public educator (and on occasion, a private-school educator as well) who had been arrested of sexually abusing a student.
Whenever these articles have popped up on FR (about school educators), have you posted the above stat with an accompanying, "So you cant just point fingers at the public school system you dislike when a sexual predator pretends to be 'educationally-minded' to target kids" ????
And...by parallel, do you REALLY think all school teachers guilty of sexually abusing students merely have "pretended" to be kid-oriented (in a good way) and "educationally-minded" just to get them into closer proximity with kids??? I don't think so...; I think many do...and many don't ... but who knows the breakdown? (I don't)
What? Do you think all of these teachers merely disguised their pedophilia in order to get closer to kids, or do you think that perhaps in many cases, circumstances/temptations /poor choices could explain them as well???
Why is it that in these church cases, it's supposedly "pretend" Mormons or "EX-Mormons" with emphasis on the "Ex" part -- but when teachers are the guilty party, nobody accuses them of being "pretend" educators or emphasizes how they are now "ex-teachers" as ways of trying to exculpate the school system...???
...Seems awfully and highly inconsistent to me...Just sayin'...
Colofornian. You made the assertion, did you not, that Mormon's have "way more" than their share of sexual crimes?
I asked you to cite a study that backs your claim.
If such a study exists, certainly it would be an easy thing to post a link to it here and shut me up.
Anecdotal stories, cherry-picked from the Internet prove nothing, and you know it.
Find your study, show me that Mormons are statistically more likely to commit sexual crimes than Evangelicals or any other religion and I'll concede your point.
This thread is in “chat” - the Religion Forum guidelines do not apply here.
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