Man accuses Scouts of sex abuse cover-up

PORTLAND, Ore. – A man who has worked with the Boy Scouts of America nearly his entire life testified Tuesday that he had reported a Scout leader's sex-abuse confession to Scout officials and the report was ignored.

Lawrence O’Connor's testimony came as part of the trial in Portland's Multnomah County Circuit Court that started March 25 against the Boy Scouts of America. The suit has been filed by a 37-year-old Klamath Falls, Ore., man who was abused in 1984  by an assistant Scoutmaster, Timur Dykes. In a video deposition played for jurors, Dykes has acknowledged abusing the plaintiff. Dykes was convicted three times between 1983 and 1994 of sexually abusing other boys, mostly Scouts.

For O'Connor, this testimony was a long time coming. He lives in Alaska, but decided last Thursday to fly to Portland to testify against the organization after reading about this trial on the Internet. He said he knows the Boy Scouts keeps track of pedophiles, in files he called “ineligibles.”

He said, despite what the name implies, the files just meant these were people working with the organization who had known histories of sex abuse. The lawsuit claims the Boy Scouts never shared those files with parents or authorities, which put a number of children in harm’s way.

O’Connor, now 67, who has been with the Scouts for 60 years. He has never worked with the Oregon division of the Scouts, but has seen the files he said the organization uses to track child molesters working in the organization.

Possibly among those in the files is a Scoutmaster whom O'Connor said confessed to him of inappropriate actions with boys in the scoutmaster's own troop. “He told me [about being] on a camp out with his troop," O'Connor testified in court. "He and a group of the older boys had been in a group masturbation session.”

He said he reported it, but the organization did nothing. O'Connor said he saw the same man 11 years later at a convention, still involved with the Scouts.

“I went up to him and I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ He turned around and walked away from me.”

O’Connor's testimony was just one of the ways plaintiff attorneys tried to prove the Boy Scouts knew about abuse and did nothing to stop it. Another piece of testimony, crucial to the  plaintiff's position, came from Donald Wolff who worked with the Boys and Girls Club.

Wolff said he found a letter from NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) that alarmed him, and caused him to launch his own "campaign to save kids." The letter specifically mentioned the Boy Scouts.

The letter said “that the place to go, to get your boys, is to the Boy Scouts of America and to Big Brothers and Big Sisters,” Wolff testified. He said he took the issue to Boy Scouts of America and they again chose to ignore the warnings.

Closing arguments in the trial are expected to begin Thursday. A verdict could come as early as Friday.

- The Associated Press Contributed to this report.