SEATTLE — A Portland attorney has released a database about hundreds of suspected sex abusers in the Boy Scouts of America that include 22 ineligible volunteers from Washington.
The database contains information on more than a 1,000 troop leaders accused of preying on Boy Scouts.
The files were kept by the Boy Scouts for decades. They contain names of ineligible volunteers who were kicked out of the group.
The records were dubbed as the "perversion files" because they also contain details of abuse that the Boy Scouts organization failed to report to police.
The documents posted by attorney Kelly Clark won't reveal the names of victims but will have details including what troop was involved, the dates of alleged abuse and a description of what is alleged to have happened. The files could lead to more allegations of abuse as other victims learn that they weren't the only people involved.
PDF: Boy Scouts' 'perversion files' for Washington state
Full database for all states (note: because of high traffic, the database may take a long time to load).
PDF: Response from Boy Scouts on documents released
A lawyer for a Washington victim said the documents show the Boy Scouts were more concerned about image than protecting scouts.
“It just allows the Boy Scouts of America to claim that boy scouting is safer,” said a victim’s attorney, Tim Hale.
The Scouts have, until now, argued they did all they could to prevent sex abuse within their ranks by spending a century tracking pedophiles and using those records to keep known sex offenders out of their organization.
“The only purpose of these files was to keep people out, to keep them from re-entering Boy Scouts later on. And the files show that worked,” said Boy Scouts of America National President Wayne Perry.
The Scouts began keeping the files shortly after their creation in 1910, when pedophilia was largely a crime dealt with privately. The organization argues that the files helped them track offenders and protect children. But some of the files released in 1991, detailing cases from 1971 to 1991, showed repeated instances of Scouts leaders failing to disclose sex abuse to authorities, even when they had a confession.
The group has since apologized publicly and said new rules prohibit one-on-one activities between scout leaders and scouts, that all activities are open to parents' observations and that suspicious activity is reported to police.
The documents cover two decades between 1965 and 1985.
The names of the Washington state ineligible volunteers are as follows:
Lester Puerner
Howard Eugene Sanderson Burgett (“Sandy”)
William Cronenwelt, Year record Made: 1971,
Dennis Collins, Year record made: 1972
James Hyslop, Year Record made: 1977
Arthur Downing III, Year record made: 1975
Arnold Newman, Year record made: 1976
Michael Mauch, Year record made: 1981
William Cormana, Year record made: 1969
Herbert Jones, Year record made: 1970
John Noonan, Year record made: 1966
Victor Hall, Year record made: 1968
Melvin Whitchurch, Year record made: 1970
Michael Zook, Year record made: 1966
Bruce Beck, Year of record: 1961
Allen Ewalt, Year of record: 11/24/87
Raymond Leard, Year of record: 1962
Ralph Moore, Year of record 1960
Royce Skoglund, Year of record 1965
Neil Stensland, Year of record 1961
Donald Vance, Year of record: 1962
Clifford Wysong, Year of record:1961
KIRO
