Victims become vocal
Hundreds of men in the U.S. say they were sexually abused while in Boy Scouts; now they’re planning to file suit to get justice
John Campbell grew up loving the outdoors.
So joining the Boy Scouts near his hometown of Scotland, Conn., in sixth grade seemed like a natural choice.
Campbell’s mother trusted his scoutmaster so much, she allowed him to sleep over at the 30-yearold’s house the night before the two embarked on an earlymorning sailing trip in 1982.
That night, the scoutmaster plied Campbell with alcohol, telling the 12-year-old to sleep in bed with him. He started to touch Campbell.
“My first sexual experience was being raped,” Campbell told The Denver Post.
Campbell is one of nearly 700 men, including 16 in Colorado, who are coming forward with accusations of sexual abuse that happened during their time in the Boy Scouts. They plan to sue the Boy Scouts of America, a centuryold organization that has been a fixture of American childhood. The men are demanding that the Boy Scouts be held accountable for hiding abusers from the crimi
In April, court testimony from a researcher hired by the Boy Scouts of America to review its files showed 12,254 children were allegedly abused by 7,819 Scout leaders over the past 80 years.
nal justice system and enabling them to keep preying on young men.
In a statement to The Denver Post, the Boy Scouts apologized to victims. The statement also said the organization has created more programs for victims and has improved screening of its volunteers.
Attorneys have not said when they plan to file the lawsuit, but they are racing against time because the Boy Scouts are facing financial trouble and may file for bankruptcy. The money problems are a result of the rising legal costs associated with sexual abuse allegations and declining membership. Just this year, the Boy Scouts in Colorado announced a merger between the Denver Area Council and the Western Slope council in anticipation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ withdrawal from the organization.
The latest wave of sexual abuse allegations have arisen as the United States has reached a tipping point in the victim empowerment movement and as an increasing number of states change laws to help victims seek justice in court.
While much attention has been paid to the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal, the Boy Scouts’ history of abuse committed by troop leaders and scoutmasters is coming into focus. The Boy Scouts must face a reckoning for abuse that dates back decades, victims’ advocates said.
“This organization is so full of child molesters that if you weren’t sexually molested in Scouting, you were just lucky,” said Tim Kosnoff, the attorney who gathered the claims. “The Boy Scouts should not exist anymore.”
A “staggering” response
Kosnoff was spurred to act by a Wall Street Journal report in December about the Boy Scouts’ financial troubles.
If the nonprofit files for bankruptcy, it would freeze the ability of victims to file claims. The bankruptcy process can take years.
“We felt an urgency to move,” Kosnoff said. “Once they file, it will be impossible to publicly identify these abusers.”
In March, Kosnoff, in a partnership with the Philadelphia-based Eisenberg Rothweiler law firm and San Diego attorney Andrew Van Arsdale, launched the website abusedinscouting.com, where victims could reach out with their stories. The lawyers also hit the airwaves with television ads, encouraging people to come forward.
Soon after, hundreds of people from all over the country called with stories ranging from scoutmasters showing them inappropriate photos to allegations of rape. Some days, up to 30 people would call, Kosnoff said. People telling stories about their abuse ranged in age from 14 to 97. Some were telling their stories for the first time, he said.
“It’s been pretty staggering,” Kosnoff said.
The Boy Scouts count more than 2.4 million youth members and nearly 1 million adult volunteers, according to the organization. That’s down from a peak of 6 million members in the 1960s.
Abuse in the Boy Scouts gained national attention in 2012 when the Los Angeles Times published a series of stories and a database known as the “Perversion Files” — an internal, previously secret list of volunteers banned by the organization on suspicion of sexual abuse dating to the 1940s. The list included more than 5,000 men and a handful of women. An unknown number of files, however, were purged by the Boy Scouts before the 1990s.
In April, court testimony from a researcher hired by the Boy Scouts of America to review its files showed 12,254 children were allegedly abused by 7,819 Scout leaders over the past 80 years.
The Boy Scouts’ internal documents showed the organization was lax in handling molestation incidents, leading to repeated child abuse by predators. The organization also opposed background checks and successfully lobbied against mandated FBI fingerprint screening.
“You couldn’t design a better place for pedophiles,” Kosnoff said. “You’re putting men you know virtually nothing about in close proximity with young boys away from their parents in the woods.”
The Boy Scouts in June admitted for the first time that in some cases sexual predators were allowed to return to Scouting even after “credible accusations of abuse.” The chief Scout executive, Michael Surbaugh, wrote in a letter to Congress that he was “devastated” this practice occurred, saying the organization has taken steps in recent years to “ensure we respond aggressively effectively to reports of sexual abuse.”
The Boy Scouts of America, in a statement to The Denver Post, said it has established a “multilayered process of safeguards” to protect its young members. These include a 24-hour Scouts First Helpline to access counseling and report suspected abuse; a volunteer screening database to prevent removed Scout leaders from re-registering; and a formal leader selection process that includes criminal background checks and other screening efforts.
“We sincerely apologize to anyone who was harmed during their time in our programs,” the Boy Scouts said in the statement. “We are outraged that there have been times when individuals took advantage of our programs to abuse innocent children. We believe victims, we support them, and we encourage them to come forward.”
A high percentage of abusers, however, remain unknown, Kosnoff said. Ninety percent of the victims who reached out for the lawsuit reported abusers who have not been publicly identified in the “Perversion Files” or other public sources.
“Sick to my stomach”
The day after Campbell was raped, he still went on the sailing trip with his abuser.
“I felt terrible, but I knew I couldn’t talk about it,” Campbell said. “Everyone would think I was gay.”
Over the next 15 months, the scoutmaster molested him eight or nine times. Alcohol was always involved.
“I would wake up from blackouts being raped,” Campbell said.
On one trip, the man forced Campbell to have sex with another Scout while he watched.
The man abused at least six or seven others boys during this time period, Campbell said.
“When I think about it now, 37 years later, it makes me sick to my stomach,” said Campbell, now 50.
Two years after the abuse ended, Campbell called the national Boy Scouts office in Texas to report what happened. The person who answered the phone, he said, told him they couldn’t talk to him and to call the legal department. Then the person hung up.
Campbell, who now lives in Montrose, doesn’t believe his abuser faced any charges.
In the case of Grand Junction resident Tod Berryman, the abuser was identified by the Boy Scouts — and continued to be involved with children.
Growing up in Boulder, Berryman had two older siblings join the Boy Scouts before him and heard only good things: Hiking in the foothills and the Flatirons. Cooking and skills tests. Exploring Glacier National Park.
Six months after joining, his troop leader, Floyd David Slusher, invited Berryman to his house. Slusher, a University of Colorado Boulder student, gave the 12-yearold alcohol and then told him to get naked, to masturbate him, Berryman said in an interview with The Denver Post. Then Slusher did the same to Berryman.
The alleged sexual encounters happened multiple times at Slusher’s house and on overnight trips, Berryman said. Slusher enticed boys with the perks of a college campus such as swimming in the pool.
“At the time, I didn’t know it was abuse,” Berryman said. “I knew something wasn’t right, but I was told not to talk about it.”
Slusher abused multiple boys around Boulder, according to the “Perversion Files.”
In 1972, when he was an assistant scoutmaster with Troop 48 in Boulder, Slusher was fired from his job at a summer camp after a pattern of “overt homosexual activity” with underage boys, Boy Scout files show. He was added to the “ineligible volunteers” list, but no criminal charges were filed.
Slusher went on to molest at least eight boys in the Boulder troop, according to a Boulder County Sheriff’s Office report included in his file.
“Almost every Boy Scout in Troop 75 and Troop 73 has been approached sexually by Slusher on one time or another,” a detective wrote in a 1977 police report. He added that the victims were “too numerous to interview.”
Berryman, now 54, said Slusher told him he would “hurt my family” if he told anyone about the abuse.
Slusher, now 66, is a registered sex offender living in Aurora. Efforts to reach Slusher for this story were unsuccessful.
For years, Berryman never spoke about any of it.
That’s typical for child sexual abuse victims, said Marci Hamilton, a child abuse expert and CEO of Child USA, a think tank working to prevent child abuse and neglect.
“The average age of disclosure is 52 years old,” she said. “I’m increasingly hearing from elderly people. They want to get it off their chest, and it’s often accompanied by survivors guilt.”
Victims who start seeing the enormity of the problem or hear about others who were abused by their perpetrator feel guilty they didn’t stop it, Hamilton said.
“Even though that’s totally unfair to them.”
While victims have historically been reluctant to come forward, that is changing rapidly, Hamilton said.
“We reached a tipping point last year,” she said. “And this has been a banner year for victims coming forward and for opportunities of justice.”
It started with the explosive August 2018 grand jury report in Pennsylvania, which found that the Catholic Church had systematically covered up abuse by hundreds of priests at the expense of more than 1,000 children.
But the biggest change has come at state legislatures across the country, Hamilton said.
This year, 38 states and Washington, D.C., considered bills to amend or revise laws concerning statutes of limitations — the amount of time victims have to come forward with allegations. Of the 39 jurisdictions, 20 states and D.C. have improved their laws, often allowing victims to file criminal reports or lawsuits on abuse cases that are decades old.
“That’s incredible,” Hamilton said, noting that most years only one state moves in this direction. “This is the first year we’ve had this many.”
“The right thing to do”
For victims of child sexual abuse, the trauma reverberates for a lifetime.
Berryman and Campbell said they have trouble trusting people. Berryman struggles communicating, the result of decades bottling his feelings inside. Campbell always has his radar up, never able to relax.
Child sexual abuse victims often have a combination of physical and psychological illnesses, Hamilton said. Victims endure much higher rates of depression, substance abuse and addiction, she said. They have higher rates of failing to live up to their potential and on average have lower education levels.
“The way trauma operates,” Hamilton said. “One-third get post traumatic stress disorder — just as debilitating as the kind in the military.”
Berryman and Campbell said their parenting styles are directly impacted by their abuse.
Berryman and his wife have fostered eight children, adopting two. He sees kids in the system as younger versions of himself.
“Any kid in need, I’ll protect to no end,” Berryman said.
Campbell has two children, 14year-old twins, whom he homeschools. He doesn’t feel comfortable letting the parents of his children’s friends drive them to extracurricular activities.
“And I would never let my son join the Scouts,” he said. “If the Boy Scouts went broke over this, I’m all for it.”
When Berryman first heard about the lawsuit on TV, he felt compelled to tell his story.
“I felt like I was the only one,” he said. “This has opened me up to being able to feel it’s OK to talk.”
Campbell still feels his blood boil when he reads articles about abuse in a church or other youth groups.
“I felt like I needed to be part of the solution in ending this,” he said. “I don’t expect a dime from this lawsuit, but it’s not about the money. It’s the right thing to do.”
Sam Tabachnik: 303-954-1913, stabachnik@denverpost.com or @sam_tabachnik