The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
250 VICTIMS, 30 STATES
Hearst Connecticut Media investigation: Sex abuse connected to Boys & Girls Clubs across country
A sixmonth Hearst Connecticut Media investigation has found 250 victims in 30 states who say they were sexually abused as children at the hands of employees, volunteers and other members of Boys & Girls Club of America affiliates.
The 95 cases found in the investigation include criminal convictions and civil lawsuits with various outcomes spanning decades. At least 18 of those cases were pending as of Aug. 12. The investigation, which involved examining thousands of criminal and civil court documents across the nation, is believed to be the first comprehensive national accounting of child sex abuse tied to Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
Children as young as 6 were raped and sexually assaulted, court documents reveal. Some were molested by their abusers for years. Others were abused while isolated in situations like sleepovers or club trips. They were molested by coaches, club directors and volunteers, according to records of criminal convictions reviewed by Hearst.
Civil lawsuits dating back to the 1970s claim that in some instances, leadership at the clubs knew about the abuse and did not report it to law enforcement; that administrators at some local clubs did not adhere to Boys & Girls Clubs of America safety guidelines or failed to conduct sufficient background checks; and, in one case in Sonoma, Calif., a perpetrator was able to move
to another club just miles away after the abuse was reported to staff.
In other cases, religious leaders who abused children gained access to atrisk youth at Boys & Girls Clubs. In one instance, a Catholic priest implicated in the Boston Globe’s Spotlight coverage encouraged his victims to attend a Boys & Girls Club where he held adult membership and abused children in the 1980s and ’90s, according to civil lawsuit documents.
Administrators for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America said the organization does not track allegations of child sex abuse at its 4,600 local affiliates.
“There’s no reason to keep a list of people that somehow are gonna slip through the cracks,” John Miller, senior vice president of field services for Boys & Girls Clubs of America, said in July. “We’ve created the layers so that it’s not about one person holding the list. It’s about the whole movement, whole network, ensuring kids are safe.”
Miller said records from criminal cases are available to the pub
“There’s no reason to keep a list of people that somehow are gonna slip through the cracks. We’ve created the layers so that it’s not about one person holding the list. It’s about the whole movement, whole network, ensuring kids are safe.” John Miller, senior vice president of field services for Boys & Girls Clubs of America
lic through law enforcement agencies and media reports, which makes Boys & Girls Clubs of America “transparent.”
“Everything is public for us,” he said. “So, when I say public, the local clubs report (to police) locally, so there is a public account of a report. They report to us. And so, we have those data points. We also have all these other data points that we use as well.”
Miller declined to give the exact number of cases local clubs have reported to Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 2014, when the organization made that a requirement.
“I can say that that number is not a large number, and the average that results in arrests is probably in the single digits every year since 2014,” he said. “Any single incident is too many. Our goal is to get to zero.”
Attorneys representing victims say compiling and releasing that information to the public is not only a best practice for organizations that serve youth, but would also help educate the public about the extent of sexual abuse and the need to protect children from it.
“The national organization has a moral obligation to release the names of perpetrators within its ranks and crimes found, so victims can try to heal,” said Bostonbased attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented multiple victims of abuse at a local club. “It speaks volumes that they don’t.”
Boys & Girls Club of America is the largest youth development nonprofit organization in the country. It serves more than 4 million children a year, has a congressional charter and federal funding, a $100 million annual budget, and lobbies politicians to “prioritize children” in government budgets. Celebrity alumni boast the impact Boys & Girls Clubs of America had on their lives, saying its goal is to provide opportunities to youth from all backgrounds. Its members refer to it as a “movement.”
Boys & Girls Clubs of America officials said its affilliated clubs must adhere to a uniform set of rules regarding reporting and preventing child sex abuse.
“Safety is in our DNA,” Miller said. “Boys & Girls Clubs were founded … in 1860 in Hartford, Conn., to ensure (children) had a safe place. That has been the priority for forever.”
Of the nearly 90 local affiliate clubs contacted by Hearst Connecticut Media for comment on individual abuse cases, many confirmed the organizations require mandated reporter training and annual criminal background checks for volunteers and staff who have contact with children.
“We have a boardled Safety Committee that identifies best practices in collaboration with BGCA and other researchbased child development and youth serving organizations,” Dalinda GonzalezAlcantar, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of McAllen in Texas, said in an email. “All employees and volunteers that serve as a coach or youth mentor undergo a thorough background check prior to hire and yearly — we have hundreds of volunteers that receive this screening. We also conduct quarterly safety trainings for staff that (includes) … mandatory Child Protective Services training.”
But plaintiff attorneys have called in to question the national organization’s claims that the safety of children is paramount in light of the fact that it disavows legal and financial responsibility when sexual abuse allegations are made.
“They make statements about all their efforts to protect kids, but also try to take the position
“They make statements about all their efforts to protect kids, but also try to take the position that the local clubs are independent entities and they don’t have the ability to control everyone that happens to be at those clubs. My view is that if Boys & Girls Club of America wants to present (local) clubs as (being a part of the national organization), they need to do everything within reason to protect kids in all of their clubs.” Oregonbased attorney Peter Janci, who has represented multiple victims of child sex abuse at affiliated clubs. “
that the local clubs are independent entities and they don’t have the ability to control everyone that happens to be at those clubs,” said Oregonbased attorney Peter Janci, who has represented multiple victims of child sex abuse at affiliated clubs. “My view is that if Boys & Girls Club of America wants to present (local) clubs as (being a part of the national organization), they need to do everything within reason to protect kids in all of their clubs.”
In several of the civil suits reviewed by Hearst Connecticut, plaintiffs claimed that local clubs did not adhere to the national protocols, such as mandatory background checking of all staff and immediate reporting of abuse to law enforcement.
Breach of trust
By design, Boys & Girls Clubs serve atrisk youth. Many of the children in the institution’s care find respite from troubled lives and communities with few other resources available.
“(Kids) come (to clubs) for a variety of reasons,” said Miller. “They come because there’s food. For some of them, that’s the big meal of the day. Their friends are there. They come because the staff and programs. But ultimately, they come because they think that what’s on the other side of the door is better for them.”
Coaches, youth counselors, teen directors and other leaders have been convicted of sexually abusing children at Boys & Girls Clubs of America affiliates. Court records from the cases reviewed by Hearst Connecticut allege those individuals manipulated positions of prominence and their victims’ fondness for the clubs to groom them for abuse.
Because of the role of the club in the children’s lives, attorneys say some victims feel conflicted about coming forward.
“Youth service organizations fill a void in a kid’s life, especially if that child comes from a broken home,” said Seattlebased attorney Jason Amala, who is representing victims who say they were abused at a Boys’ Club. “There were very fond memories for a lot of people there. But the flip side is they find out later the organization didn’t protect them.”
Realizing as an adult that officials who ran the institution they loved as children failed to protect them from abuse is difficult to come to terms with for many, Amala said.
“A lot of people think it’s their fault, that they did something wrong,” he said. “They wouldn’t think in a million years the organization they loved may have failed them.”
“Like the Boy Scouts or Big Brothers and Big Sisters, parents go to these organizations looking for support,” said Amala. “They think it’s safe.”
Failure to report
Local club staff and volunteers are required to report any “critical incident/safety concern” to local law enforcement or regulatory agencies immediately, according to Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s published rules. Since 2014, local clubs have been required to report any safety incident, including child sex abuse, to the national organization, Miller said. For 50 years, Miller said every local organization has had the responsibility to report abuse to law enforcement and regulatory agencies. The organization’s administrators say clubs that don’t adhere to those rules risk losing affiliation.
Hearst Connecticut Media’s investigation found six instances, including two after the 2014 policy announcement, in which it’s alleged in civil cases that children reported their sexual abuse to adult club employees or volunteers who either didn’t report it, took no action to stop it, didn’t believe them, or tried to cover it up. All six cases of alleged failures to report abuse to authorities occurred in the last 50 years.
Three adults working at the thenGreenwich Boys’ Club in Connecticut knew that multiple boys were molested and raped by an underage counselor at the club in the ’70s and ’80s, according to a civil lawsuit filed in Stamford Superior Court, and none reported the abuse to police. James Starcher, thendirector of the Greenwich club, told a victim not to “(start) problems” when he reported the abuse, according to the lawsuit. His son, Jeffrey Starcher, and a swim coach at the club also knew of the abuse, the lawsuit alleges. Attorneys representing the club in the pending civil case have denied wrongdoing by the organization.
A fifthgrade California boy disclosed to Boys & Girls Club of Sonoma Valley employees that Paul “Dwayne” Kilgore sexually abused him in 2007 and again in 2010 and no one reported the abuse to law enforcement, according to a complaint from a pending civil lawsuit. The civil suit was filed shortly after Kilgore was criminally convicted of six counts of sexual abuse of a minor for abuse that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Two of those instances of abuse occurred while he worked for the Sonoma Boys & Girls Club, according to criminal court documents.
Club leadership and its executive board learned through an internal investigation that Kilgore slept naked in a bed with children on an overnight trip in 2012, but no one reported the abuse to police, the lawsuit claims. Kilgore only left the club when he was told he couldn’t take boys offsite in 2013, the complaint alleges.
A few months later, he was hired a few miles away at Boys & Girls Club of Petaluma. After Kilgore’s arrest in 2016, Boys and Girls Club of Sonoma Valley issued statements to the media claiming they had no prior knowledge of incidents or complaints regarding Kilgore.
After a boy told his parents that Paul Collins, former aquatics director at the Arlington Boys & Girls Club in Massachusetts, molested him in 1980, court documents say his parents reported the abuse to club leadership. Collins was fired and told to never return to the club, court filings say, but prosecutors said police didn’t learn of the abuse until they were investigating another case. The director and the parents “agreed at that time they did not want to risk negative publicity for the club,” and they didn’t want to cause more embarrassment for the boy, according to records from a subsequent criminal case.
Ignoring ‘red flags,’ not enforcing boundaries
Multiple lawsuits allege local clubs ignored “red flags” of child sex abuse, allowed predators to break rules and didn’t enforce proper boundaries.
In some civil cases, attorneys alleged that warning signs, such as grooming behaviors, spending inappropriate time alone with children, and adults not respecting boundaries with children were ignored by club employees, creating the opportunity for abuse.
Alejandro Hernandez, a 23yearold employee of Boys & Girls Club of Sierra County in Truth or Consequences, N.M., was put in charge of a club sleepover despite the fact that administrators learned just a few months earlier that he had he had previously made sexually inappropriate comments to “at least one teenage girl” at the club, according to a civil complaint. He molested a boy at that club sleepover in 2015, criminal documents say. Hernandez was convicted of two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and sentenced to six years in prison for the abuse.
A program manager at the Lester H. White Boys & Girls Club in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., knew 18yearold employee Khalon Booker hugged and kissed an 11yearold girl at the club, according to civil court filings. Her only action, a lawsuit alleged, was to tell Booker and the victim the behavior wasn’t allowed at the club. Booker was later convicted of sexually assaulting the girl multiple times during the same time period the hugging and kissing was reported. Because there was no evidence that Booker committed any abuse at the clubhouse, the suit was dismissed, according to an attorney representing the club.
The national organization made the prohibition of “private oneonone contact” between children and adults an official rule in 2017, administrators said, and it was a recommendation for years before that. Despite the rule, former Concord Boys & Girls Group Club employee Joshua Adams was convicted of abusing a 14yearold girl he drove alone in a club bus over the course of months in 2017 and 2018, criminal records show.
Screening failures
Since 2005, Boys & Girls Clubs of America has required all local staff members, board members and volunteers who have contact with children to undergo criminal background checks annually, Miller said. Violent felonies, convictions of any charges related to harming a child, and, depending on the job, any convictions around theft or embezzlement are disqualifiers.
In several instances in recent years, local clubs’ background checking procedures apparently failed to prevent adults with violent convictions from working with children.
Christopher Sims, 22 at the time, worked at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Wayne County in Goldsboro, N.C., in 2014 despite previous convictions for communicating threats, injury to real property, possession of weapons on educational property, injury to personal property, resisting a public officer and disorderly conduct. Those convictions would preclude an applicant from being hired, per Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s rules for its affiliates. Sims was later convicted of sexually assaulting a 10yearold girl and a 13yearold girl who attended club programs in 2014.
Carlos Bedoya was allowed to drive kids to and from events run by the Boys & Girls Club of Dundee Township in Illinois, even though he didn't have a valid driver's license, according to a pending lawsuit against Bedoya, the club, and the school where he also worked. Bedoya was convicted of eight counts of predatory criminal sexual assault on Aug. 9, according to the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office. A pending lawsuit claims Bedoya sexually abused a child from the club in his vehicle in 2017.
Lack of supervision
Boys & Girls Clubs of America does not have a requirement for staffing ratios related to child supervision, according to Miller, but it does recommend one adult to no more than 25 children for all activities. It also recommends tighter ratios for younger children, Miller added.
Miller noted that in some states, clubs are licensed daycare providers that must adhere to state regulations around staffing ratios.
Many cases of peeronpeer child sex abuse at Boys & Girls Clubs of America affiliates occurred due to a lack of supervision in some parts of the facility, such as bathrooms, civil lawsuits allege.
Between 2011 and 2016, three separate lawsuits against affiliates in California alleged children were sexually assaulted by peers in club bathrooms. A jury awarded one victim $1.4 million, and another suit was settled for $1 million. The third settled for an undisclosed amount midtrial.
In other civil cases, parents of children with disabilities who require special attention said the children were allegedly left unsupervised with peers who sexually abused them.
A 14yearold boy sexually assaulted a 13yearold girl at the Boys & Girls Club of Arlington, Texas, when the two were left alone during an afterschool program, according to a 2016 civil suit. Both children were disabled and required adult supervision at all times, the lawsuit said. The club was ordered to pay $600,000 after a settlement, according to court documents filed in the case.
Some civil complaints allege minors with histories of committing sexual abuse were allowed to return to the same club where the abuse occurred.
In three separate cases in Oregon, civil lawsuits claimed underage participants in club programs had histories of sexual misconduct when they allegedly abused other participants in the 2010s. The lawsuits included allegations that the clubs were aware—or, at the very least, should have been aware—of the prior misconduct.
Background checking minors can be difficult, Miller said, because criminal juvenile records are usually sealed.
And because local clubs are housed at a variety of building types and campuses, Miller said it’s difficult for the national organization to develop a uniform rule around bathroom supervision.
Abuse of power
Several civil suits filed against club staff and volunteers in recent years allege they used their power and positions of trust in communities to gain access to their victims, civil lawsuits alleged.
The former director of the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Fe who was also a former mayor of the New Mexico capital city, Louis Montano, used his position of power to groom, manipulate and sexually abuse a 12yearold boy in the 1970s, according to a complaint filed in an ongoing civil lawsuit.
Victoria Satoafaiga, former club director of the Boys & Girls Club in Maui, Hawaii, was convicted this year of sexually abusing a 12yearold girl at the club starting in 2016.
Willis Brown, former director of the Boys & Girls Club of Southern Nevada, pleaded to sexually abusing a 15yearold girl at the club in 2016.
Juan Martin Torres, former director of the Boys & Girls Club of Firebaugh in California, was convicted of sending sexually explicit messages to a child who attended the club. He attempted to manipulate boys into situations in which he could sexually abuse them in 2013, according to a federal criminal complaint.
“(One child) said he did not know what to do at this point and he was scared to tell anyone,” the complaint reads. “He was scared if he came forward nothing was going to happen to Torres and he was going to have to see him every day.”
“Youth service organizations fill a void in a kid’s life, especially if that child comes from a broken home. There were very fond memories for a lot of people there. But the flip side is they find out later the organization didn’t protect them.” Seattlebased attorney Jason Amala, who is representing victims who say they were abused at a Boys’ Club.
Policies and reforms
The national organization’s policies provide “layers of protection,” according to Miller.
Those layers do not include publicly tracking child sex abuse allegations.
When an employee or volunteer transfers from one club to another, Miller said their former club is required to send a letter of recommendation to the new club they apply to, adding this policy is another layer of protection.
When asked what would happen if the employee does not disclose they used to work at a club, Miller said it’s a requirement.
“There is no sense that we would ever put kids in harm’s way,” he said.
Lifelong impact
Joey Piscitelli, a California man who was molested at the former San Pablo Boys Club in the ’70s, said he didn’t know what was being done to him was abuse.
“My parents never warned me about child molesters,” he said. “I didn’t know that existed, and even when it happened to me, I still didn’t know it was wrong.”
Piscitelli said he did report his abuse as a highschooler to a therapist, who then reported it to an administrator at his school, which was run by the same organization that operated the boys’ club that sat adjacent to the campus.
“I told the therapist that the head of the club was touching boys and doing things to me,” said Piscitelli. “She told (an administrator at) the school and (he) told me if I told anybody else, that nobody would believe my word against them and everybody would think I was a liar and I would get kicked out of the school. And I believed (him.) I was scared to death.”
Piscitelli said he didn’t talk about the abuse again for 25 years.
In the Greenwich case and other civil suits, victims did not come forward about their alleged abuse until decades after they say it took place. The Greenwich men, who have been granted anonymity by the judge considering their suits, said in affidavits that their families and friends are still unaware of the alleged abuse.
Piscitelli, who now advocates for other survivors of child sex abuse, said he believes civil and criminal statute of limitation laws should be extended so victims have a chance to find a semblance of justice for their suffering. The laws, which limit the timeframe victims have to file civil claims and the ability of law enforcement to investigate criminal cases, vary in each state.
“The symptoms last a lifetime,” he said. “We suffer for decades. The law needs to be more diligent.”