NY opens one-year window for child abuse lawsuits
More accusers allege crimes by Scoutmasters
One man told of sexual abuse starting when he was 10.
Another man reported he was sexually abused as a teenager.
A third said he was sexually abused from the age of 11 on.
All three incidents have two other things in common: They date back half a century, and the men accused were Scoutmasters, adult leaders of Boy Scout troops.
Those are among the latest allegations against the Boy Scouts of America, an organization hit last week by a lawsuit from a firm that claims to have more than 800 new clients who say they were preyed on as Scouts.
The newest allegations came Wednesday among hundreds of lawsuits filed under New York’s Child Victims Act, which opened a one-year window for suits from child sexual abuse victims previously barred by the statute of limitations.
Attorney Vincent Nappo said his firm – Pfau, Cochran, Vertetis and Amala – filed seven lawsuits Wednesday on behalf of 20 survivors of sexual abuse.
Allegations span from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s. The majority involve adult leaders.
“Now that the law’s about to open up ... I think there’s going to be even more people who are going to read about this and hear about it, and the Boy Scouts are going to have a lot of tough questions to answer,” Nappo said.
The Boy Scouts isn’t the only organization under renewed scrutiny. Lawsuits filed across New York name individuals and the institutions with which they were affiliated, such as schools and churches.
A woman said a school janitor began raping her when she was 12, nearly four decades ago. One man said he was sexually abused as a teen by a Jehovah’s Witnesses ministerial servant in 1985 and 1986. Another said he was first sexually abused by a Catholic priest in the 1950s when he was about 11.
“This week, time’s up in New York,” Sarah Klein, an attorney with Dalton & Associates, said in a statement. “Time’s up for abuse, covering it up, and acting like it doesn’t matter. The message is simple: if you fail to protect the children in your care from sexual predators, you will held accountable in court.”
In a statement Tuesday, the Boy Scouts said it strongly supports holding sexual abusers accountable.
“First and foremost, we care deeply about all victims of abuse and sincerely apologize to anyone who was harmed during their time in Scouting,” the organization said. “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, we pay for counseling by a provider of their choice, and we encourage them to come forward.”