Police, Scouts let man resign after 'abnormal conduct with boys'

Police, Scouts let man resign after 'abnormal conduct with boys' »Play Video
A detail from a letter from a Scout Executive in Oregon to the national organization in 1966 about a police officer and Scoutmaster who admitted "abnormal conduct with boys."

EUGENE, Ore. - A Eugene Police officer and Scoutmaster who "admitted abnormal conduct with boys" in 1966 was allowed to resign from both positions, according to decades-old confidential files kept by the Boys Scouts of America and released Thursday by a Portland law firm.

The 32-year-old "has some tendencies which deviate from the normal pattern of male behavior. These have been experienced by some of the boys in the troops," the local Scout Executive wrote to National Council in 1966. "As of result of our investigation, in cooperation with the Eugene Police Department, where he has been employed as a Patrolman, he has resigned his job and also as Scoutmaster."

A KVAL News review of the files located at least nine so-called "Perversion Files" kept by the Boy Scouts that involved local men.

Not all of them indicate a coverup or attempt to obstruct justice. Several of the files include newspaper clippings covering the arrests and prosecutions of the accused.

One file details a 1980 case involving a man who acted as the Cubmaster of a local pack but was not officially registered as a Scout leader. The man was accused of molesting four boys in the pack and later convicted and sentenced to 65 years in prison.

In another case, local Scout leaders in the early 1980s sought to bar a former Scout leader convicted of child molestation and sentenced to probation from serving again as a Scout leader.

In 1967, local officials reported a Scout leader from the Eugene/Springfield charged by state police with sodomy in Marion County.

"He was arrested along with 15 others in a (indecipherable handwritten word) of a 'ring' of people operating in this fashion," the local Scout executive reported.

But not all the file indicate whether anyone took any action to report possible crimes against children to authorities.

In another case, a local man serving in Vietnam was reported for attempting a homosexual sex act in Washington state with a 9-year-old boy in 1970 while serving as a Scout Master and on leave from the military.

This is a developing story. Watch KVAL News and KVAL.com for more