This isn’t the first time the Boy Scouts have been accused of protecting pedophiles and allowing them to move from troop to troop. “For decades, the BSA has provided Congress with a yearly report that meets the requirements of our charter.” “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 statement says. In a statement to TIME, the Boy Scouts deny withholding any relevant information from Congress or enabling abusers. “They were reporting…that they were a wholesome organization,” says Tim Kosnoff, one of the attorneys, “when they were kicking out child molesters at the rate of one every two days for 100 years.” Because the Boy Scouts of America are a federally chartered non-profit, they must provide annual reports to Congress, and attorneys for the former Scouts say the organization has not included information about abuse accusations in those reports. Lawyers for the ex-Scouts, though, paint a picture of an organization that has failed not only the boys and men who were abused, but the entire country. Bush have touted their scouting credentials as proof of a virtuous grounding. For generations of men, the Boy Scouts have been central to their identity as good citizens. They hope to illuminate a problem that has plagued but never fully exposed the Boy Scouts, an institution that for 109 years has vowed to teach youngsters good manners, useful skills and a sense of right and wrong. TIME also obtained a police report filed by one of the individuals alleging abuse.) If the Boy Scouts file for bankruptcy, the accusers will have a limited window to file claims against the organization, pitting the men and their lawyers in a race against time. (TIME was not able to confirm the men’s specific accounts but spoke with others who said they’d been told of the incidents. These men are speaking out for the first time, and several of them detailed their allegations of abuse in interviews with TIME. On Thursday, a group of attorneys said they’d collected information from at least 428 men and boys whose accounts of rape, molestation and abuse indicate the Boy Scouts’ pedophile problem is far more widespread than the organization has previously acknowledged. Now, Pittson is one of hundreds of men and boys hoping for a last chance at restitution if the Boy Scouts of America, in the face of a new wave of abuse allegations, files for bankruptcy. Pittson says he also spoke to the bishop, but as far as he knows, nobody reported the Scoutmaster to the police. He says his parents went to the bishop at their local church in Northern California, the same church that sponsored the Boy Scout troop, and the Scoutmaster was quietly removed from his position. “I just wanted to go home.”Ībout four years later, Pittson, around 16 and furious that the man remained a Scoutmaster, told his parents what had happened. “He called after me, calling me a baby and trying to make me feel guilty,” Pittson recalls. Pittson can’t remember if this happened one time, or if the Scoutmaster invited him over again a few weeks later, but he does remember pulling up his pants after a few minutes and walking out of the room. They wouldn’t understand.’” The man told him a “dirty story,” pulled down his pants and masturbated him. They wouldn’t think you’re mature enough. “He said, ‘But don’t tell your parents what I’m doing. “This is the normal way to learn about sex,” Pittson recalls the Scoutmaster telling him. The man assured the boy he had seen other Boy Scouts naked. The Scoutmaster invited Pittson, who was 12, to his house and asked him to lie on the bed.
Fifty-eight years ago, Edward Pittson says, the Scoutmaster who had taught him skills like how to use a compass and light a campfire said he was going to teach Pittson about sex.