The\u00a0Boy Scouts of America<\/a>, struggling to stay afloat while compensating tens of thousands of survivors of past sexual abuse, on Monday pledged to provide a victims\u2019 trust fund with at least $300 million from its local councils and proceeds from insurance policies and the sale of a collection of Norman Rockwell oil paintings.<\/p>\n The offer was detailed in a reorganization plan submitted by the Scouts, which\u00a0filed for bankruptcy<\/a>\u00a0protection last year amid a wave of new sex abuse lawsuits after several states, including California, New York and New Jersey, expanded legal options for childhood victims to sue.<\/p>\n The 379-page plan, filed late Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, did not place a total on how much the 111-year-old youth organization is willing to pay to settle more than 85,000 sex abuse claims by former scouts.<\/p>\n Details must still be negotiated with plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys, who are not likely to readily settle for what is in the plan, which excludes high-adventure camps and other valuable real estate around the country. At the time of the bankruptcy, the national organization had assets of more than $1 billion, with billions more held by local councils.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really disgraceful,\u201d Paul Mones, a Los Angeles attorney who won a landmark $20-million judgment against the Scouts in 2010 and represents hundreds of accusers in the bankruptcy, said of the reorganization plan.<\/p>\n \u201cConsidering the enormity of the problem, are they taking care of survivors as they should? I don\u2019t think so,\u201d Mones said.<\/p>\n The bankruptcy put a hold on hundreds of lawsuits to allow for the potential negotiation of a global settlement. It also required new abuse claims to be handled in that venue rather than in state courts.<\/p>\n By Nov. 16, the court-mandated \u201cbar date\u201d by which claims had to be filed,\u00a0more than 92,000 accusers<\/a>\u00a0had come forward, many of them recruited through aggressive TV and internet advertisements by law firms seeking clients. Several thousand were later weeded out as duplicate filings.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The massive response exceeded all expectations and prompted plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers to predict that the number of claims and the total payouts to settle them would easily eclipse those in the sex abuse scandal that engulfed the U.S. Catholic Church more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n CALIFORNIA<\/a><\/p>\n Boy Scouts deluged with 92,700 sexual abuse claims, dwarfing U.S. Catholic Church\u2019s numbers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n A researcher hired by the Scouts to analyze its internal records in 2019 identified\u00a07,819 suspected abusers<\/a>\u00a0and 12,254 victims \u2014 a fraction of the number who have filed claims.<\/p>\n In a statement released on the last day to file a sex abuse claim in bankruptcy court, the organization called the massive response from abuse survivors \u201cgut-wrenching.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are devastated by the number of lives impacted by past abuse in Scouting and moved by the bravery of those who have come forward,\u201d it said. \u201cWe are heartbroken that we cannot undo their pain. … We are deeply sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n While the size of the compensation fund has yet to be determined, it will benefit from the proceeds from hundreds of artworks, including more than 50 paintings by Rockwell.<\/p>\n The fund also will receive at least $300 million from local councils, according to the plan. But those contributions will be voluntary, the Scouts\u2019 filing said, and there was no breakdown of how much each council would pay.<\/p>\n In California alone, Boy Scout councils own more than $250 million in real estate, according to Seattle attorney Michael Pfau, whose firm represents more than 1,000 claimants in the bankruptcy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt appears very clear the Boy Scouts are trying to conceal the fact that these councils are not paying a fair amount, and worse, they are trying to force abuse survivors to give up their claims for close to nothing,\u201d Pfau said.<\/p>\n Some insurers balked at covering payouts in earlier sex abuse lawsuits, saying the Scouts could have prevented the abuse that led to the claims, court records show.<\/p>\n More recently, some have questioned the validity of thousands of claims in the bankruptcy, contending they were not properly vetted by the attorneys who filed them.<\/p>\n CALIFORNIA<\/a><\/p>\n Boy Scout files reveal repeat child abuse by sexual predators<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n In a statement issued Monday, the Scouts called the reorganization plan a \u201ccritical step\u201d toward equitably compensating abuse survivors while continuing to carry out its mission.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are still many aspects of the plan that we are refining through ongoing mediation, but the amended plan is an important step in demonstrating progress that we believe will ultimately lead to a final plan that the Bankruptcy Court will confirm,\u201d the organization said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are hopeful we can come to a resolution that is in the best interest of survivors and all parties and can emerge from Chapter 11 by this fall,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n Hundreds of lawsuits against the organization came in the wake of the Los Angeles Times\u2019 publication in 2012 of internal Scout records involving about 5,000 men on a blacklist known as the\u00a0\u201cperversion files,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0a closely guarded trove of documents that detail sexual abuse allegations against troop leaders and others dating back a century.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/8bf0498\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/600x400+0+0\/resize\/840x560!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2f%2Fb6%2Fc80308aeabf065cbc497eb86b6ae%2Fla-xpm-photo-2013-may-23-la-ol-boy-scouts-gays-suburban-dads-20130523\")
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The Boy Scouts of America unveiled its reorganization plan Monday in bankruptcy court as it attempts to deal with tens of thousands of sex abuse claims from former Scouts.(Associated Press)<\/p><\/div>\n
By\u00a0KIM CHRISTENSEN
\nLos Angeles Times<\/p>\n
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