Court: Scouts’ ‘Perversion Files’ Public Record

The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that 20,000 pages of so-called perversion files compiled by the Boy Scouts on suspected child abusers over a period of 20 years will be open to the public.

The Supreme Court on Thursday denied an attempt by the Boy Scouts of America to keep the records gathered from 1965-1985 sealed.

The files were used as evidence in a lawsuit against the Scouts in a case that ended in 2010 with a jury ruling that the organization had failed to protect a man who was molested by an assistant scoutmaster in the early 1980s.

A Multnomah County judge ordered the files to be opened to the public, with redactions, but the Boy Scouts appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court.