In a landmark ruling for New Jersey, a state judge in Hackensack ruled that the Boy Scouts of America must release their Ineligible Volunteer Files (aka “Perversion Files”) in a civil lawsuit. The suit was filed against the BSA by a man who was sexually molested as a child by his Boy Scout leader, Stephen Corcoran.
The court ordered that the BSA must turn over “IV Files” that the organization created from 1986 to 2002. The files contain information on Boy Scout volunteers accused of child sexual abuse and other inappropriate sexual conduct with minors, such as showing pornography to children or taking photographs of nude boys.
The Hackensack case follows a 2012 ruling in Oregon, where the state’s Supreme Court ordered the release of a trove of secret files on Boy Scout leaders and volunteers nationwide who had been accused of sexual misconduct. Over 20,000 pages of internal BSA documents revealed a staggering cover-up in the organization – in more than a third of the 1,200 files the BSA created from 1965 to 1985, no one within the Boy Scouts informed the police about the abuse, according to the Scouts’ own tally.
Prior to the New Jersey court ruling, the Boy Scouts had argued against the release of the Ineligible Volunteer Files on the grounds that the information contained in the files would not lead to admissible evidence. The court rejected that argument.
In separate criminal case, Stephen Corcoran faces several felony charges, including exhibiting pornography, sexual assault, and aggravated sexual assault. If he is convicted, he could face a minimum of forty years in prison.
In issuing his ruling last month, Superior Court Judge Robert L. Polifroni said the Boy Scout files could contain or lead to relevant evidence. “The Perversion Files may be indicative of the Boy Scouts’ knowledge, or lack thereof, of scouting sexual abuse; the risk of such abuse; whether injuries of that risk could be fairly apprehended; what persons are more likely to offend; and what persons are more likely to be injured,” the judge wrote.
The civil case began in 2012 when a former Scout came forward and alleged that Corcoran had molested him beginning when he was 11 years old. The survivor alleged that Corcoran plied him with alcohol, showed him pornography, and engaged in oral sex “hundreds of times.”