John McBride was an assistant Scout master of Troop 66 in the 1970’s in Libby Montana. He left the Boy Scouts of America in 1977, three years after he had pleaded guilty to 15 counts of deviate (sic) sexual conduct without consent, and lewd and lascivious acts upon a child. In exchange for his guilty plea, he received three years’ probation.
Here’s what the local media had to say about the Boy Scouts’ handling of John David McBride, “The BSA was so successful at protecting its reputation that newspaper reports about the criminal case of John David McBride, an assistant scoutmaster in Libby in the early 1970s, made no mention of the man’s leadership role with the BSA, even though he was convicted of 15 felony sex crimes against children for molesting Scouts in his troop.”
According to a 2012 article published by the Western News, “Since leaving Libby John David McBride was convicted in 2002 of first-degree child molestation.”
The Western News writes further, “The Boy Scouts of America has since taken steps to be more transparent about allegations against Scout leaders, and has implemented safeguards to protect its Scouts that include background checks, mandatory safety training, and a ‘two-deep leadership’ rule that insures Scouts are never alone with an adult in an unsupervised one-on-one situation.” This isn’t completely accurate since the Boy Scouts have always had these rules and procedures on their books as standard operating procedure. The problem has been and continues to be the lack of regard and implementation for these procedures.