LOS ANGELES — Boy Scout officials in the U.S. and Canada not only failed to stop an admitted child molester in their ranks but sometimes helped cover his tracks, according to confidential records, court files and interviews with victims and their families.
A Los Angeles Times and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. investigation published Saturday finds Scout leader Rick Turley molested at least 15 children over nearly two decades, most of whom he met through American and Canadian Scouting beginning in the 1970s.
Boy Scouts of America officials didn’t call police in 1979 after Turley acknowledged molesting three Orange County boys, records show.
“You do not want to broadcast to the entire population that these things happen,” A. Buford Hill Jr., a former Orange County Scouting executive, said of officials’ decision not to contact authorities. “You take care of it quietly and make sure it never happens again.”
It happened again. Turley returned to his native Canada, where he signed on with Scouts Canada, and continued his abuses for at least a decade.
Turley, now 58, says he is surprised by how often he got away with it. The Associated Press
