,
7 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
"I realized that what had happened to me has happened to literally thousands of men. I realized that I was in this much bigger, macro picture of the Boy Scouts and their negligence." usatoday.com/story/news/inv…
Matt Stewart traces the growing line of men who say they were sexually abused by their trusted Boy Scout leaders back nearly two decades and finds himself.
“Here we are 20 years later,” he said. “And the story just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”
“Here we are 20 years later,” he said. “And the story just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”
In 2003, Stewart and his brother Tom filed a lawsuit that broke new ground in the effort – still ongoing today – to unearth the scope of abuse in scouting.
The case, filed against the Boy Scouts of America and the former scoutmaster they say molested them as children in the 1970s and 1980s, forced the Boy Scouts to turn over secret files on volunteers it had deemed ineligible.
The records – some of which later were released to the public by court order, becoming known as the “Perversion Files” – revealed that the organization had removed thousands of leaders for abusing children over the course of more than five decades.
Stewart, who is 54, continues to talk openly about the abuse he says he suffered weekly for more than a decade – in the car on the way to Monday-night scout meetings, on camping trips, in the basement of his own home under the guise of working on merit badges.
He believes the latest round of men to publicly name their accusers will only encourage more. bit.ly/2OHZvgO
