Boy Scouts, Church Face Suit: Defendants Accused Of  Failing to Inform Parents of Pedophiles

By Dave Goins
Idaho State Journal
June 25, 2013

http://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/article_33a441ca-dcec-11e2-9411-001a4bcf887a.html

Boise attorneys Timothy Walton, left, and Andrew Chasan, middle, join Portland attorney Gilion Dumas in discussing details of a new federal lawsuit filed Monday in Boise. The legal team filed the case on behalf of four anonymous former Boy Scouts who claim they were sexually abused.

BOISE — A federal court case filed here Monday against the Boy Scouts of America and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints names a Driggs man as one of three alleged perpetrators of sexual abuse crimes against now-former Boy Scouts.

    Plaintiffs in the case accuse the defendants — the LDS Church, (that has promoted Scouting programs), and the Boy Scouts — of failing to inform parents of the scouts that documents — recently opened by courts — show it was known that pedophiles were working within the ranks of the Boy Scouts.

    “The lawsuit is based on the defendants’ failure to inform the parents of the threat of pedophiles preying on unsuspecting boys,” said Boise attorney Andrew M. Chasan, a legal representative for the four unnamed plaintiffs.

    A church spokesman in Salt Lake City, Utah, responded with a news release to the legal action filed in U.S. District Court Monday in Boise, stating that, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has zero tolerance for abuse of any kind, and works diligently to prevent abuse and provide support and assistance to victims of abuse.”

    That prepared statement by LDS Church spokesman Eric Hawkins continued in regard to the lawsuit’s allegations: “Leaders at every level are instructed in how to safeguard against abuse and given tools to respond when it does occur. Anyone who engages in abuse of any kind is rightfully subject to both legal prosecution and to formal (LDS) Church discipline.”

    One of four anonymous plaintiffs — formerly Boy Scouts — in the case has accused Dennis J. Empey, now 55, and a resident of Driggs in Teton County, of sexually abusing him during the summer of 1981 at Camp Morrison, near McCall, about 100 miles north of Boise.

    Empey in 1981 was an Idaho Falls area resident who worked as a volunteer at the Boy Scouts summer camp at Camp Morrison when the alleged sexual abuse against anonymous plaintiff “John Doe III,” occurred, according to Portland, Ore.-based attorney Gilion C. Dumas — one legal representative for the four plaintiffs.

    A reporter’s attempts were unsuccessful to reach the Boy Scouts of America for comment on the case at the Idaho Falls Service Center where the phone was busy Monday afternoon.

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs on Monday morning stated that no jury trial date has yet been scheduled for the filed federal case.

    Defendants in the case are listed on the 26-page document as the Boy Scouts of America and the “Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints … and Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Successors.”    

    The alleged sexual abuse crimes brought forward in the case were said to have occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.

    The suit seeks unspecified economic damages for anonymous plaintiff “John Doe III,” who was a 14-year-old Treasure Valley resident in 1981, Chasan said. That was the year that plaintiff John Doe III allegedly was sexually abused by Empey at Camp Morrison in McCall.

    “It’s difficult to provide information on this particular case, as the plaintiffs are unnamed and the cases are between 28-41 years old, and at least one of the charges does not involve the Church,” LDS spokesman Hawkins said in the prepared statement.

    The LDS Church wasn’t involved, attorneys for the plaintiffs said, in an alleged six-year case of sexual abuse that began in Lewiston in 1972 against one of four plaintiffs.

    Previously court-sealed records indicating what the defendants knew and when were released by court order in Portland in 2010, according to Dumas, who said that brought forward plaintiffs who had access to news accounts of the case.

    Dumas said that in 2010 the Portland law firm she represents won a $20 million verdict in Multnomah County, Ore. in a case against the Boy Scouts of America.

    “That went to the Oregon Supreme Court that just ruled last fall that those documents should be made available, and those documents are now available on the Internet,” Dumas said.