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The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have reached a preliminary settlement of $ 850 million with about 60,000 people over allegations of sexual abuse.
According to victims’ lawyers, this may be the largest sexual assault settlement in American history.
The reported case numbers overshadow similar claims made against the Catholic Church in the country.
The BSA apologized to the victims and pleaded in bankruptcy in 2020, saying he would establish a compensation trust for those who have suffered sexual abuse.
In 2012, the newspaper Los Angeles Times discovered some 5,000 files detailing allegations against Scout leaders and troop leaders who had been deemed “ineligible volunteers”.
But most of the incidents had not been reported to the police.
In a statement, the 111-year-old organization said the deal was part of “continuing efforts to reach a global resolution that fairly compensates survivors and secures the future” of the Boy Scouts.
The deal must be approved by a judge and voted on by the entire group of survivors, but faces opposition from insurers who are expected to pay millions of dollars.
As part of another deal, which could be presented on Friday, local BSA councils could help $ 600 million to the victims fund, according to the AP news agency.
Insurance companies
Doug kennedy is one of nine victims chosen by the US Department of Justice to represent the group of survivors. He voted to publicize the proposed settlement with the BSA.
“It’s very hard for me to say the Boy Scouts are doing the right thing. They are doing their best right now,” he said, comparing the organization to BSA insurance companies, which don’t have not yet offered sufficient compensation. .
“What’s really important from a survivor’s point of view is that all of these insurance companies were paid out of our fees,” he added to BBC News on Friday.
“The kids got money to be part of the Boy Scouts and some of that money went to pay for these policies. And all we’re asking now is that these insurance companies pay the money that ‘they took so many decades ago. ”
Ken rothweiler, one of the victims’ group’s three main negotiators, told local NPR news outlet he was glad the BSA and its local councils “tried to be the first to compensate survivors.”
But another lawyer in the group, Tim Kosnoff, told NPR it was a “rotten and stupid affair“.
“I don’t know how you can characterize this as anything other than a failure,” Kosnoff said.
He said some men who had been abused for years could receive payments of only a few thousand dollars, describing the settlement as “an insult to all the men who found the courage to file a complaint and participated in this process” .
A handful of BSA insurers, believed to be responsible for separate payments, also accused the organization of excluding them from negotiations, saying they gave victims’ lawyers too much leverage over the final settlement.
For its part, Jordan merson, a lawyer representing more than 300 ex scouts in this case, he said that this preliminary settlement is “just the beginning” and that future settlement payments could amount to “billions” of dollars.
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