Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

October 20, 2012

Scouts' 'perversion files' include 52 Maine cases, eight names

Information released as part of a court case only contains details for a 20-year period.

By David Hench dhench@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

and Leslie Bridgers lbridgers@pressherald.com
Staff Writer

Thousands of newly released Boy Scout files documenting allegations of sexual abuse by volunteers include detailed files on eight scout leaders in Maine who were banned from the organization.

The eight represent a small fraction of the "perversion files" involving scout leaders nationwide.

Those files, dating from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, were made public by an Oregon court Thursday.

They include internal reports of alleged child molestations by more than 1,200 scout leaders and other adult volunteers.

A database compiled by the Los Angeles Times indicates a total of 52 cases in Maine in which allegations landed volunteers in the organization's confidential files, a system designed to prevent people suspected or convicted of abuse from volunteering for other troops.

That list, compiled by plaintiffs' attorneys in a lawsuit in California, includes cases through 2004.

It does not include any files opened since 2005, or files that were destroyed by the Boy Scouts, which the group said happened in some cases over the years.

The list also lacks internal documents for the Maine cases except the eight.

The Oregon Supreme Court's decision Thursday pertained only to evidence in a lawsuit in that state, which included only cases from 1965 to 1985.

The 47 files created since 1985 on former scout leaders in Maine contain no details or names.

They range from a 1986 case in Saco to four in South Portland, in 1992 and 1993. The most recent cases on the list are from 2004, one in Orono and one in Bangor.

The eight men on the list are Hazen James "Jim" Currier, Fred Cram, Gene Graves, William Boyd Brown, Frederick Maitland, David J. Brunette, Alfred J. Conrad and Harold Bailey.

Currier's registration with a scout troop in Rochester, N.H., was suspended in 1981 after accusations were made by teenage boys at a group home where Currier worked.

One of the boys said he had a sexual relationship with Currier and two others said he made sexual advances toward them, according to a letter from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Welfare to the Boy Scouts.

After receiving notice from the Boy Scouts about his suspension, Currier, who was living in Lebanon, wrote a letter requesting a review. In the letter, he listed his work in the community, including as a church volunteer, a hockey coach and a Marine in Vietnam.

He said that during his seven months of employment at the boys home, Teen Haven, he hugged a boy and got up every night to take two others to the bathroom because they wet the bed.

"These are just two stories of my counseling that could be misconstrued," he wrote. "But I also made a few enemies, I'm certain."

Reached by phone at his home in North Berwick on Friday, Currier said he didn't know about the release of the file of scout volunteers. "This is all news to me," he said.

Currier said he did face charges because of the boys' allegations, and was found not guilty. "These kids had something out for me," he said.

Now 69 and retired, he said "it's kind of rotten" that the accusations have resurfaced but he gets strength from his family and his faith.

"It's all behind me, and I don't feel remorse because I didn't do anything," he said.

Another of the men, Fred Cram, was scoutmaster of Troop 108 in Casco. Pine Tree Council Scout Executive Harry Pokorny wrote in a letter to Boy Scouts of America Registration Director Paul Ernst that Cram had "picked up some youngsters to go to camp but ended up in a motel with them."

(Continued on page 2)

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