SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – A judge overseeing a lawsuit brought by the family of a California boy molested by his troop leader in 2007 has ordered the Boy Scouts of America to hand over confidential files detailing allegations of sexual abuse by Scout leaders around the nation.

The Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge said last month that the Irving, Texas-based organization must turn over the last 20 years’ worth of records by Feb. 24, with victims’ names removed, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. The files will not be made public.

Known as “ineligible volunteer files,” the documents have been maintained since the 1920s and are intended to keep suspected molesters and others accused of misconduct out of Scouting.

Scouts officials have resisted releasing them and won’t discuss their contents, citing the privacy rights of victims and the fact that many files are based on unproven allegations. They deny that the files have been used to conceal sexual abuse.

“These files exist solely to keep out individuals whose actions are inconsistent with the standards of Scouting, and Scouts are safer because of them,” Deron Smith, public relations director of Boy Scouts of America, told the Times.

The Santa Barbara case is significant because it seeks to unlock files that have never been turned over by the Scouts. It also alleges wrongdoing that took place relatively recently, even as the Scouts have stepped up protective efforts.

The trial is scheduled for April, nearly five years after the boy, then 13, was molested by volunteer troop leader Al Stein. Stein pleaded no contest to felony child endangerment in 2009.

He was sentenced to two years in prison but was paroled early and is living in a Salinas motel with other sex offenders, his attorney Steven Balash said.

The victim’s mother claims that David Tate, then the Los Padres Council Scout executive, asked her not to call police after she reported her son’s claim of abuse.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, contends the Scouts knew or should have known that Stein had put the boy at risk and cites Tate’s reluctance to call police as evidence of an effort to conceal widespread sexual abuse.

The boy’s lawyers contend the files will expose the Scouts’ “culture of hidden sexual abuse” and its failure to warn boys, their parents and others about pedophiles in the ranks of one of the nation’s oldest youth organizations.