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For background, the “Perversion Files” are a subcategory of BSA’s Ineligible Volunteer Files — secret files kept at BSA’s national headquarters starting shortly after BSA’s founding in 1919. Each perversion file documents information about an individual scout leader, most of whom were suspected of sexually abusing boys. By 1935, over 1,000 men had been kicked out of Scouting for sexually abusing boys. Nevertheless, BSA kept the problem of Scout Leaders sexually abusing boys as quiet as possible and, for decades, failed to implement reasonable policies to protect boys in the local troops.

In the Spring of 1987, twenty-eight-year-old Thomas Lee Bailey, Scoutmaster of Salem-area troop S-0044, was removed from his position by Scouting officials on allegations that he had molested a Boy Scout.

Paul Ernst, Director of the Boy Scouts’ Perversion File System, wrote the local Salem Scouting office to request updated information on Tom Bailey’s criminal prosecution in order to “further strengthen our file.” Thankfully for other Boy Scouts, on May 30, 1987, Salem’s Statesman-Journal reported that Bailey had pleaded “no contest” to sexual abuse charges involving Boy Scout “younger than 12.”

Thomas Bailey’s Boy Scout Perversion file can be accessed here: Thomas Bailey Perversion File

If you have any information about Scoutmaster Thomas Lee Bailey or sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts or another institution of trust, please contact us for a free confidential consultation at 1-888-407-0224 or use our confidential online form.

You are not alone.  We are here to help.

Peter Janci

Peter has represented more than one hundred victims of sexual abuse over nearly a decade. In Spring of 2010, Peter Janci served as part of the Plaintiff’s trial team in Kerry Lewis v. Boy Scouts of America — a child sexual abuse trial in Portland, Oregon that resulted in a $19.9 million verdict for the Plaintiff. Peter has tried a number of jury and bench trials, in addition to representing clients at arbitration and meditation. Peter has also helped obtain dozens of other significant settlements for other survivors of sexual abuse.