The mother of a man suing the Boy Scouts of America over alleged sexual abuse testified this morning that she was never warned that the volunteer who led her son's troop had already confessed to abusing 17 other scouts.
The woman said she and her husband only learned that Boy Scout leader Timur Dykes was prohibited from being around minors under the terms of his parole when they received a phone call in July 1984 from the Tillamook County Sheriff's Office.
The police had stopped Dykes for a broken taillight or other violation as he drove several scouts, including their son, for a camping trip on the beach. After checking his record, they arrested Dykes and called the boys' parents to come pick them up.
The son, now 37 and identified in court papers as Jack Doe, is suing the Boy Scouts as well as the Cascade Pacific Council in a $14 million case in Multnomah County Circuit Court over the alleged sexual abuse, which occurred in the early 1980s. The trial is in its second week in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland.
Doe has settled his case against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Oregonian does not identify victims of sexual assault and is not identifying the mother to protect the privacy of the son.
After the call from Tillamook County, she said, her husband talked with a Mormon bishop, who coordinated the local Scouts program. When her husband returned from the discussion, "he was just stricken."
"I had never seen that look on his face before," she said. "He said they knew he had been arrested for this ... that he had this restriction that he wasn't to be in the company of minors and they felt that it was OK because he had repented."
The family moved about a year later to Klamath Falls, where her son proceeded to withdraw from activities and sports he used to enjoy, she said. His grades dropped and his relationship with her and the family grew distant. He also started using alcohol and, later, drugs.
Her son had denied that Dykes had abused him, however, and she said she only learned the truth in 2007 after hearing about a lawsuit by several scouts who said they had also been abused by Dykes.
The attorneys for the defendants are expected to question the mother this afternoon.
