http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 9580.storyBy Joe Mahr, Christy Gutowski and Joseph Ryan
Tribune reporters
7:14 a.m. CDT, October 19, 2012
Five decades ago, seven boys from the near-west suburbs wrote letters alleging in graphic detail how their Boy Scout leader fondled them or others in cars and on camping trips.
Previously secret Boy Scouts of America records show the organization in 1964 kicked out the 21-year-old leader, Robert A. Schindler, but there's no record police were ever notified. And in the 1980s the Scouts decided to give Schindler another chance, this time in McHenry County. Then, records show, he molested another boy.
Schindler's case was one of 39 in metro Chicago — and about 1,200 across the nation — released Thursday by order of an Oregon court as part of a landmark 2010 case against the Boy Scouts. They show how at times, in state after state, decade after decade, Scout leaders quietly shielded adult volunteers from prosecution, in an era when awareness of sexual abuse was rapidly evolving.
"The secrets are out," said Oregon attorney Kelly Clark, who helped win a nearly $20 million judgment against the Scouts in 2010. "Child abuse thrives in secrecy."
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