A pair of Northeast Pennsylvania men who were eventually charged with sodomy of boys and another accused of sexual molestation were monitored by the local and national leadership of the Boy Scouts of America in the 1960s and 1970s, secret records made public this week reveal.
Letters and other documents detail the local elements of the growing national scandal over the Boy Scouts of America's "perversion files," in which the organization kept tabs on troop leaders and volunteers who were suspected or known to have sexually abused minors.
Among the more than 1,200 files released Thursday through a court order, the Scouts maintained a confidential file on an assistant scoutmaster from Conyngham, Luzerne County.
The eight-page file, dated Oct. 28, 1964, included letters warning Scout leadership not to allow 22-year-old Jay George Spangenburg back into organization.
In September of that year, state police arrested Mr. Spangenburg on a sodomy charge involving young boys, according to a Hazleton Standard-Speaker newspaper clip in the Boy Scout file.
The file does not indicate the outcome of the case.
In Wayne County, the Scouts kept a six-page confidential file on a Honesdale man who was prosecuted on charges of sodomizing young boys.
The March 19, 1969, file on 39-year-old Donald Kay Waller includes a letter from then-Wayne County District Attorney David M. Boyd.
The letter, from February of that year, urged the Scouts to ensure Mr. Waller was not left alone with adolescent boys. The DA wrote the Scouts to notify them that Mr. Waller, who was affiliated with a Boy Scout troop in Hawley, was charged with sodomy.
"I will leave it entirely to your discretion and that of your superiors concerning any action that may be taken involving Mr. Waller," Mr. Boyd wrote. "However, I would expect that upon receipt of this information, proper steps would be taken to assure that, pending the completion of this case, Mr. Waller was not solely responsible for the care of adolescent boys."
In December 1970, Mr. Waller entered a no contest plea to a charge of corruption of minors. He was fined $200 and placed on probation.
According to his obituary, he died in 2002 and was an adviser to the "Boy Scout Explorer Post 104" in Honesdale in the mid-1960s.
In a heavily redacted file dated May 13, 1977, Boy Scouts officials in Scranton kept tabs on a 29-year-old man. His name was not identified.
"The nature of the problem involves sexual assault on members of the post," a Scout executive wrote. "Several members of the post approached me personally concerning this matter, including one member who was assaulted."
The executive requested the man resign. He also wrote a letter to another Scout executive asking for signed statements from the "individuals involved," the record said.
"Before we can review this case with our attorney, we need signed statements," the executive wrote. "This is important to substantiate our action of placing this man on our file."
There is no mention of police charges or any other law enforcement investigation in the file.
The Oregon Supreme Court ordered the release of 14,500 pages of secret Boy Scouts of America documents on Thursday, making public a vast collection internal case files dating from the early 1960s to 1985. The order stemmed from a lawsuit against the Scouts.
The organization maintained the archive, also known as its "ineligible volunteer files," to have a record of Scouts it had expelled or was considering expelling, partly as a mechanism to prevent them from re-entering its ranks.
The records reveal some Scouts were able to join other troops even after being placed on the list. And in a few instances, the Scouts failed to refer the allegations to law enforcement.
Kristen Houser, a spokeswoman for Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, said the Scouts can be an enticing opportunity for would-be sexual offenders.
"You have offenders who know what they are looking for and they seek out places where they have access," she said. "The Boy Scouts are convenient."
Offenders portray themselves as trustworthy to parents and younger Scouts - creating a "squeaky clean public persona," she said. And they hold a position of authority, in an organization trying to help young Scouts who may be struggling with self-esteem issues.
"This is exactly the method Jerry Sandusky used," she said.
Mr. Sandusky, who is serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence for sexually abusing 10 boys, was the former defense coordinator of Penn State's football program and the founder of the Second Mile, an organization that helped trouble children better their self-esteem and other life skills.
Marcel Cinquina, executive director of Boy Scouts of America, Northeastern Pennsylvania Council, said only one adult Scout has been expelled from the regional branch of the organization because of sexual abuse in the nearly two years he has been in the position.
The Scouts removed Vito Joseph Russo of Duryea after they learned he was under investigation for molesting boys. The sexual conduct did not happen at any Scout program, nor did it involve any of its members, Mr. Cinquina said.
"We don't want that type of person around Scouts," Mr. Cinquina said. "Child abuse is unacceptable and one is too many. This is hurting kids and it's leaving them with emotional scars for the rest of their life."
Mr. Russo, 41, was charged in April with felony involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child and felony indecent assault person younger than 13.
"We've been working awfully hard for years. I've seen a lot of good that has been done," Mr. Cinquina said. "Unfortunately, a small minority have hurt the reputation of the movement."
Staff writer David Singleton contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: smcconnell@ timesshamrock.com @smcconnellTT on Twitter