Tens of thousands of men that were sexually abused by Boy Scout leaders were one step closer to collecting a $2.7 billion settlement after a holdout committee of victims approved the organization’s restructuring plan ahead of a Wednesday night deadline.
A US bankruptcy judge was now set to approve a deal that allows the Boy Scouts of America to escape bankruptcy while providing some 82,000 victims with the largest sex-abuse settlement in history. A hearing was scheduled for Feb. 22.
Most of the claimants were molested between 1965 and 1985, when the BSA allegedly covered up the identities of some 7,900 pedophiles in its ranks.
The Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice secured the landmark compensation package with insurers, the BSA and its franchises, but the approximately 60,000 members it represented had been just shy of the three-quarters majority needed to secure the massive settlement. After months of mediation and lobbying, a smaller group of victims represented by the bankruptcy trustee-appointed Tort Claimants Committee joined their ranks Wednesday.
The TCC had previously indicated that the $2.7 billion settlement was not substantial enough, given the large number of victims. Under the agreement, survivors would receive a tiered payment of anywhere from $3,500 to $2.7 million, depending on the severity of their abuse and other factors, according to court documents.
The group, which is led by nine survivors and represents several thousand others, said in a statement Thursday it agreed to approve the settlement after securing “enhanced child protection procedures” and independent governance of the trust that will pay victims.
The Survivor Fund Trust, which had more than tripled in six months, would only continue to grow as coalition lawyers from dozens of firms worked to recover additional assets, a spokesperson said.
“This positive outcome is the result of weeks of productive negotiations led by Coalition attorneys, always with the interests of survivors top of mind,” lead legal negotiators Anne Andrews and Adam Slater said in a statement.
“We thank the TCC for putting past differences aside and coming to the table on the Coalition’s bankruptcy Plan to fulfill our common goal of ensuring that all Boy Scouts abuse survivors have the opportunity to access the largest sex abuse settlement in history without further delay.”
The Boy Scouts had previously apologized to victims and said it was committed to compensating them and protecting new members. The Texas-based organization filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020 to resolve the claims of sex abuse accusers.
“We offer our heartfelt thanks to the (committee) and all supporting parties whose perseverance and significant time commitment to mediation was instrumental in the formation of this agreement,” the Boy Scouts said in a Thursday statement.
Victims that spoke to The Post last year said they were hopeful that the approval of the settlement would provide some closure after enduring decades of pain and trauma.
“They’ve been in this kind of Dante’s Inferno of waiting. We now know that there’s a path forward and we can close this fairly soon and we can start to get some closure,” one man said of abuse he suffered in 1973.
With Post wires