The Boy Scouts' so-called "perversion files" have been hidden from the public for decades and Opa-Locka resident Gregory Clark's name is in them.
The Boy Scouts’ so-called “perversion files” have been hidden from the public for decades – and Opa-Locka resident Gregory Clark’s name is in them.
Clark said he served about two years in jail after a neighbor alleged that he molested their son. The incident happened in the 1980s when he said he was a scoutmaster – but it had nothing to do with the Boy Scouts, he said.
The neighbor said he spent the night at their house drunk when he molested their son, said Clark, who maintains that none of that was true.
The perversion files contain information about reported abuses in 49 states from 1959 to 1985. A judge in Oregon released files from the period covering 1965 to 1985 on Thursday, by order of the Oregon Supreme Court, after an assistant scoutmaster there was convicted of abuse.
“You do not get to keep secrets about hidden dangers to children. Period. End of conversation. That’s what they did, it was wrong,” said Kelly Clark, a Portland attorney for one of the victims.
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In an interview earlier this week, Boy Scouts of America President Wayne Brock said the files were kept in an effort to prevent abusers from returning to the Scouts. He calls them the ineligible volunteer files.
“Our ineligible volunteer file is a big element of our keeping track and making sure that nobody gets in,” he told NBC News. “People should be happy we have these files. You want us to keep these files, and we will keep these files.”
Through his screen door, Clark showed NBC 6 South Florida his college degree from Miami Dade College – proof, he said, that he has turned his life around.
He said he had no idea his name was part of the perversion files.
“I’ve been off the streets for 18 years, off of drugs and alcohol, so I’m trying to do better and then this here, this is shocking,” he said.
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