The Boy Scouts of America are offering cash, artwork and other assets to sex-abuse victims under a bankruptcy plan filed Monday, an opening gambit by the youth group to move past the failures to protect children that have threatened its standing in American society.
Sexual abuse by Boy Scout volunteers has put the organization’s survival at risk unless it can build support for its chapter 11 exit proposal, which offers recompense to abuse victims for the damage done to them as children. The Boy Scouts have apologized and said they want to make peace with the 85,000 people who stepped forward after the organization filed for bankruptcy to claim they were sexually abused.
For the Boy Scouts to succeed, a judge in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., will have to decide that the settlement offer the institution sketched out Monday is fair. Victims will have the chance to vote, as will other stakeholders in the 111-year-old organization.
The chapter 11 plan would set up a settlement trust to evaluate abuse claims and administer payments, drawing on assets contributed by the Boy Scouts. The organization is proposing to contribute a collection of Norman Rockwell paintings, certain oil and gas interests, and the organization’s excess cash above a $75 million minimum.
Insurance companies that wrote policies covering the Boy Scouts have financial interests on the line. Those policies, which victims are counting on for a big portion of the collective compensation, also would be signed over to the trust.
