Thousands of newly released Boy Scout files documenting allegations of sexual abuse by scout volunteers include detailed files on eight Scout leaders in Maine who were banned from the organization.

The eight represent just a fraction of the so-called “perversion files” involving Scout leaders nationwide. Thousands of those files, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, were made public Thursday as a reults of an Oregon court ruling, and include internal reports of alleged child molestations by more than 1,200 Scout leaders and other adult volunteers.

A database compiled by the Los Angeles Times indicates a total of 52 cases in Maine in which allegations against a volunteer landed the person in the organization’s confidential files, a system designed to prevent those suspected or convicted of abuse from volunteering for other troops.

That list, compiled by plaintiff’s attorneys in a separate lawsuit in California, includes cases through 2004. It does not include any new files opened since 2005, nor does it include files that were destroyed by Boy Scouts, which the group said happened in some cases over the years.

The list also doesn’t include internal documents for the Maine cases except the eight. The Oregon Supreme Court decision on Thursday pertained only to evidence used in a lawsuit in that state, which included only cases between 1965 and 1985.

The remaining 47 Boy Scouts files on former Scout leaders in Maine created since 1985 contain no details or names. They range from a 1986 case in Saco to four in South Portland, between 1992 and 1993. The most recent cases on the list are from 2004, one in Orono and one in Bangor.

The eight men on the list are Hazen James Currier, Fred Cram, Gene Graves, William Boyd Brown, Frederick Maitland, David J. Brunette, Alfred J. Conrad and Harold Bailey.

Barbara Dorris, outreach director for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a prepared statement on Friday, “We applaud these brave men who found the courage to step forward, reveal their abuse and take legal action to help themselves and others. Virtually everything we know about the abuse and the cover-ups in scouting have been because of the victims not scouting officials.”

Eric Tarbox, Scout executive for the Portland-based Pine Tree Council of Maine, said he has not been contacted by any parents of Scouts since the records were released.

The Hallowell case

In August 1984, the Pine Tree Council of Boy Scouts of America took action to bar Conrad, a convicted sex offender, from ever being involved with the Scouts again.

The effort to do so took more than 18 months, as revealed in an exchange of letters between a Scout executive with the Portland-based Pine Tree Council, Inc., and the national registration department in Irving, Texas.

Conrad, whose address was listed as an apartment on Green Street in Augusta, had been registered with Troop 647 of Hallowell from 1977 until he resigned in 1979.

The reason for his ban from Scouting activities was listed as “convicted and sentenced to five years on a morals and sodomy charge,” according to the internal documents kept in the Scouts’ registration, subscription and statistical service.

Paul Ernst, director of the service, spelled out why specific documentation was needed in a June 7, 1984, letter to Scout Executive Harry L. Pokorny.

“My difficulty is that many times neither you or I are on our same job when an inquiry comes in,” Ernst said. “It is very difficult to refuse registration unless our files are very complete. The legal world today also makes it more difficult to do some of those things which we have tried to do for years.”

In a Feb. 27, 1984, letter to Pokorny, Ernst asks for newspaper clippings or other material because it “would be very helpful in strengthening our file. Ten days prior to that, Pokorny had written to Ernst that he did not have additional information on Conrad.

“Staff and volunteers have changed substantially in the last two years and I have been unable to find enough information to fill out a Confidential Record sheet,” Pokorny wrote.

Records from Kennebec County Superior Court now kept at the Maine State Archives indicate that while Conrad was convicted of offenses against a young boy, his sentence was shorter than the internal Boy Scout documents suggest.

The court records show Conrad pleaded guilty to one count each of gross sexual misconduct and unlawful sexual contact on April 28, 1983.

Justice William E. McCarthy sentenced Conrad to one year in prison, not five.

The offenses occurred between May and June 1977 in Manchester. The victim is listed as a boy who was 12 at the time.

Conrad, whose date of birth is not listed in any of the court documents, is described in a Kennebec County grand jury indictment as being 31 years old as of May 1977. That means he would be either 66 or 65 years old today.

Conrad was free on $5,000 unsecured bail while the charges were pending, and permitted by the judge to self-report to jail four days after he was sentenced. He served his time at the Maine State Prison in Thomaston.

As part of Conrad’s sentence, he was to pay $3,000 to the District Attorney’s Office, and that money was to be held in trust for a year for counseling for the victim.

None of the court documents says anything about Boy Scouts, although one document in the file was sealed and unavailable. The envelope was marked PSI, indicating a pre-sentencing investigation report prepared by a probation/parole officer.

At least one of the documents shows that Conrad’s attorneys, Michael G. Messerschmidt and Thomas H. Collins, requested a hearing to keep an “alleged confession” to investigators on Dec. 15, 1982, from being used at a trial.

A June 2003 note on the file indicated that Massachusetts sex offender registry would be calling for paperwork from Conrad’s file.

However, no one by that name appears on the registry in Maine, or Massachusetts or the National Sex Offender website.

Other Maine cases

Hazen James Currier’s registration with a Scout troop in Rochester, N.H., was suspended in 1981, after accusations made by teenage boys at a group home where Currier worked.

One of the boys said he had a sexual relationship with Currier, and two other boys said he made sexual advances toward them, according to a letter from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Welfare to the Boy Scouts.

After receiving notice from the Boy Scouts about his suspension, Currier, who was living across the state line in Lebanon, wrote a letter requesting a review. In the letter, he listed his work in the community, including as a church volunteer and hockey coach, and as a Marine in Vietnam. He said during his seven-month employment at the boys home, called Teen Haven, he hugged a boy and would get up every night to take two others to the bathroom because they wet the bed.

“These are just two stories of my counseling that could be misconstrued,” he wrote. “But I also made a few enemies, I’m certain.”

Reached by phone Friday at his home in North Berwick, Currier said he didn’t know about the release of the file of Scout volunteers.

Currier said he did face charges as a result of the boys’ allegations, and was found not guilty.

“These kids had something out for me,” he said. Now 69 and retired, he added, “it’s kind of rotten” that the accusations have resurfaced, but he gets strength from his family and his faith.

“It’s all behind me, and I don’t feel remorse, because I didn’t do anything,” he said.

Another of the men, Fred Cram, served as the scoutmaster of Troop 108 in Casco. Pokorny wrote in a letter to Ernst that Cram had “picked up some youngsters to go to camp but ended up in a motel with them.”

Cram was convicted of unlawful sexual contact in Cumberland County Superior Court in December 1983 and sentenced to one year, with all but four months suspended, at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, followed by two years of probation.

Cram was placed in the Boys Scouts file by June 1984. He could not be reached Friday.

Gene Graves was in his 20s, married with a young son and working as a store clerk when he served as an advisor to Post 173 in Mars Hill in the early 1960s.

In 1964, he was charged with two counts of indecent liberties for alleged incidents in April and May of that year. He was found guilty on one count. The prosecution did not proceed on the other count, because of lack of evidence, according to documents from Presque Isle District Court. He also was found guilty of illegal possession of obscene literature.

Reached by phone Friday at a number listed in Rockport, Graves said he did not know about the file or that documents about his work with the Boy Scouts had been made public recently. He declined to comment.

Keeping predators away

The Maine case files that were released shed some light on the process the organization used to try to keep predators away from Scouts. Most were based on convictions and included either newspaper clippings about the crime or court papers.

In only one of the cases does it appear a Scout leader was able to re-register after being kicked out.

William Boyd Brown, a scoutmaster from Westbrook who would now be 69, was dismissed and put on the ineligible volunteer list after he was convicted of unlawful sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl in 1977. According to the file, Brown fought the charge but was convicted by a jury after two hours of deliberation. It’s not clear how much jail time he served.

In 1988, Brown asked to register as a Boy Scouts volunteer again, this time in Massachusetts. He noted in his request that he had no criminal activity in the previous 10 years.

The Mohegan Council in Massachusetts allowed him to register on “probation” but then exchanged letters with the Boy Scouts registration service in Texas. The director recommended they not allow him to register. The files does not indicate whether the council followed through on that recommendation. Brown could not be located for comment.

Frederick Maitland, now 80, was the scoutmaster for Troop 51 in the Greater Lowell Council in Massachusetts when he was arrested on sex charges, which were published in The Lowell Sun newspaper on Nov. 3, 1981. He resigned his position with the Boy Scouts less than a week later. The charges eventually were dismissed, and the Boy Scouts of America decided not to refuse registration to Maitland.

Harold Bailey, of Bucksport, was 54 when he was convicted in 1978 of unlawful sexual contact and sexual abuse of a minor and was sentenced to a year in jail, according to records in the files. The paper company employee was accused of having sex with several members of his troop in Bucksport.

David J. Brunette, a Kittery Scout volunteer, was banned from the organization in 1983 when he was charged with sexual assault on a 13-year-old Boy Scout and giving the boy alcohol.

In 1986, he was found guilty of the felony charge of gross sexual misconduct and was given a two-year sentence, with time suspended except for the five months he had already served, according to the State Bureau of Identification. Years later, in 1999, he was charged and convicted of possession of child pornography and was sentenced to five years in prison and three years of supervised release.

Searches on Internet databases indicate Brunette died in 2008. Brunette appeared at one time on the Maine sex offender registry.