Former Waukesha Scout Leaders Named in 'Perversion Files'

Some 14,500 pages of the Boy Scouts of America records dubbed the "perversion files" were released Thursday, identifying 29 Wisconsin men from 21 communities, including two from Waukesha.

The files, which span 24 years from 1960 to 1984, identifies the Waukesha men who were placed on the “undesirable” list of Boy Scout leaders.

Jack Keating, of Waukesha, 42 at the time, was removed as a Boy Scout leader after being among five people arrested for “exhibiting obscene films to children, sexual perversion and taking indecent liberties with a child,” according to a August 1974 article in the Chicago Daily news.

Keating was arrested after an investigation into a hospital administrator’s suicide. The administrator killed himself after the day after a Boy Scouts campout at the administrators home, according to the Chicago Daily News.

The Milwaukee Journal reported in 1976 that Keating, a Scoutmaster, was convicted of sex charges by a jury, despite Keating’s denial. Keating maintained that the deceased hospital administrator at Waukesha Memorial Hospital provided the boys alcohol and committed the sex offenses, according to the newspaper article.

Meanwhile, Alexander G. Haynes, of Waukesha, was one of 10 men arrested in August 1960 for sexual perversion after the Waukesha Police Department conducted an undercover sex sting at Frame Park on an apparent meet-up for anonymous sexual activity. Haynes, who was caught with a 35-year-old Michigan male teacher, pleaded guilty to sexual perversion, and he was sentenced to two years of probation, according to a Waukesha Freeman article.

Haynes, who was 39 at the time of his arrest, was the chairman of the Boy Scouts Pack No. 352 from November 1957 to March 1960.

The records — formally called the Ineligible Volunteer Files — were submitted under seal as evidence in a 2010 sex-abuse lawsuit in Oregon, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The state’s highest court ordered the documents released under Oregon’s open records law. The files show police chiefs, prosecutors, pastors and Boy Scout leaders covered for those accused of molesting children, the newspaper says. 

In some instances across the country, allegations were kept secret in an effort to protect the name of Scouting, the newspaper said. However, in other cases, it removed and kept suspected pedophiles out of Scout leadership roles.

Portland attorney Kelly Clark, who represents those who claim child abuse, has published the documents online.

The Boy Scouts of America has apologized to victims and their families.

"There have been instances where people misused their positions in scouting to abuse children, and in certain cases, our response to these incidents and our efforts to protect youth were plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong," Boy Scouts of America National President Wayne Perry said in a statement. "Where those involved in scouting failed to protect, or worse, inflicted harm on children, we extend our deepest apologies to victims and their families."