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Will Iowa lawmakers act in time for Boy Scout abuse victims to pursue damages?
Legislators face April deadline to lift Iowa’s civil statute of limitations
Tom Barton
Apr. 1, 2024 5:30 am, Updated: Apr. 1, 2024 10:55 am
- Iowa lawmakers face a looming April deadline to lift Iowa's statute of limitations for filing childhood sex abuse claims related to the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy and nationwide settlement.
- Iowa survivors will receive a fraction of awards they would be entitled to unless state legislators take action this year to change Iowa law.
- Bill would have to become law by mid-April
DES MOINES — Bill Vahl fondly remembers growing up along Dubuque’s bluffs.
A love of the outdoors led him to join local Boy Scout Troop 23 of the Northeast Iowa Council in 1964 at the age of 11. Scouting provided opportunities for socializing and outdoor adventures and Vahl excelled, taking on leadership roles.
An assistant scoutmaster, Kenny Krakow, took a liking to him and some of the other boys in the troop. Vahl said Krakow would take him and a couple of other boys on outings outside the normal Scouting scheduled — on camping and canoe trips, to air shows and drag car and stock car races.
He said Krakow often would offer to give him a ride home after Scout meetings. Krakow would talk about girls, cars, Playboy magazine and masturbation, “like he was a teenager,” Vahl recalled.
“He would always make it very light and fun or entertaining,” he said. “We would park in front of my house and we would talk more.”
Krakow eventually gained Vahl’s trust enough to persuade him to visit his house to look at magazines with nude girls and to race on the slot car track in his attic.
Vahl said he was drawn in by Krakow’s charm and generosity, but now recognizes the inappropriate nature of his actions. He said Krakow sexually abused him more than a dozen times from when he was about age 12 until he was 15.
Vahl said he never was able to tell his parents, or anyone else, what happened.
“Of course, at the time I was unaware I was being groomed,” said Vahl, 71, who now lives in Tucson, Ariz. “All these activities were designed to make me feel greatly indebted to him. I had a bad relationship with my own father, and so I loved the attention and we had a lot of fun.”
Boy Scout leader named in ‘Perversion Files’
Vahl said the alleged abuse went unreported until someone eventually turned in the assistant scoutmaster, whose name was included in the more than 20,000 pages of internal Boy Scouts of America documents dubbed the “Perversion Files” that detailed alleged sexual abuse by Scout leaders.
The files detail cases from 1959 to 1985. The records were used in a landmark 2010 court case over the abuse of six boys in a troop in Portland, Ore., and were made public in 2012.
In a letter sent to the national Boy Scouts organization in December 1970, a Scout executive from the Northeast Iowa Council notified the Boy Scouts of America that Krakow, then 49, had resigned due to “many years of homosexual activities with boys in the area.”
“This fact he admitted freely to me in a conference. We have taken appropriate action here,” wrote Scout executive Max Burgoyne in a letter included in the released files.
Krakow had been a volunteer with the troop since 1938 and had served as scoutmaster previously. He died in 1980.
Silent for most of his 71 years, Vahl is in the final stages of submitting a package of documents to the Boy Scouts of America as part of a $2.7 billion plan to give the organization a pathway out of bankruptcy while compensating tens of thousands of sex abuse victims.
The Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy in 2020 after several states enacted laws letting accusers sue over decades-old abuse allegations. The organization ultimately reached a settlement, approved in court in 2022, that would pay abuse victims amounts ranging from $3,500 to $2.7 million.
The settlement involves more than 82,000 men who said they were abused as children by troop leaders. That fund — the largest of its kind in U.S. history to settle sexual abuse claims — distributing payments last fall to victims
But unless legislators take action this year to change Iowa law, the estimated roughly 300 to 350 Iowans involved in the settlement will receive a fraction of the awards they would be entitled to.
Iowa officials in 2021 lifted the state’s statute of limitations for bringing criminal charges in sexual abuse, incest, sexual exploitation and human trafficking cases. But the law does not cover civil claims.
Clock ticking to change Iowa law
Lawmakers face a looming deadline to lift Iowa's civil statute of limitations for filing sex abuse claims related to the Boy Scouts bankruptcy and settlement. Iowa has one year from the effective date of the settlement trust, or April 19, to change the law or Iowa survivors will receive less than others across the country.
When figuring victims’ compensation, the settlement uses a matrix that weighs a variety of factors ― including the type of abuse, how long it lasted, the effect it had, whether the alleged abuser had other victims, whether the victim previously knew their alleged abuser and different states' civil statutes of limitations.
Iowa’s statute of limitations requires victims of child sexual abuse to file cases in district courts by the age of 19 or within four years of coming to the realization as an adult that their injuries and suffering are related to their alleged abuse.
Gilion Dumas is an Oregon attorney who is appealing the national settlement agreement, and represents an Iowan who has a filed claim in the bankruptcy.
Dumas said Iowa's short statute of limitations for filing lawsuits related to child sexual abuse is a significant challenge for survivors seeking justice, as they may not be able to file until they connect their abuse to adult problems.
Data from the U.S. Department of Justice suggests that 86 percent of child sexual abuse goes unreported altogether. When victims do report, a high percentage of them delay disclosure well into adulthood. A March 2020 report by Child USA, a national think tank for child protection, said the average age of disclosure for child sexual abuse is 52.
Children often lack the knowledge needed to recognize sexual abuse, lack the ability to articulate that they’ve been abused, don’t have an adult they can disclose their abuse to, don’t have opportunities to disclose abuse, and may not be believed when they try to disclose, the report states.
“So in Iowa, because of that statute of limitations, the value of the claim is reduced by up to 70 percent,” Dumas said. “So you know, a $600,000 claim would be worth only $180,000, simply because it happened in Iowa.”
Victims could get pennies on the dollar
Because his alleged abuse took place in Iowa, Vahl estimates due to how current state law figures into the settlement formula, he will receive between 30 and 40 percent of what he initially was entitled to as a claimant.
Vahl, an engineer, estimates over his lifetime he lost a couple million dollars in wages due to crippling health issues he’s coped with his entire adult life.
And even then, people might only be paid 5 to 10 percent of the value because there’s not enough money in the settlement fund, Dumas said
“The reason that I oppose that plan and other survivors oppose the plan was because it simply does not put enough money into the pot to pay them what they would if they were allowed to go forward with their own cases in state court litigation,” she said.
The ultimate amount paid to claimants will be determined in part by how many claims are filed and allowed, according to the Scouting Settlement Trust.
“Until the trust knows the total number of allowed claims, it cannot determine how much can be distributed to individual claimants,” a news release states.
The trustee overseeing the Boy Scouts set a May 31 deadline for all remaining claims and supporting documentation to be filed.
Spokespeople for the Boy Scouts of America, contacted March 25, had not answered questions as of Friday about the settlement agreement or the exact number of perpetrators and victims identified in Iowa in the bankruptcy case.
Carl Bobis, chief executive officer of the Boy Scouts of America Northeast Iowa Council, said the organization has implemented a number of protocols meant to better vet individuals put in leadership positions.
“We have an extremely rigorous vetting process,” Bobis said in a statement provided to The Gazette. Some of the new protocols, called “barriers to abuse,” include no one-on-one contact between Scouts and adults and require a minimum of two trained leaders at every Scouting function.
“We take the safety of the youth extremely seriously, and I applaud our national office for entering into this settlement and doing things right by the victims,” Bobis said. “We believe them and feel their pain for their suffering.”
The Northeast Iowa Council includes Allamakee, Clayton, Delaware and Dubuque counties in Iowa and Jo Daviess County in Illinois
A lifetime of health troubles
Vahl said he lived an almost normal life but then his health deteriorated. He began experiencing crushing fatigue and muscle and joint pain that lasted decades and made it difficult to walk or stand. He said he developed headaches and was exhausted. Most days, he felt like he had the flu.
He worked only two to three hours a day after stopping full-time work in 1995, resulting in significant lost earning potential. Beginning in 2008, Vahl said, his energy slowly began to return after he built up his strength with regular walks.
“I remember sitting at my desk at work thinking I felt like I had a 50-pound backpack on my back,” he said. “And this was not occasional. This is what it felt like every day.”
He said he would sleep 10 hours at night, wake up and feel like he had only slept an hour or not at all. “I did live on the edge of suicide for decades,” Vahl said.
He went to many different doctors, including at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. None could figure out the origins of his illness. The Mayo Clinic told him to stay on bed rest for two years.
In 2023, a psychiatrist told Vahl that childhood abuse might be the root cause of his health issues and diagnosed him with a somatoform disorder, according to the psychiatrist’s report, which Vahl provided to The Gazette.
“In people with somatoform disorders, the cause is thought to be intolerable psychological conflicts that are displaced into physical complaints,” the report states. “For some people, trying to wrestle with physical symptoms is a much safer way to address these psychological conflicts than trying to directly confront the conflicts.”
Bill to lift limit blocked
Sen. Janet Petersen, a Des Moines Democrat, again this year introduced a bill that would have eliminated the statute of limitation to file civil claims for sex abuse, sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. It would create a revival window for survivors to file claims and receive 100 percent of damages.
Senate File 2233, however, never received a subcommittee hearing and failed to clear a legislative deadline in order to remain eligible for consideration this year.
The bill is supported by the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the Iowa trial lawyers association and League of Women Voters of Iowa.
Petersen said lifting the law would allow more people to come forward and report abuse while also holding organizations accountable. Opponents expressed concerns that getting rid of the statute could make it difficult for organizations to defend themselves against decades-old cases.
Brad Epperly is a lobbyist who represents Iowa's Defense Counsel Association, the only organization registered against SF 2233. Epperly said the association’s opposition is not related to the Boy Scouts of America case. He said the group does not oppose eliminating the statute of limitations for perpetrators, but does oppose eliminating it for organizations and employers.
“If the statute of limitations was completely removed, it would be virtually impossible in some cases to defend a claim for third-party liability brought decades after the alleged occurrence,” Epperly said.
Dumas, the Oregon lawyer, counters that both sides bear the same burden and that victims should not be denied their right to pursue justice.
“States like Iowa should do everything they can to help those abused in Iowa get whatever justice they can get,” she said. “Not tip the scales in favor of any individual or organization that facilitated or allowed child sexual abuse on their watch.”
A last-minute push
States including Alabama recently have passed laws lifting their statute of limitations for civil claims on sexual abuse to allow those abused in the Boy Scouts of America to file claims with The Scouting Settlement Trust.
“It’s really painful,” Petersen said of frustration with lawmakers’ inaction to lift the statute of limitations. “The laws didn’t protect them when they were children and didn’t allow them to come forward as grown-ups. … It’s just so wrong.”
There still remains an opportunity this legislative session to pass a leadership or appropriations bill. Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink and Rep. Ann Meyer, both Republicans from Fort Dodge, said they are working with leadership in both chambers to craft a bill focused specifically on allowing survivors of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America to take full advantage of the bankruptcy proceedings.
Meyer said she anticipated including language similar to the Alabama legislation in the standings bill, “if we can get good, tight language around it.”
“It’s very disturbing, the whole story is,” Meyer said. “I mean, this is top-tier abuse.”
Both Meyer and Kraayenbrink expressed optimism about garnering bipartisan support to pass a narrower bill.
“I think my goal for this situation is to make the legislation very narrow and very tight, and confronting this particular situation,” said Kraayenbrink.
“I feel that we now have the ball rolling,” he said. “We have leadership aware of it. We've got the governor's office aware of it. And, you know, if there's something that we will do and we can do, then I will do everything I can to make it come to fruition.”
Erin Murphy of The Gazette Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report.
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com