News

(Including the initial portion of the article. It gets very graphic after this portion.)

Ron Hunter is taking us on a trip down memory lane – or more precisely, 42nd Street in Manhattan. He is showing us the spots where, half a century ago, he was repeatedly molested, sexually assaulted and raped from the age of 13.

All because of the Boy Scouts.

He leads us to the block that for four years in the early 1970s was his patch. It was here that he was brought by the Boy Scout leader who groomed him, then sex-trafficked under his street name “Angel” for five bucks a trick.

Hunter stands beneath the awning of the former Selwyn Theatre, which in 1972 was a movie house showing pornographic films like Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones. That’s where in the winter he sheltered from the rain and driving snow.

Next door is a now defunct sporting goods store where Hunter was trained to ply the trade. He would pretend to be window shopping, then catch the eye of a potential john reflected in the glass.

“They would say, ‘Those are pretty nice sneakers, aren’t they?’ and I would know I was going to make contact. Then we’d negotiate a price, and go from there.”

Across 42nd Street on the opposite sidewalk is the place where the Boy Scout leader, Carlos Acevedo – Charlie, as everyone knew him – would stand watching and waiting for the 13-year-old to bring back the cash. “I’d signal to him so he knew how much and how long,” Hunter said.

“Right hand was for the price – three fingers, 15 dollars, five dollars apiece.”

On one level, the story of Ron Hunter – Ronnie in his teenage years – is just a grain of sand in a vast mountain of abuse.

Now aged 63, he is one of more than 80,000 men who have made bankruptcy claims against the Boy Scouts of America on grounds they were violated by troop leaders in incidents spanning decades. It is the largest case of child sexual abuse involving a single organization in US history.

Amid that epic mass of suffering, Hunter stands out. Not just because of the severity of the abuse that he endured, or its longevity. But also because of his determination to speak out, to tell his story, in order to advance his own healing and to ensure that others are spared his ordeal.

He is suing the Boy Scouts of America and his now defunct local Scouts chapter in Brooklyn in federal court for failing to protect him from Acevedo’s clutches. The lawsuit takes advantage of the 2019 Child Victims Act that opened a window for abuse victims to seek justice long after the statute of limitations had closed.

The legal complaint points out that the Boy Scouts of America was aware for at least a century that adult volunteers were infiltrating the organization in search of vulnerable children – but did too little to stop it.

Hunter is also claiming compensation. The Boy Scouts entered bankruptcy in 2020, but emerged from it this year. Even though a $2.4bn settlement fund for victims has been set up, he has yet to receive a penny and his lawsuit remains on hold. Fifty years after the tragic events that shattered his life, he is in limbo, waiting for justice.

He’s not waiting quietly. He’s written a book, Angel Finally Found His Wings, which vividly recounts the world of blackmail and sex trafficking into which he was lured. It took him 12 long years to finish writing it.

The memoir makes for some unbearable reading. It describes through the eyes of 13-year-old Ronnie the gradual step-by-step process through which his innocence was stripped from him as he was drawn, scared and confused, into Acevedo’s orbit and on to the streets.

Taken together, the book and the lawsuit provide an extraordinary insight into the trust that the Boy Scouts betrayed. “Be prepared” is the institution’s motto, but as the lawsuit points out, the Boy Scouts of America itself was woefully unprepared, and until recently arguably unwilling, to address the rampant sexual abuse of children in its care by its own adult volunteers.

The book is extraordinary for another reason: it is the account of a man who has prevailed against the odds. As Hunter’s therapist once told him: “Ron, you shouldn’t be here. You should be dead, or in jail, or strung out.”

Instead, the Ron Hunter who gives us a tour of his childhood patch on 42nd Street is dapper, eloquent and poised. “That’s how I see it – Angel gets his wings,” he said. “Because I was able to escape.”

He lists the emotions that to this day he strives to control in his daily struggle to overcome the past. “I won’t be angry. I won’t be bitter. I won’t be hurtful or hateful. I won’t let what happened to me change who I ultimately am. Yes, I’m a victim. But more importantly I’m a survivor. I won’t let Charlie win. He will not define me.”

It’s a truism of child abuse that predators tend to prey on vulnerable and wounded kids. They make easier pickings as they have weakened self-preservation instincts and scant support networks to protect them from outside attack. As such, Ronnie made a perfect target.