In this episode Jonathan Rosenfeld chats with Martin D. Gould an Attorney at Romanucci & Blandin, LLC. Here, they discuss:

Royal Rangers Sex Abuse: Sexual Abuse Claims and Lawsuits

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Jonathan Rosenfeld:

Hello, thank you for joining me today. I am Jonathan Rosenfeld and today on the Personal Injury Podcast, I am joined by Attorney Marty Gould. And we are going to talk about an emerging area of litigation, the Royal Ranger sexual abuse cases and lawsuits. Marty, thank you for joining me today. I appreciate it.

Marty Gould:

Happy to be on John. Thanks for having me.

Jonathan Rosenfeld:

Now, Marty, to begin with, the Royal Rangers, to be honest with you, is an organization that a lot of people may not have heard of in the past. It is not a big name organization. Can you give us a little background about the Royal Rangers and what it is and where exactly it's headquartered?

Marty Gould:

Sure. The Royal Rangers is a, it's essentially an organization similar to the boy Scouts of America, except that it has religious purpose. So their motto on their website is that the program helps leaders play a vital role in helping boys develop a Christian like manhood. And they had many different Royal Rangers organizations throughout California, Idaho, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, in several other states throughout the country. It was structured in a similar format to the boy Scouts. They had the Ranger Kids, Discovery Rangers, Adventure Rangers, and the Expedition Rangers.

Jonathan Rosenfeld:

Now, the organization's got these altruistic goals, but unfortunately like many other organizations, some of those goals and some of those areas that they want to really focus on fell to the wayside and there's been some reported issues of abuse in the Royal Rangers. And some of these individuals have come forward recently and they've made allegations that they were abused in the organization by their leaders. Can you share some insight as to some of these allegations and what is actually being alleged?

Marty Gould:

In 2018, there were six men from Oregon that filed a lawsuit against the Royal Rangers and the Assemblies of God church, alleging that they were sexually abused in the 1980s by Royal ranger leaders. These leaders, in the boy Scouts, called the boy scout troop leader in the Royal Rangers they're typically called commanders. And essentially the allegations were that they weren't properly screening and vetting these people that were leading these young boys to different adventures and camping trips and so forth and that's where the abuse going on.

Marty Gould:

And a lot of the same allegations that happened in the boy Scouts, where kids were being abused on camping trips or during meetings. We have many cases involving the Royal Rangers, you and I John. And our case, in several of our cases, we've heard that many of these commanders that were leading these troops were allowed to bring whomever else they wanted onto these trips. So you had a commander in charge of a bunch of boys, bring his friends, other males that nobody really knew who these people were, what type of backgrounds they had. There wasn't much screening and policies and procedures in place to protect the children. And unfortunately many kids were sexually abused and it's caused a lot of trauma.

Jonathan Rosenfeld:

And so now I guess we're seeing a lot of people come forward. I think there's some truth, that there's strength in numbers in some of these cases. A lot of times it's not the, it takes a lot of courage for anyone to come forward. But a lot of times when people see others who may have experienced a similar situation step out, they're more willing to come forward. And in those situations, what would you tell those people who may be watching this and saying, Hey, I was part of the Royal Rangers, I experienced some of those issues? What would you say to them?

Marty Gould:

You're not alone. Together, we're stronger. And it's important to take your life back, take control of what happened and help make sure this doesn't happen to anybody else. We have a number of clients that we represent and other lawyers taking on these cases, but shedding light to reveal what happened and make sure this doesn't happen again.

Jonathan Rosenfeld:

Marty, I appreciate the work that you're doing in this area. You're really an asset to a lot of people who really need an advocate out there. Want to thank you for joining me today and I appreciate it.

Marty Gould:

Happy to be on your podcast, John. Thanks for having me.