Nearly 90,000 file sexual abuse claims against the Boy Scouts in unprecedented case

For decades, Gill Gayle thought his story of being sexually abused in Boy Scouts was unique.

Two Scout leaders abused him in the 1970s, Gayle said. The incidents were unrelated: The men lived in different cities in Alabama and didn’t know each other.

Gayle was in sixth grade when the first scoutmaster fondled him while on a camping trip. He repeated the abuse over months. After Gayle’s family moved during his eighth-grade year, he said he woke up at the second scoutmaster’s house to the man “violently raping” him.

Years later, after therapy helped him deal with depression, substance abuse and suicidal thoughts and attempts, Gayle, now 58, knows his story is all too common.

On Monday, Gayle’s claims were among the nearly 90,000 filed by the deadline in the Boy Scouts’ federal bankruptcy case – the largest-ever child sex abuse case involving a single national organization.