Nearly 90,000 sexual abuse claims were submitted against the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) ahead of a Monday deadline in the organization’s bankruptcy case.

Why it matters: The number of sex abuse cases is still likely underreported. Paul Mones, a lawyer who has been working on Boy Scouts cases for nearly two decades, told Axios he expects the total number of reported cases to be “closer” to 100,000. He’s calling for a congressional inquiry into the scandal.

• The record number of new claims reveals the unknown scope of abuse.
• The organization filed for bankruptcy in February after facing a slew of sex abuse reports. Claims had to be submitted by Monday at 5 p.m. ET.
• Andrew Van Arsdale, one of the lead attorneys, called sex abuse an “unspoken norm” in BSA, per CNN. Claims include reports of forced sex, fondling and exposure to pornography.

For the record: Mones said more people came forward following the BSA’s bankruptcy filing.

• “Most of the people coming forward were not molested by people that the Boy Scouts even acknowledged they knew about, which shows that the problem was much more deeply ingrained in the fabric of the scouts and the scouts for decades and decades,” he said.
• Mones said the scale of abuse was much larger than the cases that emerged involving the Catholic Church in the U.S.

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.

NEW YORK (AP) — Close to 90,000 sexual abuse claims have been filed against the Boy Scouts of America as the Monday deadline arrived for submitting claims in the organization’s bankruptcy case.

The number far exceeds the initial projections of lawyers across the United States who have been signing up clients since the Boy Scouts filed for bankruptcy protection in February in the face of hundreds of lawsuits alleging decades-old sex abuse by Scout leaders.

“We are devastated by the number of lives impacted by past abuse in Scouting and moved by the bravery of those who have come forward,” the Boy Scouts said in a statement. “We are heartbroken that we cannot undo their pain.” A few hours before the 5 p.m. EST deadline, the number of claims totaled 88,500, lawyers said