Fischer suspends police youth program amid sex-abuse allegations
Mayor Greg Fischer suspended the Louisville police's Youth Explorer program on Monday after the Courier-Journal reported that a former Scout had alleged in a lawsuit that he was raped by two officers and police concealed it.
Fischer also said the city would ask a Jefferson Circuit Court judge to unseal the lawsuit.
"The allegations represent an appalling betrayal of trust and abuse of power, and threaten a program that has helped so many young men and women interested in becoming police officers and law enforcement leaders," Fischer said in a news release. “To restore the public’s trust in this program, the proceedings must be as open as the courts will allow.”
The plaintiff in the lawsuit, who is identified only as "N.C.," alleges he was raped by Officers Kenneth Betts and Brandon Wood from the time he was 17 to 19 years old. He alleges the abuse occurred in the officers' homes and police vehicles and that the officers recorded the assaults to make pornography.
"The allegations in this lawsuit are extremely disturbing and the case needs transparency from beginning to end," Fischer said.
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The suit was sealed at the request of the former Scout's attorney, David Yates, the Metro Council president, who filed it last week. He has said his client was sexually abused by “people in power” and that police attempted to cover it up.
"N.C." says in the 25-page suit that Betts and Wood acted deliberately to intimidate, degrade and control him for their sexual gratification and to force him to remain silent.
Yates said Monday that he is glad Fischer is taking steps to protect children in the program, which is for boys and girls ages 14 through 19 interested in a career in law enforcement. But he said law enforcement officials have known about the abuse for some time.
"The abuse that happened within the Explorer program has been known, and I think it has taken this lawsuit to bring it to light," he said. "And now, hopefully, children will be better protected."
Yates said he moved to seal the suit to protect the identity of his client but that he believes the facts and allegations should come out. "I'm hoping that we can reach some type of deal where the court will make sure there are protections in place so that a victim of sexual abuse's identity will not become public record."
Accusations made in a lawsuit represent only one side of a case.
Besides Betts and Wood, the suit names as defendants the city, the police department and the Boy Scouts of America — which partners with the department to offer the program. It asks for punitive damages, saying the plaintiff suffered serious physical and emotional injuries, including depression, anger, insomnia and other sleep disorders.
The Boy Scouts' Lincoln Heritage Council said in a statement that it supports Fischer's decision to temporarily suspend the program during the investigation. "The safety of our members is of the utmost importance to us and we’ll continue to do everything we can to provide a safe environment for young people in all of our programs," spokeswoman Kelly Bedtelyon said.
The suit also names as a defendant Curtis Flaherty, who is now a major and was a lieutenant when he led the Explorer Program. The suit doesn’t specify Flaherty's alleged wrongdoing, but it says that by failing to report the abuse or take appropriate disciplinary actions, the defendants “purposely and/or fraudulently concealed his misconduct."
Betts and Wood also were participants in the program as youths.
The suit alleges the defendants concealed evidence through “intimidation, coercion and destruction of evidence, falsification of reports, omission of information and deletion of electronic media, phone messages” and additional information.
Fischer said in his statement that police Chief Steve Conrad launched a criminal probe by the Public Integrity Unit into the allegations when they surfaced and those investigations continue.
Flaherty was with that unit when it investigated Betts for a separate incident of inappropriate behavior involving the program in 2013, according to a police official familiar with the unit. Flaherty had recommended that Betts join the force in 2005 after working with him in the Explorer program, according to police records.
Betts resigned from the department in 2014.
Reporter Phillip M. Bailey can be reached at 502-582-4475 or pbailey@courier-journal.com. Andrew Wolfson can be reached at 502-582-7189 or awolfson@courier-journal.com
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