Former New York congressman accused of sexually abusing teen in 1960s
Former U.S. Congressman Gary Ackerman was accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing a teenage boy at a Boy Scout camp five decades ago. A lawyer for the New York Democrat denied the accusation.
In a suit filed this month in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, Ackerman is accused of abusing a then-17-year-old — identified only as "John Doe" — while Ackerman was a director at the Ten Mile River Camp near Narrowsburg, in upstate New York. Ackerman was 23 at the time.
"In over 30 years of public service, there has never been any accusation of this kind or indeed of any wrongdoing in the Congressman's career," attorney Oscar Michelen said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press. He added his client would "vigorously" fight the charges and seek to get the case dismissed.
In late 1966, according to the suit, Ackerman lured the teen into his car so he could drive him to an abandoned road, where he "attempted to force Mr. Doe to perform oral sex on him and forcefully performed oral sex on Mr. Doe."
The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, said the plaintiff has suffered "serious and severe psychological injuries and emotional distress, mental anguish, embarrassment and humiliation."
A local chapter of the Boy Scouts of America is also named as a defendant based on a claim that it failed "to take any steps to keep the dangerous predator away from the young men of the camp."
In a statement Sunday, the Boy Scouts said a check of a database used to screen volunteers found no record of any allegation against Ackerman.
"Had the national organization been made aware of credible allegations against Mr. Ackerman, we would have acted to remove him from scouting," the statement said.
The allegation against Ackerman comes after a groundbreaking new law took effect this month in New York. The Child Victims Act gives sexual abuse survivors, barred by a statute of limitations, a one-year window to file a civil lawsuit against their alleged perpetrators and institutions like the Boy Scouts, schools and the Catholic Church.
In April, attorney Jeff Anderson said that testimony from a January trial revealed that there were at least 7,819 alleged child sex abusers in the Boy Scouts and over 12,000 victims between 1944 and 2016.
Ackerman, a 15-term Democrat who represented parts of Queens and Long Island, announced his retirement from Congress in 2012. He served in the House of Representatives from 1983 to 2013.
