CENTERMORELAND -- A local District Attorney has launched a criminal investigation into one of the 31 boy scout volunteers and leaders in our area accused of molesting children.
According to records, the man was kicked out of the Boy Scouts group of volunteers, but the organization did not turn over the information to police.
Action 16 has learned the man volunteered at Troop 336 in Centermoreland, Wyoming County in the 1970`s and 80's.
We are not naming him because it is our policy to not name those accused of sex crimes unless they are arrested.
But one of three former scouts who blew the whistle on him is speaking out.
"I was a victim of his for about three or four years" an admission from Bob Smalanskas. He now lives in Harrisburg, but was a member of the Wyoming County troop when he says the abuse occurred.
Smalanskas told me he was 28 when he said he summoned the courage to come forward in 1989.
Even though the Boy Scouts' own files show the scout volunteer was kicked out that year , Smalanskas says the group never reported it to police.
"They suggested I do it, everything was on me," Smalanskas told Newswatch 16 by phone. "The boy scout`s handling of this matter was reprehensible."
Staffers in the Wyoming County District Attorney's Office confirm an active investigation into the activities of this former scout volunteer are now underway.
These sources say five men have come forward, but because all are over 50, the statute of limitations to file charges has expired.
Action 16 obtained paperwork that shows after the man was booted from the scouts, he volunteered at a church in Luzerne County.
As recently as 2010, he`s listed as the church's "Acolyte Master," a position that traditionally has him supervising boys between 12-and-17 years old.
The Wyoming County district Attorney`s Office is hoping that if there are any other people claiming to be victims of this man, either from the man's time in the Boy Scouts, or as a church volunteer, that they come forward.