By The opinion
May 4, 2024, 10:29 AM EDT
A former Boy Scout volunteer was sentenced to 22 years in prison for hiding cameras in bathrooms that captured sexually explicit material of male and female victims ranging in age from 11 to 15 at a Missouri Boy Scout camp.
David Lee Nelson41, will also have to pay $55,000 to victims and prevention programs, prosecutors announced in a news release.
The sentenced He will be on supervised release for life after being released from prison.and will be prohibited from having contact with minors without permission, authorities said.
He pleaded guilty in January to two counts of production of child pornography and two counts of attempted production of child pornography.
During the sentencing hearing, the victims and their parents said Nelson was supposed to protect the scouts and be someone the children could trust.
“Nelson’s crimes have now left them unable to trust others,” prosecutors said in the news release. “Victims also said they now feel fear and discomfort every time they try to use a public bathroom.”
He suffered sexual abuse in a camp
Nelson’s attorney, Adam Fein, had asked for 15 years in prison, noting that his client was sexually abused decades ago in the showers at a Boy Scout summer camp.
Nelson was discovered on July 23, 2021 at S Bar F Scout Ranch, a 5,200-acre, wooded Boy Scout facility for boys and girls in St. Francois County, according to the plea agreement detailing the case.
The cameras were found when scouts and a camp leader were cleaning the bathrooms. The devices were taped together.hidden inside paper towel dispensers and placed to search the interior of the bathroom and shower.
The cameras were turned over to the campground manager and the St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department was called, according to court documents.
Authorities reviewed the content of the cameras and found multiple videos that had been recorded in the camp bathrooms on July 23, 2021, which showed two minors involved in sexually explicit conduct and four other victims, both men and women, whose ages ranged between 11 and 15 years.
In another video, the accused himself is seen placing one of the cameras and manipulating his mobile phone, for which he was arrested on July 26, 2021.
When the case broke, the Boy Scouts of America issued a statement saying: “The Greater St. Louis Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America considers the safety and well-being of our Scouts, volunteers and their families as a priority. We are saddened, disturbed and angry by this incidentsince it goes against everything we defend.”
Keep reading:
– The Boys Scouts will provide monetary compensation to thousands of victims of sexual abuse.
– Boy scout leader accused of abusing a minor for several months in New York.