Troop 786 in Fayetteville, NC
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Former scoutmaster Thomas J. Menghi Jr. says he was usually drunk when he molested numerous Boy Scouts during the early 1970s.

He was in his late 20s, living in a Fayetteville motel and working as Tupperware deliveryman. He invited boys from Troop 786 as young as 11 years old to ride with him along his route, requesting that they spend the night in his room so they could get an early start.

"Yes, I abused kids," Menghi, now 69, said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. "But just how many and other details I can't remember. It was a long time ago and I was in a fog."

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His file shows local scout officials were contacted in early 1974 by the father of two brothers, ages 11 and 12. They had been overhead by an older sister talking about what happened in Menghi's motel room. Other parents also reported that their sons had been molested.

After interviewing the parents and some of the scouts, Kia Kim District Scout Executive George F. Hardwick Sr. drafted a memo stating that he believed there was evidence Menghi had abused as many as 10 boys. He and other officials met with Menghi the next day to confront him with the abuse claims and barred him from scouting.

"The biggest thing was to get the guy out of scouting and away from our boys," said George Heib, 86, a retired U.S. Army officer who was at the meeting. "Putting the boys through all the trauma of having to go to court and trial and all the stuff like that, I didn't think it was worth it. Of course, the publicity wouldn't be good for scouting, either."

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The local scouting officials wrote to national headquarters seeking guidance on whether to encourage the parents of the abused boys to file a criminal complaint. Paul I. Ernst, the BSA executive then in charge of the organization's secret files, directed them not to.

"Normally, we do not suggest that any legal action be instituted by parents," Ernst wrote. "If they desire to do this on their own they certainly should bring about any action they feel necessary. Certainly in this case, there is every indication that legal action is justified."

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Now 83 and still active in scouting, Hardwick said Thursday he never contacted some of the parents and never considered going to the police himself.

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"As the district executive, I followed the procedure I was supposed to follow," said Hardwick, a retired U.S. Army officer. "I handled it according to my instructions. Today, there's no question the guy would be put in handcuffs. But that wasn't the way it was done in those days. Nobody even wanted to talk about it."

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Menghi said the only reason he stopped molesting boys was because he got caught.

"That's when it really hit me. I knew I needed to quit and get help. Then I blacked it out," he said.

He said he recognized the emotional and physical pain he caused and would like to apologize to his victims. He said that might not be enough now that his secret file can be read by anyone with an Internet connection.

"I don't know what I'm going to do now," he said. "I just don't want to wake up in jail."

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"There have been instances where people misused their positions in Scouting to abuse children, and in certain cases, our response to these incidents and our efforts to protect youth were plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong," the Boy Scouts of America released in a statement to WBTV on Thursday.

"Where those involved in Scouting failed to protect, or worse, inflicted harm on children, we extend our deepest and sincere apologies to victims and their families."

There's no statute of limitations on prosecuting child sexual abuse in North Carolina. Menghi repeatedly told WBTV he had no comment.