A Boy Scout in Millstadt, Illinois is facing several child sex charges. Kaleb Rakers is charged with 15 counts of possessing child sexual abuse materials. Rakers is affiliated with Boy Scout Troop 8622. He is being held at the St. Clair County Jail and has a detention hearing set for Friday.

Millstadt man and Boy Scout leader was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly possessing "child sexual abuse material," according to a Jan. 28 press release from Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul's office. Kaleb C. Rakers, 25, has been charged in St. Clair County Circuit Court with 15 counts of possessing child pornography (moving depiction), each charge a Class 2 felony punishable by up to seven years in prison. Rakers was transported to the St. Clair County Jail, after which a detention hearing was held Jan. 30. Rakers, who entered a not guilty plea, was ordered to remain in jail.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a $2.4 billion bankruptcy settlement for the Boy Scouts of America, rejecting an appeal from a group of childhood sex-abuse victims who said the deal unlawfully blocked them from suing groups that ran local scouting programs. The group of victims – 75 people out of more than 82,000 who filed claims against the Boy Scouts – argued that the justices should have reopened the settlement in light of its decision last year in a similar legal dispute in involving Purdue Pharma, the maker of the opioid pain mediciation OxyContin. In that case, a 5-4...

The Supreme Court won’t review the Boy Scouts of America’s multibillion-dollar bankruptcy plan and the broad legal protections it grants to the youth group’s insurers and nonprofit partners to resolve claims of childhood sexual abuse. The justices on Monday declined an appeal from a group of sex-abuse survivors who opposed the chapter 11 plan, leaving intact lower-court rulings that ended the largest-ever bankruptcy case involving childhood sexual abuse. The Boy Scouts emerged from bankruptcy in 2023 with a victims’ compensation trust funded with at least $2.5 billion in pledged assets, including payments from insurers to settle their coverage obligations.

The Supreme Court won’t review a bankruptcy plan for the Boy Scouts of America, keeping in place a resolution of tens of thousands of claims against the organization and compensation for sexual abuse survivors. The court on Jan. 12 rejected an appeal from one group of survivors opposed to the $2.5 billion plan, which was confirmed by a bankruptcy court in 2022. Other victims of sexual abuse and the Boy Scouts of America had urged the court not to intervene. Reopening the case would throw the future of the organization into question and be a "devastating, re-traumatizing...

As a child, Krone began as a Cub — the youngest tier of Scouting — and advanced all the way to Eagle through a vocational program called Exploring.  ---------- At his 50-year high school reunion recently, half the people he camped beside as teenagers were there. They remarked he was the least likely Scout among them to run the organization. If someone in 1968 had predicted it, he said, everyone would have laughed. “I think my mom would be shocked,” he added. A cousin emailed after the announcement: Are there two Roger Krones? “No, no,”...

“The century-old partnership between the U.S. military and Scouting could be coming to an end. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is planning for the military to sever all ties with Scouting America, saying the group once known as the Boy Scouts is no longer a meritocracy and has become an organization designed to "attack boy-friendly spaces," according to documents reviewed by NPR. In a draft memo to Congress, which sources shared with NPR but which has not yet been sent, Hegseth criticizes Scouting for being "genderless" and for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.” —————————— Congress requires the...

Massachusetts native Sandra Birchmore’s life hadn’t been easy. Her teen years were difficult at times, and in an effort to make sure Sandra had some strong role models, her mother enrolled her in a program with the Stoughton Police Department. At 13 years old, Sandra was doing bootcamp drills and going on ride-alongs with law enforcement officers. She loved it, and even wanted to go into law enforcement at one point, but thought that with her asthma and being less than five feet tall she wouldn’t be able to. Instead, the 23-year-old was pursuing a teaching career. On a...

Five years after it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020 to deal with thousands of sexual abuse claims, the Boy Scouts of America reached a significant milestone when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently rejected the most significant challenges to the organization's chapter 11 plan, which established a trust to pay the claims of abuse victims. In In re Boy Scouts of Am., 137 F.4th 126 (3d Cir. 2025), reh'g denied, Nos. 23-1664 et al. (3d Cir. June 13, 2025), the court of appeals ruled that: - An appeal filed by abuse claimants of the...

The total value of the claims billed to insurers so far exceeds more than $12 billion, while the bankruptcy plan estimated the amount to be up to $3.6 billion Tens of thousands of individuals who were sexually abused in the Boy Scouts of America are facing increasingly dim prospects for receiving the compensation they were told they would get during the youth group’s bankruptcy. The cost of fully compensating abuse survivors has ballooned, with insurers receiving bills for at least $12 billion so far from a settlement trust and with roughly 17,000 claims still needing to be reviewed.