New lawsuits allege Sonoma Boys & Girls Club covered up former athletic director’s child sex assault for years

Six individuals who said they were sexually assaulted as children by Paul “Dwayne” Kilgore, the former athletic director at the Boys & Girls Club of Sonoma Valley, have filed three civil suits against Kilgore, the organization and dozens of employees.|

Six individuals who said they were sexually assaulted as children by Paul “Dwayne” Kilgore, the former athletic director at the Boys & Girls Club of Sonoma Valley, have filed three civil suits against Kilgore, the organization and dozens of employees.

The most recent suit, filed Feb. 14 in Sonoma County Superior Court, comes after six other accusers filed two civil suits in 2018 against Kilgore and the Boys & Girls Club of Sonoma Valley. Those suits were settled out of court in December 2021, and the club agreed to pay at least two accusers more than $900,000, court records show.

Two other suits were filed in Sonoma County Superior Court in 2022, which also names the Boys & Girls Club of America as a defendant.

The first suit, filed March 3, 2022, by Los Angeles-based law firm Slater Slater Schulman LLP on behalf of “John Doe,” alleges up to 200 employees failed to act to protect their client, who said he was sexually abused by Kilgore when he was 12 years old. It seeks unspecified damages and compensation for pain and suffering, as well as legal fees.

The second case, filed Aug. 2, 2022, calls for a $20 million settlement for each of its two plaintiffs, plus attorney’s fees. “John Doe 5” and John Doe 6“ were identified as brothers, one of whom is still a minor. They are being represented by the Law Offices of Bonner and Bonner in Sausalito.

The August lawsuit seeks damages related to 11 complaints dating back to 2006, including negligence, gender violence, sex slavery and torture. It includes allegations against 100 former club employees, at both the Sonoma Valley and Petaluma Boys & Girls Club, the latter of which closed in 2017 and re-opened under the Boys & Girls Club of Sonoma-Marin, which is also named in the suit.

Kilgore was employed by the Sonoma Valley club from 2002 to 2013, when he voluntarily retired and immediately accepted a new position at the Boys & Girls Club in Petaluma. He was arrested in 2016 after a teacher witnessed him inappropriately touching boys at a swimming pool in Healdsburg.

He was found guilty in March 2018 of six counts of sexual abuse of a minor and is currently serving a 150-year sentence at Mule Creek State Prison in Amador County.

In the February suit, three accusers are seeking restitution for abuse they experienced, and the club’s failure to address multiple reports that Kilgore was taking boys off site, touching them inappropriately and making them get undressed in front of him, according to court documents.

Addressed in the lawsuit only as “John Doe 7, John Doe 8 and John Doe 9,” the three plaintiffs say their abuse started in the early 2000s, when they ranged in age from 8 to 11 years old, while they attended the club and took part in its athletic programs.

“That is what makes this case unique is the egregious and amount of time, and the number of victims,” said Natalie Weatherford, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the February suit. “To have it swept under the rug for so long, it’s unusual and disturbing.”

Weatherford previously represented other accusers in civil suits against Kilgore. The all three of the suits request the matter be heard by a jury instead of a judge, as was the case of the settled civil suits.

The intention, Weatherford said, is so the public can hear her plaintiffs’ stories.

The club was first made aware of Kilgore’s behavior and relationships with boys as early as the late 1990s, when he was a volunteer, according to the February suit.

Victims, parents, employees and community members alerted club officials to Kilgore’s inappropriate behaviors multiple times, as detailed in the suit, but he was allowed to continue working with children unrestricted.

“We remain both shocked and deeply concerned by this extremely serious matter as crimes of abuse run counter to everything our mission stands for – no harm should come to any child under any circumstance,” Cary Snowden, who became CEO of the club in 2018, said in a statement to the Index-Tribune.

“Our hearts are with any victims and their families. Our organization, in partnership with those involved in the legal process, will continue to work diligently to have these matters resolved in a manner that provides support and comfort to those affected.”

The February suit alleges at least 20 employees — who were not named — were aware of Kilgore’s misconduct with children when he started working as a volunteer for the club’s after-school and summer programs in the late 1990s.

Club members, parents and several minors reported multiple complaints to Boys & Girls Club employees and officials beginning around the time he was promoted to the club’s athletic director in 2000, according to a timeline of events provided in the lawsuit. Kilgore was reported for touching boys in ways that made them feel uncomfortable, the lawsuit states, and that he should “be watched more closely.”

But nothing was done until 2012, according to the suit, when the club began an investigation after employees learned Kilgore had taken several boys on an overnight trip to a house in Hopland without notifying club leadership.

Kilgore was placed on paid suspension during the investigation, according to the suit.

The investigation revealed abusive and inappropriate behavior by Kilgore, the lawsuit says, and the club contacted parents of the boys involved. Though, they were not told about the abuse allegations.

Instead, the lawsuit says, the club informed parents it would institute an “organizational policy change” to ensure children could no longer go off-site with Kilgore.

The club did not inform law enforcement, the lawsuit states, and some parents were never contacted.

Kilgore returned to his role as athletic director, on the condition that his relationships with club members outside of the work environment cease immediately, the lawsuit states. Kilgore resigned a few months later.

He was soon after hired by the Boys & Girls Club in Petaluma and in August 2016, a schoolteacher witnessed Kilgore inappropriately talking to and touching young boys at a health club in Healdsburg, the lawsuit states.

The teacher reported Kilgore to the Sonoma Police Department, and he was later arrested and charged with several felonies related to child sexual abuse.

Under California law, victims of childhood sexual abuse have until they are 40 to file civil lawsuits.

A trial date has not been set for the February suit, but Weatherford said it could be up to a year before the case is heard.

You can reach Staff Writer Rebecca Wolff at rebecca.wolff@sonomanews.com. On Twitter @bexwolff.

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