The Boy Scouts of America, an enduring presence for young people in the country for the past 110 years, has filed for bankruptcy protection amid an avalanche of sex abuse lawsuits that are set to result in huge victim compensation payments.

Several thousand men say they were molested when they were scouts by scoutmasters and other leaders several decades ago and are now able to sue due to changes in statute-of-limitations laws in a number of states. This wave of potential financial settlements helped push the Scouts to file for chapter 11 in Delaware on Tuesday.

In an open letter, Jim Turley, the national chairman of the Boy Scouts of America, said the organization has taken the bankruptcy option to “ensure we can equitably compensate all victims of past abuse in our programs, through a proposed victims’ compensation trust”.

Turley added: “I am outraged that individuals took advantage of our programs to commit these heinous acts. I am also outraged that there were times when volunteers and employees ignored our procedures or forgave transgressions that are unforgivable.”

The Scouts, founded in 1910, received a federal charter in 1916 and has since played a foundational role in the lives of millions of young Americans. Former US presidents John Kennedy, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton were all scouts.

However, the Scouts have long held internal files at their headquarters in Texas that link allegations of abuse to about 8,000 perpetrators, according to the New York Times. Former scouts have identified hundreds of other abusers not included in these files.

A group set up to corral victims for lawsuits, called Abused in Scouting, now represents more than 1,800 abuse survivors, ranging in age from 14 to 93 years old. Several dozen survivors are over the age of 80.

The reorganization of the Scouts and settlement of compensation is “going to be a mess”, according to Tim Kosnoff, an attorney representing abuse survivors. “If it takes a long period of time, it’s an open question whether the Boy Scouts will have any resources to keep operating while the bankruptcy is pending.”

Evidence of sex abuse has been held by the Scouts for nearly a century and the organization has previously fought to prevent this information from becoming public. A legal battle over allegations in Oregon eventually saw a jury decide in 2010 that the Scouts were liable for $18.5m in damages.

The number of youths taking part in scouting has dropped below 2 million, down from more than 4 million in peak years of the 1970s. The organization has tried to counter the decline by admitting girls, but its membership rolls took a big hit on 1 January when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – for decades a major sponsor of Boy Scout units – cut ties and withdrew more than 400,000 scouts in favor of programs of its own.

The financial outlook had worsened in 2019 after New York, Arizona, New Jersey and California passed laws making it easier for victims of long-ago abuse to file claims. Teams of lawyers across the US have been signing up clients by the hundreds to sue the Boy Scouts.

Most of the newly surfacing cases date to the 1960s, 70s and 80s; the organization says there were five known abuse victims in 2018.

Among the matters to be addressed in bankruptcy court: the fate of the Boy Scouts’ assets; the extent to which the organization’s insurance will help cover compensation; and whether assets of the Scouts’ more than 260 local councils will be added to the fund.

“There are a lot of very angry, resentful men out there who will not allow the Boy Scouts to get away without saying what all their assets are,” said lawyer Paul Mones, who represents numerous clients suing the BSA. “They want no stone unturned.”

By going to bankruptcy court, the Scouts can put those lawsuits on hold for now. But ultimately they could be forced to sell off some of their vast property holdings, including campgrounds and hiking trails, to raise money for a compensation fund that could surpass a billion dollars.

“Scouting programs will continue throughout this process and for many years to come,” said Evan Roberts, a spokesman for the Scouts. ”Local councils are not filing for bankruptcy because they are legally separate and distinct organizations.”

The Boy Scouts are just the latest major American institution to face a heavy price over sexual abuse. Roman Catholic dioceses across the country and schools such as Penn State and Michigan State have paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years.﻿