A sex offender who was at the center of a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America has updated his address in The Villages.
Siegfried Hepp Jr., 60, on Friday updated his address with the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to reflect that he is living at 1214 Maria Court in the Village of Del Mar, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Hepp was convicted in 2000 in Connecticut of sexually assaulting a Boy Scout in the mid-1970s.
Hepp sexually abused the boy on three separate occasions, according to court documents. The first two abuses occurred when Hepp and the boy were at a Boy Scout camp. Hepp invited the boy to go fishing and when they were alone in the woods, Hepp showed the boy pornography and performed oral sex on him. On the third occasion, Hepp and the boy were at a Boy Scout jamboree. Hepp went into the boy’s tent at the end of the day, asked him to take his pants off and performed anal sex on him.
The victim later sued the Boy Scouts of America. During the trial, evidence showed that a worried parent wrote a letter to the Boy Scouts expressing concerns that Hepp was a child molester. The Boy Scouts did not remove Hepp from his position until after his conviction many years later.
A Connecticut jury awarded the victim $7 million. He testified that the sexual abuse sent his life into a downward spiral of suicide attempts, drug abuse and an inability to be intimate with people.
The reason the verdict was so large was because evidence showed that the Boy Scouts had known about widespread sexual abuse by troop leaders. Witnesses in the trial said that the Boy Scouts kept reports of such abuse in locked filing cabinets called the “Confidential Files.” Instead of using the information to inform and educate parents and troop leaders, the Boy Scouts hid this information to protect its image.
The jury awarded the victim $7 million and the case was so compelling, the judge tacked on another $5 million.
However, a divided Connecticut Supreme Court later overturned the $12 million verdict on a technicality.
The address at which Hepp is living in The Villages is not far from the Rio Grande Family Pool.
