A former Portland Boy Scout who grew up to become a member of the national media -- and whose news coverage focused on the Boy Scouts of America’s dark history of sexual abuse -- filed a $7 million lawsuit Monday against the youth organization.

The suit states that the former Scout was sexually abused by his Scoutmaster in 1963 when he was 10 years old -- and that he came to terms with the abuse after he walked into a Portland news conference in 2012 to see boxes containing confidential files on more than 1,200 adult volunteers. The youth organization had banned the volunteers from scouting under allegations of molesting children over two decades.

Although the youth organization fought their release, the Oregon Supreme Court ordered that the files be made public in 2012.

“Seeing those files, something happened,” said the former Scout, in a news release from his lawyers Monday. “I was devastated seeing those boxes that represented the suffering of so many boys. All of the sudden, I knew I couldn’t stay silent anymore about what I had experienced as a Boy Scout. I started therapy and eventually realized I needed to do something about this.”

The plaintiff in Monday's lawsuit is not an employee of The Oregonian/OregonLive.