Boy’s Club Director
Charged With Child Sexual Abuse

By Aaron Rutkoff and Thomas Zambito 

A multi-agency investigation conducted over a six-month period in 1986 uncovered an astonishing history of child sexual abuse by the director of the Flushing Boy’s Club. 

In a Tribune exclusive first published on January 29, 1987, sources close to the investigation revealed allegations that 36-year-old John German, a Little Neck resident and the club’s director since 1981, took a 15-year-old boy across the U.S. border into Mexico in order to engage in sexual acts.  This initial charge led to a string of similar abuse accusations by boys who had known German throughout his career in the Boy’s Club organization.

The investigation began when Alan Beckett, the physical education director of the Flushing Boy’s Club, told federal authorities that German may have been involved sexually with children. 

The Sexual Exploitation of Children Task Force — a joint body composed of federal and City agencies as well as the Nassau County Police Department — investigated German for six months before finally placing him under arrest. 

German was eventually charged with sexual abuse, sodomy, endangering the welfare of a child and using a child in pornographic photographs.

All of these charges involved a 15-year-old boy, but a spokesperson from the Queens District Attorney’s office also announced that German was being investigated in connection with the abuse of three or four other boys.

It was later established that three of the abused boys were members of the Flushing Boy’s Club. 

The DA’s spokesperson said that German’s “role as director was a factor in getting access to the boys.  His position gave parents a feeling of confidence in him.”  The parents of one boy evidently allowed their son to stay at German’s home on 247th Street in Little Neck.

Aside from the 15-year-old named in the initial state and federal charges, German was alleged to have been involved with another 18-year-old boy, who testified in court documents that he been regularly sodomized by German for nearly ten years starting when he was eight years old.  This boy said he met German when he was the assistant director of the Boy’s Club in Jamestown, New York.

By March 11, 1987, the state and federal investigations had been shut down after German agreed to plead guilty to one federal charge in connection with the 15-year-old boy he brought to Mexico, which carried a maximum 10 year prison sentence. 

Two other federal charges connected to pornographic photos taken by German of the boy were dropped in the plea agreement. 

German also faced 89 state charges, which the Queens District Attorney said involved three other boys under the age of 16 whom German had sexual relations with over a four-year span starting in 1982. 

The DA’s spokesperson claimed that more charges could be brought against German, but that officials did not want to traumatize more children by making them relive the details of their abuse during further investigations.