Bauman, now 75, denied any official connection to the organization when reached Monday at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Scouting officials in 1980 described a somewhat tangential connection with the legislator, but a file was created nonetheless.

Just days after the solicitation charge was filed against Bauman in the first week of October 1980, a Scouting executive with the Delmarva Council sent a letter and a packet of news clippings about the case to the organization’s registration director, noting Bauman was on the council’s “advisory board.”

The letter noted Bauman had not renewed his registration with the Boy Scouts that year.

“He is not active and has no great interest in Scouting to my knowledge,” wrote Ted Taylor, the Delmarva Council executive. “I will leave the matter of his future registration in your hands for appropriate action.”

The organization’s registration director, Paul Ernst, responded by asking Taylor to fill out a form on Bauman so the organization could “identify” him in the future.

“Also, any other information made available to you would be appreciated to support our action of placing this man on the Confidential File,” Ernst wrote.

Bauman said Monday that he might have spoken as an elected official at a public ceremony honoring Eagle Scouts, or some similar event, but never had a close affiliation with the organization.

“If I ever was a member of an advisory board, it had to have been some honorary thing that they put me on,” he said. “I have no memory of ever serving on this council.”

Bauman said he was “astounded” that a file had been created on him by the Boy Scouts but didn’t fault the organization for “being overly careful” following the media coverage of the 1980 incident.

Bauman, a rising star of the Republican Party at the time, was campaigning for a fourth full term in Maryland’s 1st District when an FBI investigation into the alleged solicitation of the boy in a Washington gay bar led the U.S. attorney’s office there to charge Bauman with a single count of sexual solicitation for prostitution.

Bauman pleaded not guilty but agreed to disclose the circumstances of the case as part of the requirements of a diversion program for first-time offenders, through which he also completed a six-month alcoholism counseling program.