Camp Director Covered Up NJ Teen's Sex Assault

NEW JERSEY - A New Jersey woman is suing a popular Jewish sleepaway camp, alleging a camp director covered up, downplayed and failed to report her sexual assault to authorities in 2018.

The woman, then 15 years old, was reportedly assaulted by a male camper while sleeping at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, according to documents filed in Manhattan federal court earlier this month. But during a meeting with camp director Rabbi Ethan Linden about the incident, Linden insisted that not informing the victim's parents of the assault was the best course of action, according to the lawsuit.

While the teen reported the assault that day to her bunk counselor, who immediately "sent her complaint up the chain of command," it took about a week for a meeting to be set up between the victim and the camp director, per court documents, adding that the boy assailant was punished by staying in his bunk during activities and was mandated to speak with a guidance counselor.

Linden also told the woman that, if she told her parents, campers would start gossiping about it, the lawsuit said. The director later downplayed the incident in front of the teen, explaining that a boy touched the camper but that "nothing really happened" and that the assailant was "just a horny little boy," the complaint reads.

"Despite having actual knowledge of the sexual assault of a minor female camper by a minor male camper, Camp Ramah and Linden acted with deliberate indifference and failed to follow … standard camp protocol," the lawsuit states, alleging that Linden failed to report sexual abuse, isolate the perpetrator and immediately inform the victim's family in violation of American Camp Association procedures.

Police investigators later directed the camp to remove the boy camper, which the camp at first refused to do, the lawsuit reads. It was only after a police investigator was dispatched a second time that the boy was removed.

The victim is seeking monetary damages, punitive damages and admission from the camp that Title IX laws were violated, as well as a trial by jury.

Linden has since been removed from his position, according to a report from the New York Post.

Camp Ramah, which operates ten residential camps across the U.S., oversees more than 11,700 campers.

Ramah Berkshires President Richie Friedman said in an email to stakeholders last week that camp officials are "investigating the allegations in the complaint, including the response of camp leadership," according to The Forward.

"The Board of Directors takes these allegations seriously. Then, as now, our priority is the safety, health, and well-being of all campers and staff in our care," Friedman said. "Camp understands the sacred trust that its families place in us. We are committed to preventing and responding to abuse, including through existing programs of training and supervision of staff and consent education for teens. We take seriously our responsibility as a Jewish institution and as a mandated reporter in New York State."

Wylie Stecklow, a lawyer for the New Jersey victim, told the New York Post that Linden's removal was "a good first step in the right direction."

But the May 4 complaint also alleges that the New Jersey woman's assault was not an isolated incident, rather, one occurrence among many.

"There is a history of improper and inappropriate sexual incidents against female campers at Camp Ramah during the time that … Linden was the director of this camp," the lawsuit alleges. "Further deliberate indifference by Camp Ramah and Linden can be seen by the history of improper and inappropriate sexual incident at this camp that did not lead to any changes to provide protection for the minors entrusted to this camp by their parents."