By Shelley Murphy and Sally Jacobs
Boston Globe
April 16, 2011
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/04/16/cape_cod_camper_describes_alleged_assailant_from_1970s/
Denver man comes forward to tell his story; description, time frame similar to Brown’s
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| "I didn’t tell my mother; it was disgusting," said Ron May, who attended Camp Good News in the 1970s. (Leah Millis for The Boston Globe) |
As a boy, Ron May looked forward to his summers at Camp Good News in Sandwich during the 1970s. He said his mother did not think it was unusual when one of his counselors came for an overnight stay at their home in Queens, N.Y., during the spring to take him to the zoo and botanical gardens.
But the visit turned ugly at night, said May, when he awoke to find the counselor pulling down his underwear and sexually assaulting him.
“I didn’t tell my mother; it was disgusting,’’ May, 48, of Denver, told the Globe during a phone interview. Just 11 years old at the time and living with a single mother and sister, May said he kept silent and returned to the camp that summer. May is the first alleged victim of the camp to come forward publicly to tell his story.
“When you’re a city kid, it can be a dangerous place, so you go back to be in the woods, swim every day, play chess; it’s safe, kind of,’’ May said. “You put it aside because it’s one incident.’’
But, it happened once again, according to May, after he returned to Camp Good News that summer, which was 1973 or 1974. He was assigned to a cabin with his abuser, who crawled into his bed one night and sexually assaulted him while a half-dozen other boys slept, May said.
May identified his attacker as Ernest Milnes, who was an Indiana college student when he worked at Camp Good News. Milnes, who died in Maryland in 2009, was convicted in 1998 of sexually abusing a child in Maryland, according to court records in that state.
May said Milnes never returned to the camp after the summer of the alleged abuse, and he never saw him again. May said he continued to go to the camp as a camper, then worked there from 1978 to about 1991. He said he finally disclosed the abuse about 20 years ago to two Good News co-workers. One of them confirmed May’s account yesterday.
This week, May went public, identifying his attacker to the Massachusetts State Police, a lawyer, and the news media. He is among 13 alleged victims who have detailed sexual abuse at the camp from the 1970s through the 1990s, according to a Boston lawyer.
The camp released a statement last night saying it recently learned that Milnes, who was a counselor in the early to mid-1970s, was a convicted sex offender.
“Earlier this year, his status as a sex offender was relayed to camp officials for the first time, and they shared that information with the district attorney’s office at the time,’’ said the statement released on behalf of the camp by ML Strategies, a Boston consulting group.
The statement said that when Milnes worked at the camp, “There were never any allegations about him brought to the attention of camp officials.’’
May said that during his last summer working at the camp, he confided to fellow counselor Tom Donahue that Milnes had molested him when he was a young camper.
Donahue, who began working as a counselor at Camp Good News in 1973 and continues to work there part time, said yesterday that May told him Milnes “had done some funny stuff to him.’’
“I understood that there was something sexual that had gone on,’’ Donahue said.
Donahue said May did not seem deeply distressed about the experience when he disclosed it, but mentioned it while talking about the camp. Donahue said he considered reporting the incident to the camp’s former director, but did not because Milnes had left some time earlier. Donahue did not recall precisely when May made his statement, but said it was probably in the early 1990s.
“I probably should have said something, but he was long gone and so I did not,’’ said Donahue. “It did not seem important to report it at that time.’’
Cape & Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe would not comment yesterday about Milnes or May’s allegations but said, “Any and all allegations will be investigated by the State Police.’’
Earlier this week, Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian announced that 13 alleged victims have detailed widespread abuse at Camp Good News.
He said the 11 men and two women who have come forward have all said they were inspired by US Senator Scott Brown, who disclosed in his autobiography, “Against All Odds,’’ that he was fondled by a counselor at an unnamed Cape Cod religious camp when he was about 10. The Republican senator has not identified the camp or his abuser. But the operators of Camp Good News acknowledged in February that he had attended and issued a letter of apology to him.
Yesterday, Garabedian confirmed that May had contacted him and said he was investigating his sexual abuse allegations.
A longtime camp employee, Charles “Chuck’’ Devita, 43, shot himself to death in a car outside the camp on April 6 after learning he was under investigation in alleged sexual abuse at the camp. The camp announced last week that it will be closed this summer.
In his book, Brown described the counselor who fondled him some 40 years ago as in his mid-20s, with long, sandy, light brown hair and a mustache. May said Milnes resembled that description.
Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for Brown, declined to comment on whether the senator knew Milnes. She stressed that Brown has not identified the camp where he was abused or his abuser.
Yesterday, May said he understood Brown’s reluctance to name his attacker, but said he felt compelled to expose Milnes.
May referred to the time he was molested at camp as “the summer of mutiny’’ because the boys in his cabin rebelled against Milnes.
One night, May said an 11-year-old boy said to Milnes, “I don’t want you sleeping in my bed tonight!’’
He said the other boys chimed in, saying the same thing.
“There were problems after that,’’ said May, adding that the boys did not talk about it, but were constantly fighting with Milnes, prompting them to be moved to another cabin with a different counselor.
“It kind of took the wind out of him,’’ said May, adding that Milnes left him alone after that. May said he did not know if anyone told camp officials about Milnes, but they should have suspected something.
“There’s no way they would not have known there were massive problems in 1974 with the mutiny, because they moved us,’’ he said.
Akilah Johnson and Travis Andersen of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Shelley Murphy can be reached at shmurphy@globe.com; Sally Jacobs at jacobs@globe.com.
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