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Summerkids made these documents publicly available to parents who sent their children to the facility. Click the links which will cause the document to appear in a separate tab or be sent to your download folder.
CLICK FOR DOCUMENT Email June 28, 2019 (date of Roxie’s drowning)
As Roxie Forbes’ parents Doug Forbes and Elena Matyas lay beside their effectively dead 6-year-old daughter attached to a life support machine, the Summerkids owner-director sent them an email saying she was about to notify the Summerkids database about what happened, as if seeking approval of the content. Forbes and Matyas did not respond to her inhumane action. Apparently, she and her family wanted Forbes and Matyas to buy into their story. As exposed months later through testimony and documents, virtually every claim she made in her correspondence to thousands of parents was and is a lie. As many as 40 children or more were in the small pool, but nobody kept track, which is a serious lack of accountability. None of the counselors were certified lifeguards—Summerkids fraudulently certified counselors as fake lifeguards without requisite training or any testing. The children were not in their designated spots. The fake lifeguards were not in their positions. As many as five minutes or more, not 10-15 seconds, had passed since anyone paid attention to Roxie. Roxie was not on the steps—she was upwards of 15-20’ from the steps where she was supposed to be closely watched. And, apparently, there was a delay between Roxie’s drowning and Summerkids’ 911 call. All of this appears in multiple police records and other documents.
CLICK FOR DOCUMENT Email #2 June 28, 2019 (date of Roxie’s drowning)
The camp=owning family did not shut down the camp for one minute after Roxie drowned. Instead, they rushed out another email shortly after their first. They demanded that parents not pick up their children early after they killed Roxie. They actually said they wanted to keep “the day as normal as possible.” According to her own admissions, the owner-director said that she wouldn’t consider it “normal” to do so. However, she actually used the same language again, in further correspondence to parents. Children in the pool saw Roxie floating dead. They also saw the gruesome and flawed rescue and CPR. Children were traumatized, according to multiple parents who informed Forbes and Matyas. In fact, according to one account, a counselor walked children directly past Roxie’s dying or dead body instead of circling around the pool. Yet, the camp-owning family mandated that parents not pick up these traumatized children. Why would they prohibit parents from doing so? To cover up the facts?
CLICK FOR DOCUMENT Letter to Camp Parents June 29, 2019 (date of Roxie being officially pronounced dead)
The camp-owning family calls Roxie’s death an “incident.” To this day, they and their attorneys refuse to say the word “drowning” unless forced to do so. Even then, the camp owners deny the truth of Roxie’s drowning death due to grossly negligent acts, including fraud, according to legal documents and admissions. Notice how the director-owner and her family also focus on how they are devastated and how the drowning affects them. They also lied about being in touch with Roxie’s parents and how her parents demanded privacy. In fact, it was the exact opposite — Roxie’s parents wanted immediate answers. The DiMassa family refused to release the facts.
CLICK FOR DOCUMENT Letter to Camp Parents June 29, 2019
This is another letter the camp owners apparently sent to their expansive parent list the day doctors pronounced Roxie dead. Again, it was rife with lies. Roxie’s parents did not attend the grief session. This is because the director-owner apparently demanded that her now former assistant director immediately remove Roxie’s parents from all mailing lists so that they were not privy to see how the director-owner and assistant were handling the aftermath of Roxie’s killing. The director-owner removed Forbes and Matyas from the parent portal and database even though she refused to refund their $3,030 tuition fee. It took three months until attorneys finally forced the director-owner to hand over the tuition. The camp owners killed Roxie 10 days into camp, according to the publicly available legal Complaints which use the word “killed” multiple times. For instance…
“At all times herein, the property used by Summerkids for their Camp where Roxie was killed was owned and controlled in part or in whole by… [Names withheld due to terms of settlement.]”
“A few weeks after Roxie was killed at Summerkids, [name withheld due to terms of settlement.] accompanied a child during ambulance transport to the hospital who suffered a compound fracture at Summerkids.”
The camp-owning family thought the right thing to do was to refuse Doug and Elena’s tuition payment. This is shocking. Two parents who attended their grief counseling session said it was a deplorable coverup and a wholesale lack of compassion for Roxie’s family. Parents wanted to know how Roxie could have possibly drowned in such a small pool. The camp-owning family refused to discuss the matter. Instead, their “grief counselor” showed up and promoted her fee-based counseling services. All of this is hard to believe, but it is true. Here is the fee-based grief counseling promotional handout.The camp-owners reiterated that it was best for children and families to continue on as if all were “normal.” Again, they never closed the camp for a minute after a child died on their property due to gross negligence and fraud, according to court documents, exhibits and admissions.
CLICK FOR DOCUMENT Letter to Camp Parents June 30, 2019
Once again, the camp director-owner said she wanted to proceed with camp on the following Monday. She wanted to make the day as “normal” as possible after the preventable and inexplicable death of a child. Also, she and the family continued to state how this is the “first serious safety incident” at Summerkids. This is a lie. The camp owners apparently sent a host of other children to the hospital with considerable injuries, one of which seems to have occurred onlyweeks after they killed Roxie. A former Summerkids junior counselor broke a spine, pelvis and shoulder in a nearly lethal and wholly preventable tragedy after the camp director-owner apparently ridiculed the counselor. Roxie’s death was not a “serious safety incident,” as the camp director-owner refers to it. Roxie died from a wholly preventable drowning caused by gross negligence, fraud, inadequate training and supervision and more. The coroner’s report is available. Police reports are available. The Complaint clearly defines the causes.
CLICK FOR DOCUMENT Letter to Camp Parents July 5, 2019
In this disturbing correspondence, the camp-owning family mentions how they have received emails, calls, notes, food and flowers from families who want to share their condolences with Roxie’s parents after she drowned at Summerkids. They said they would forward them to Roxie’s parents. Months later, the parents’ attorney had to demand that they do so. They only provided a handful of sympathy cards, which someone had already opened. They apparently demanded to withhold the food, flowers and cards intended for Roxie’s parents. They apparently remained in a box on her desk, some of it they donated to others. The former assistant director was allegedly a “little surprised” to learn the camp director-owner never delivered the items to Roxie’s parents. However, assistant somehow felt it appropriate to obey these demands. The camp director-owner also said in this letter how her “wonderful counselors” were back to work in their “routine,” as if nothing had happened. She also lied about why her pool remained closed. The Los Angeles County health department cited nine violations, including incorrect pool occupancy. Multiple parties have said the pool was always chaotic and crowded.
CLICK FOR DOCUMENT Letter to Camp Parents November, 2019, Page 1, Page 2, Page 3
The camp-owning family sent this solicitation letter after the Department of Social Services demanded that they shut down. DSS determined that the camp owners were operating an illegal child care facility, identical to the Yoni Gottesman case which CampAbuse refers to on this website. The Summerkids owners defied the DSS order and ran an illegal winter camp. DSS returned and cited the Summerkids owners for a second violation for running an illegal child care operation. In the letter, the Summerkids owners also lied that they did not have any additional information on Roxie’s death. They had a multitude of medical reports, first responder reports, investigative reports and a lawsuit that detailed the reason why Roxie died—drowning. Most importantly, they knew that they fraudulently certified counselors as lifeguards and water safety instructors for years, according to multiple admissions and documents.
THE ABUSE: The real reason Roxie Forbes drowned in the small Summerkids pool is because Summerkids owners orchestrated a scheme to fraudulently certify counselors as lifeguards to save money on training time at the risk of young lives. Parents finally deserve the truth, the facts, the reality.
The camp director-owner knew the requirements for lifeguard certification. She chose to ignore them.
An abundance of evidence and admissions show that she was fully aware of lifeguard certification requirements, despite the fact that she says she did not. Lifeguard training is 26.5 rigorous hours in pool and in class. Candidates must also achieve an 80% score on a final written test. None of that happened at Summerkids.
The camp director-owner told her fraudulently self-certified lifeguard instructor to provide fraudulent training. The rep agreed.
An abundance of evidence and admissions show that she was fully aware of lifeguard certification requirements but apparently requested that her lifeguard instructor Andrew Cervantes to complete training in less than one day. Cervantes agreed. In fact, according to certification documents and other evidence, Cervantes himself is a fake lifeguard instructor. CampAbuse has found that, since at least 2006, Summerkids owners violated Red Cross policies without providing required training and testing before certification. This is why a federal judge allowed the claim of fraud to proceed against Summerkids owners.
The camp director-owner and Cervantes lied about offering certified Water Safety Instructor services to children ages 3-4.
Similar to the fraudulent lifeguard certification scheme, the camp owners and Cervantes apparently orchestrated a scheme wherein they chose not to provide necessary training and testing for counselors to become properly certified water safety instructors. Summerkids and Cervantes nonetheless fraudulently certified those counselors who, in turn, provided fake water safety instruction to 3-and-4-year-olds. Parents and children were tricked into gaining a false sense of water safety and security. These parents allegedly also paid extra for this service—tuition for these Pre-K children was far more. The 70-something Summerkids owner-operator father gladly accepted his fraudulent water safety instructor status for years, according to certification documents.
The camp director-owner posted fraudulent information on her website about lifeguard certification.
After the camp director and her father and Cervantes orchestrated the fraudulent lifeguard certification scheme, they published on their website fraudulent information that said 27 counselors were certified lifeguards and nine were certified water safety instructors. Cervantes and the Summerkids owners fraudulently certified apparently all but one of those counselors. The information on the Summerkids website persuaded parents like Roxie’s to trust that their children would be safe in the water. In fact, parents like Roxie’s also made decisions on what camp to choose based on such information.
The camp director-owner and her doctor brother lied about how he is at Summerkids on a regular basis as health supervisor.
One of the Summerkids owners is an emergency room doctor in Long Beach. Under the administration page, his sister, the camp director and part-owner, said, "[Namer withheld due to demands of settlement agreement] oversees health and safety, the Summer Challenge, and is a zany addition to campfire. Each summer, he rearranges his ER shifts so that he can be with us on a regular basis. He is the father of two school-age sons, also Summerkids campers." When Roxie’s parents enrolled Roxie in Summerkids, they relied upon the doctor’s presence at Summerkids. The Summerkids former assistant director falsely led them to believe he was actively engaged in daily operations during discussions before Roxie's session started. A licensed physician on site to take care of children helps parents feel more secure. Unfortunately, this was another lie to which Roxie’s parents and other parents fell victim. Giancarlo's kids may attend Summerkids, but he is rarely there, according to multiple parties. The day Roxie was killed, the doctor-brother was 2,500 miles away vacationing in Hawaii. Yet, his camp director-sister enticed parents to enroll their children in Summerkids using her brother's medical license as a lure. Apparently, this lie has had an impact — she removed her brother from the Summerkids website. The assistant director said she “did all the medical” while on site. She did not have medical background. She said her daughter is a nurse. She previously worked as a lunch lady and an office administrator for a ball manufacturing plant and yet this somehow qualified her for medical administration. This is the way the website used to describe the doctor -brother’s role and it played a big part in Roxie’s parents’ decision to send Roxie to Summerkids. Then the website changed to this listing after Roxie was killed. The owners subsequently eliminated him from the website.
The fake lifeguards made everything go wrong at the small, over-crowded Summerkids pool.
According to public admissions from five fake lifeguard-counselors who were at the pool, Roxie’s buddy counselor was actually in the pool playing with children instead of lifeguarding on the deck. The 27-year-old head fake lifeguard got down from his chair and was not paying attention to the pool at all. The fake lifeguard in the deep end was throwing diving sticks into 8 feet of waterfor 4-6-year-olds to fetch them from the bottom instead of adhering to lifeguard vigilance by scanning the pool and thereby preventing drowning. The fake lifeguard in the shallow end, a minor, ignored Roxie for at least five minutes. It is questionable as to whether she was even at the pool the whole time, based on her own admissions. Porter was also doing something that cannot be mentioned herein but is a serious concern regarding her ability to perform. Another fake lifeguard, also a minor, said he too did not see Roxie floating dead, even though by what he admitted to detectives, he would have been a few feet from her floating dead. Ultimately, not one of the fake lifeguards saw Roxie floating dead or dying. Another counselor—upwards of 45 feet outside of the pool fence—said he saw Roxie “floating dead man,” ran over and shook the fence to warn the others. That fails to comport with every other explanation, let alone failing to make any sense whatsoever.
After the camp director was notified that Roxie lay dead or dying on her pool deck, she holed up in her office.
According to public documents, she made herself unavailable to responding detectives and EMTs while Roxie lay dead or dying on her pool deck. According to a document trail and admissions, she holed up in her office for 15-20 minutes while traumatized children aged 4-6 watched Roxie die in a barbaric, chaotic scene. She refused to call Roxie’s parents Doug and Elena. Instead, she called her own parents. According to multiple sources, the counselors, some of whom were still children themselves, failed to remove the little children from the scene while others failed to administer proper lifesaving services. She later said that when a child gets injured at Summerkids, it is a “typical emergency.” She is the sole director of Summerkids and one of only two on-site full-time staffers, other than the groundskeeper. According to public records, she also did not bother to call 9-1-1, because she had one of her fraudulent lifeguards do it. She did not think it was worth her time to rush to the scene and help with CPR. She did not think it was worth her time to remove and comfort dozens of little children who were traumatized. She did not think it was worth her time to assist and support other counselors. She did not think it was worth her time to ask those counselors what happened. She did not think it was worth her time to be present while first responders and sheriffs tended to the chaotic scene. The Summerkids training on an emergency action plan was as short as 10 minutes—this is the type of information every parent should know before they send their children to a camp like this. Effective emergency planning can mean the difference between life and death. Complete lack of preparedness contributed to Roxie’s wholly preventable killing. This is a fairly comprehensive Emergency Action Plan sample for a camp, which is 25 pages.
The camp director-owner refused to ride with Roxie in the ambulance although she had done so with other children. Then she lied about what happened at the hospital.
She showed up at the hospital with her parents. She stormed into the emergency room where Roxie lay dead and was not invited or permitted to do so. She contacted doctors to tell her own misleading story. According to two other sources intimately familiar with Summerkids, she had done the very same thing when one of her junior counselors had broken a spine, pelvis and shoulder in a nearly lethal and wholly avoidable tragedy. She lied that Roxie’s father said he did not blame her or parents as he was imploring them to leave the hospital. In a deeply disturbing act, her mother and squeezed Roxie’s father’s arm and asked if Roxie had a seizure or hit her head. CampAbuse knows the family is fully aware of how their fake lifeguard scheme ended Roxie’s life.
The camp director-owner showed no sympathy toward traumatized children aged 4-6 and lied about what the children witnessed.
Once she finally went to the pool where traumatized children aged 4-6 had witnessed a horrific death, she apparently said that the children didn’t witness what she did. How does that comport with the fact that she wasn’t even there, that she chose not to be there? She eventually said that hopefully [the traumatized children] will do okay with that.
The camp director-owner lied to homicide detectives about her pool occupancy, which can be an unlawful act, but it is also a critical factor in Roxie’s drowning.
At approximately 1:05 PM on July 2, 2019, four days after Roxie drowned, Los Angeles homicide detectives interviewed her at Summerkids. However, at 12:30PM that same day, or 35 minutes earlier, inspectors from the Los Angeles Department of Public Health shut down her pool for nine violations. They notified her that her pool occupancy should be 60 and not 75, which was the number on her occupancy sign. This fake occupancy number violated county and state code. Homicide detectives questioned the director=owner about her occupancy and she told them it was 75, despite the fact that health inspectors had already cited her for posting a false occupancy number that violated code. She lied to homicide detectives, which can be an obstruction of justice. Again, numerous staffers, current and former, and others have said that the pool was always crowded and chaotic. This has significant bearing on how it was that Roxie drowned, being that nobody saw her in distress for a long period of time. According to documents, the director-owner effectively shifted the responsibility to her father for installing a false pool occupancy sign. Incidentally, another one of the violations was an obstructed pool deck. She had a large basketball hoop on the deck. Roxie was apparently floating dead beneath that obstruction. Here is the excerpt from the detectives’ report wherein DiMassa lies to them.
The camp director-owner refused to refund Roxie’s parents.
She inhumanely refused to refund $3030.00 after Roxie drowned to death only 10 days into camp. Even after Roxie’s father demanded the money, she refused to comply. She eventually said she did not have their contact information—that is a lie. It took attorneys to finally force her to process the refund three months after Roxie was killed. Roxie died June 28. Here is the check she refused to refund until being forced to do so in late September.
The camp director-owner refused to tell parents that the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health shut down her pool.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health inspected the Summerkids pool on the Tuesday, July 2, 2019, after the camp owners “killed” Roxie due to gross negligence and fraud as cited in the Complaint, using that exact word. The inspector cited the camp-owning family for nine violations, including the pool occupancy violation. The camp director-owner said to parents in a letter dated July 5, “As you may know, our pool has been closed while we have reviewed our swimming policies.” In fact, by that time, the health department had officially closed the pool, despite what her intentions might have been. She chose not to tell her paying parents about the violations and her plans to remedy them. She subsequently maintained the same evasiveness with multiple parties. Here are the documents that prove this is true.
The camp director-owner lied in a sworn affidavit to the Los Angeles Department of Public Health, a government agency, about how Roxie was alive when taken to the hospital.
A week after the the camp owners killed Roxie, according to the legal Complaint, the cam director-owner produced a sworn affidavit to a government agency that falsified information. Under the law, this can be pursued as perjury. She said that Roxie was alive at her pool when she was removed by ambulance. However, she admitted that she knew Roxie did not have a heartbeat and so did her employees. Apparently, her assistant director told her the same day of the drowning that Roxie was dead at the pool. This is yet another one of camp director’s innumerable attempts to cover up the facts. Here is the false document.
As part of the coverup, the camp director-owner lied about how she tried to convince Summerkids patrons that she and her family provided proper lifeguarding and CPR.
She said that she reached out to a few dozen people about the safety and CPR/rescue efforts related to Roxie’s preventable drowning. This is a lie. She sent at least four letters to her databases within the first 36 hours. She sent at least another one or two a few days after that. (See above letters.) Each of those letters either lied about the facts or failed to mention her fraudulent lifeguard scheme and wholesale lack of proper emergency training. She said she has 600-900 paid child clients each year for decades, including those from returning families and new families like ours. She also has databases for her counselors and their families. Therefore, her databases are estimated to contain a total of at least 5,000-10,000 people, which is 170 times the number she lied about. She said to media, including to major networks and publications, “We are conducting a thorough process to evaluate what occurred.” She also said, “The camper’s family has requested privacy during this difficult time.” Roxie’s parents never told her that she was their spokesperson or that they requested privacy. They demanded answers. Her effort to shut out Roxie’s parents from communications and also communicate entirely false if not outlandish statements to thousands of people is ostensibly part of her swift and sweeping coverup of Roxie’s death. Incidentally, she admitted in a federal court that she never conducted any investigation to evaluate why Roxie died.
The camp owner-director lied about not having enough information to advise parents how Roxie was killed due to a preventable drowning at her pool.
She said she and her father were waiting for medical information before advising staffers and parents about the reason why Roxie was killed at Summerkids. That medical information, including the coroner’s report, was available by late July, only weeks after Roxie’s death. (That medical information is found below on this page.) She never told anyone that Roxie did, in fact, die from drowning due to her grossly negligent acts, including her fraudulent certification scheme to save money, according to volumes of court documents and evidence and admissions. In November of 2019, as she promoted her illegal winter holiday camp, she told parents that she did not have access to any further information about Roxie’s gruesome death. Months after Roxie’s death, she lied about still not having medical information. Here is her holiday camp letter in which she lied to parents yet again.
She lied to thousands of parents when she said she provided rigorous training.
She repeatedly said, under oath, that the health and safety of other people’s children in her high-risk camp environment is not her number one priority. She makes it clear, as stipulated on her own website, that fun is more important. This is a child care business, and yet she believes health and safety are not the priority. Two of the requirements for providing licensed child care in the state of California are a degree with an emphasis on child education or development and also teaching experience. Child care is subject to numerous additional requirements and extensive oversight measures that protect the health and welfare of our most vulnerable citizens. The director-owner does not have any of those qualifications. Her last assistant director, did not have any of those qualifications. Her former assistant director for 10 years did not possess any of those qualifications. Running a recreational child care business such as Summerkids adds layers of risk onto a traditional child care model. Children at Summerkids are encouraged to entertain what are called “high-risk activities,” including romping in the pool, vertical rock wall climbing, archery, slack-lining and much more. In addition to complex health and safety considerations, facilities like Summerkids must also grapple with a wide range of complex, developmental stages represented by children ages 3-15. That said, For years, Summerkids owners told thousands of parents that they provide “rigorous training,” when in fact they documents and admmissions under oath show they fail to train with any rigor whatsoever—in fact training occurs as camp begins and apparently lasts only a few hours. Families place great trust in child care centers to be licensed, to be capable and to be prepared for emergencies. Families have trusted Summerkids for the same reasons. Yet, Summerkids has not afforded any of those critical needs. Instead, they focus solely on “fun” as the number one rule. Summerkids owners spend a great deal of time talking about their own family history, how they have cared for kids for decades, etc. But they do not address the critical intricacies of running a complex recreational child care facility. All of the counselors at the pool have failed to recall anything substantive about any type of emergency action planning, despite the fact that this is a child care business. Here are two documents. The first shows how Summerkids owners falsely claim training is rigorous. The second proves how brief her training is and that it actually takes place only one day before the camp season.
The camp director-owner prevented everyone at Summerkids from discussing anything about Roxie’s death and from supporting Roxie’s parents.
CampAbuse has determined and documents and admissions prove that she prohibited employees from exercising their right to free speech/expression and prohibited them from supporting Roxie’s parents by attending Roxie’s memorial. She apparently also told her now former assistant director that any information related to Roxie’s death was none of her business. Yet, she was perfectly fine with having her assistant call Roxie’s parents to say that Roxie was being rushed to the hospital while she was on the phone with her parents while holed up in her office. Not one Summerkids counselor or staffer who was working the day Roxie drowned has come forward to even offer condolences to Roxie’s parents. Not one. Roxie’s parents filed a lawsuit months after Roxie drowned, yet during that time, still not one Summerkids employee had the decency to offer even arm’s length wishes to the parents of a little girl who died a barbaric death. If the camp director and her family believed they did nothing wrong and had months before they were subjected to a lawsuit, why didn’t a single counselor reach out to Roxie’s parents? This is astonishing but not surprising. Summerkids owners and their attorneys have consistently attempted to force Roxie’s parents to remain quiet about what they know. They have attempted to force CampAbuse to shut down. These tactics are extremely typical of other similar operations that abuse or kill children and do not want the facts to surface. Again, within a few days of killing Roxie, Summerkids owners demanded that the assistant director remove Roxie’s parents from all mailing lists and all camp contacts, despite the fact that they unlawfully withheld their $3,030 camp tuition for three months. This is who they really are.
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
She falsely claims she was fully trained to handle medical emergencies. She also claims she had no idea that her CPR/AED/First Aid certification was granted despite having only half the requisite training.
She was the Summerkids assistant director from 2010 until her sudden “retirement” after Roxie’s drowning in 2019. During her interview with Los Angeles homicide detectives on Tuesday, July 2, 2019, commencing at 3:26 pm, she told the detectives she “does all the medical” and is “fully trained” for a “situation” such as Roxie’s drowning. This is a lie. The American Heart Association requires approximately seven hours of in-person training for CPR, AED and First Aid through its Heartsaver certification program. Harrison underwent three to three and a half hours of training. She said she was not aware of the requirements. She admitted that she has no formal medical training, but said that somehow her experience as a mother qualified her to “do all the medical” at Summerkids. She said that, because her “daughter is an ER nurse” it better qualifies her to provide medical attention to those injured or afflicted at Summerkids. Her training was so inadequate that at the time she was attempting to revive Roxie, she believed the reading from the AED indicating Roxie did not have a “shockable rhythm” was a positive sign. The reading meant that Roxie was asystole — flat-lined or effectively dead. Listen from 1:00-1:13 to hear how she believes she is “fully trained” to properly respond to a fatal drowning. From 2:30-2:52, she said that because she is a mom and her daughter is an ER nurse, it makes her more qualified to be the go-to medical person. Roxie’s mother actually witnessed Harrison collect multiple types of medicine — from insulin and inhalers to medications — during an open house tour. And for some reason, parents trusted her commitments that she was up to the job. According to documents, she never told the doctor brother who was a Summerkids co-owner about what she experienced while attempting to administer CPR and AED support while Roxie lay dead.
The assistant director claims she was simply doing her job at Summerkids, even if that job complied with illicit demands.
Roxie’s mother spoke with assistant director several times prior to enrolling Roxie in Summerkids and during the two weeks Roxie was alive at Summerkids. She did so to ensure Roxie would be safe and properly cared for. Roxie met the assistant director during the Summerkids open house, the weekend before the season commenced. The assistant director told Roxie she would look out for her and showed Roxie where her office was. Roxie’s mother believed and trusted what the assistant director had told her. Roxie relied upon her to care for her. After Roxie’s drowning, the assistant director expressed concern about Roxie but was apparently told by the director-owner not to contact anyone about Roxie. She dutifully obeyed the orders. She did not contact the hospital. She did not ride with Roxie to the hospital as she had with other children injured at Summerkids. She removed Roxie’s parents from the Summerkids’ mailing list and parent portal despite the fact that their tuition was not refunded. And other than a self-serving condolence card, she did not express any remorse or support at any time. She did what she was told. But after her “retirement” from Summerkids in August, she did nothing to honor Roxie or express compassion to parents whose only child died while in her care. For a person who claims to “love children” and love working with children, her actions evidence unyielding loyalty to the Summerkids owners above all. The owners continue to control her as the Summerkids’ insurance company provides her legal representation, although she has chosen different counsel than the owners. In what seemed to be an effort to hide her assets, she told her attorney that she lives in a double-wide trailer in Texas. In fact, she bought a sprawling house in an upscale neighborhood near Dallas.
The assistant director lied about her rescue response.
She said that the first responding deputy described her CPR application as “textbook.” She also said that what she saw of the counselors who neglected Roxie to death and were actually fraudulent lifeguards made her very proud. She said she was trained in CPR, First Aid and AED by Trevor Boreham who was a parent of a Summerkids child camper. Summerkids owners hired Boreham to administer such classes at Summerkids to counselors and staff. He did so in as little as two hours. Boreham’s own daughtrer was in the pool when the fake lifeguards neglected Roxie to death.
The assistant director made derogatory comments about Roxie.
She said that Roxie was frail and “not hardy” like her own children. Her own children are adult males. She has denied making that statement even though homicide detectives recorded it. Why she would make such a statement is shocking, considering she was being questioned about a little girl’s death and the fact that if this were true, she and Summerkids should have been even more attentive. Another parent brought a legal action against her, claiming she made derogatory comments related to her child’s Asian accent. In front of a throng of parents, she humiliated Roxie’s father for attempting to help Roxie up a hill at the end of a long first day. She used a bullhorn to demand that he retreat back to a small concrete area and wait for her without being able to help. Not only is this cruel to a child, it’s also entirely reprehensible to do so in front of other families and a practice which has no place in summer camp programming.
THe assistant director obediently sent letters to thousands of Summerkids clients, some of whom had traumatized children at the pool when Roxie drowned and hundreds of other who were at the facility that day and watched a chaotic emergency medical scene.
She said she distributed the above letters to the expansive Summerkids database after Roxie drowned claiming she essentially did not have any choice, even though the emails that she distributed were filled with false information and other critical information that was missing, such as the fact that children were traumatized in the pool area while watching violent CPR, lifeguards were fake and rescue efforts were terribly wrong.
ANDREW CERVANTES
Cervantes was a fake lifeguard instructor who allegedly committed multiple acts of fraud.
Cervantes had apparently fraudulently certified himself as a lifeguard, lifeguard instructor and trainer and water safety instructor and trainer for years. Here are examples of fraudulent certifications. You can clearly see that he fraudulently used his own name on the certifications as both instructor and instructee. You can certainly not certify yourself. In April of 2019, Barbara Bourland apparently certified Cervantes as a Lifeguard Instructor. In order to become a Lifeguard Instructor, which allows you to train and certify other lifeguards, you must possess a legitimate Lifeguarding certification. Cervantes did not, because he fraudulently certified himself. Bourland either ignored this or was complicit. Or, Cervantes used her name and nobody questioned any of his erroneous records. Cervantes was eventually banned based on records we provided, but it was too little too late. Summerkids owners should have also demanded explanations or barred him from fraudulently certifying her staff. Instead, she was complicit in the certification scheme.
ATTORNEY GENERAL LAWSUIT
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POLICE & FIRE
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9-1-1 Response Report - This is the call that the senior Summerkids counselor, who was a fake lifeguard and called himself management” made to 9-1-1 after he and the other counselors neglected Roxie to death. Below is the actual call recording. Notice how he pauses multiple times to put his phone on mute while on a 9-1-1 call where every second matters. We know that he ran from the scene once Roxie was spotted floating dead atop the small pool that he was in charge of watching. In his interview with homicide detectives, he said he ran because there were “too many cooks in the kitchen.” He was a teacher who makes a habit of sleeping on other people's couches. He is now a doctor. He worked at Summerkids for 10 years.
Incident Report - This is the report completed by the two first responding deputies and another report which was completed by the Los Angeles County homicide detectives who also taped their interviews. The incident report includes a note that Roxie’s death prompted the one deputy to file a SCAR, which is a Suspected Child Abuse Report. Also, the camp director-owner is noticeably missing from the first responder reports because, although she is the director and co-owner of Summerkids, she chose to hide in her office for 15-20 minutes, call her mother and father and avoid being questioned while children as young as three were traumatized. Her counselors were so ill-prepared for an emergency that multiple first responders called the scene “chaos.” The Los Angeles homicide detectives’ report clearly illustrates how little they concerned themselves with asking critical questions, including those that had to do with drugs and alcohol, cell phones, abandonment and fraud, most of which did play a role, according to documents and testimony.
MEDICAL
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The coroner classified Roxie’s drowning as “near drowning.” This is an obsolete term which, in Roxie’s case, was used simply to convey that she died at the pool, never regained brain activity but did regain a life support-induced pulse. Once removed from life support, Roxie’s heart stopped within seconds.
SUMMERKIDS WHISTLEBLOWERS
Multiple whistleblowers who either worked at Summerkids or were otherwise affiliated with the owners have come forward. We have agreed to protect their identities, especially because a number of them said they feared the camp-owning family and because they requested protection. The following comprise a few examples. NOTE: We have an obligation to protect sources from physical, emotional, financial, reputational or other harm.
Should you or someone you know wish to share information, you can do so by clicking here. We honor all requests for anonymity. We also encourage people to consider making their comments public so that perpetrators are not allowed to intimidate victims into submission. Upon request, we will provide the correspondence from these whistelblowers with necessary redactions.
Whistleblower #1
This whistleblower described the Summerkids owners as “a scary pack of people” responsible for a “sinister manifestation of gross culture” and “systematic negligence of the Summerkids' administration and staff.” The person said the camp owners have established a “terrible, money-hungry culture that I observed while I was an employee there — as well as their persistent lack of safety measures. I imagine that what I have to say will leave you more devastated and angry, so if you would prefer not to reply I completely understand.” Asked to remain anonymous, the whistleblower said, “Though I have completely disassociated myself with Summerkids, the family still scares me.” This person repeatedly apologized for not approaching us earlier but was very intimidated about potential consequences.
As a former Summerkids attendee and counselor, this person said the camp owners had children as young as two in their pool with counselors who were never properly trained or trained at all in lifeguarding and water safety. This person said the camp owners had “a way of making you feel like you were part of a special club” but also that you had to have an unquestionable allegiance to them.
A Junior Counselor was perilously close to being paralyzed or killed after free-climbing a tree to devise a bootleg activity falling violently and breaking a spine and pelvis and arm. Owner Joe DiMassa wanted to move this injured counselor but, fortunately, other counselors warned him against doing that because of potential head and spinal injuries. This whistleblower said that, every summer, someone broke a bone, but other serious health issues or injuries also occurred. “After any injury, the [DiMassa] family would send out a PR letter to the effect of it not being their fault and everything is normal.”
The person said that the DiMassas let the camp operate like a free-for-all… they should have been far more safety-regimented with counselor behavior and overall programming. The whistleblower said counselors always had their phones on them, despite Cara DiMassa’s claims that counselors were not allowed to possess them during operational time.
With regard to the pool, the whistleblower said counselors were often bored and used pool time to tan or chat with other counselors. This person said “there was no vigilance, never any refresher training or real safety orientation." The person said counselors would often walk away from their lifeguard positions to speak with other counselors outside the pool fence while children were in the over-crowded pool.
This whistleblower said the Summerkids owners spent more attention on “deescalation of kids having fights.” The camp director-owner was known to be involved in “constant drama” in which “she would go on rampages… for some reason she would scream at her most cherished counselors” after which she would act as if all was OK. “She could flip on you at any moment.” Everyone despised her camp owner-father, the person said, also citing how he made everyone feel uncomfortable, especially the children, when he demanded that he be in the pool with them. Children would often cry when he would get in the pool.
They were rude to parents who would have to stay late at work or had other conflicts, the person said. “They were like bounty hunters. They would never refund money, so parents would sign their lives away for the summer.” NOTE: This statement does correlate with our experience. They withheld our $3,030 tuition check. They said they did not have our address. Our lawyers finally retrieved our money three months later. Here is the check.
The whistleblower said that the nearly 30-year-old senior counselor/fake lifeguard at the pool during Roxie’s death, was the camp director’s go-to person who consistently felt he had to impress her at the expense of other counselors. Although the most “experienced” Summerkids counselor with a decade of service, he ran away from the pool after Roxie was finally found floating dead. He said he had to move cars for the ambulance, but three other people said the same thing. He also admitted to abandoning his lifeguard chair while on duty.
This person said that she knew multiple people who had been told that Roxie was autistic or had Down Syndrome and should not have been in the pool. NOTE: This is a vile act by whoever executed and continues to perpetuate it. Even if Roxie had been diagnosed with either condition, which she had not, it demeans children who have special needs. Roxie was a highly functioning, compassionate-beyond-her-years 6-year-old thriving in a dual language immersion program and often known to be the first child to assist and support any peer — or adult — regardless of circumstances.
The camp director-owner would increase pay by only 25 cents/hour per year, this whistleblower said. She also said counselors were fired under unreasonable circumstances, including those which seemed discriminatory. This person was never fired and knew the operation and the DiMassas well after multiple years in their employ.
Whistleblower #2
A former counselor at Summerkids relayed information about “the abuse” at Summerkids. This person said, “I have wanted to reach out since the loss of Roxie, but in all honesty was too scared to go up against the [camp-owning] family. But enough is enough.”
This person was assigned lifeguard duty without any training. the camp director-owner disregarded the obvious safety concerns and mandated this person to lifeguard that summer. The person assumed it was just going to be “an extra set of eyes for the children not in the pool but around the perimeter.” The director-owner reprimanded the person for not doing what she demanded. “The pool was overcrowded, understaffed and had zero safety protocols. [Names withheld due to demands of the settlement agreement] “dismissed serious concerns” about a lack of training.
”Overall, the camp had zero emergency procedures other than to meet at the bottom of the hill in case of a shooting,” the person said. “More than once, when a child needed an ambulance called for a broken bone or a head injury, the counselors were left to corral 300+ children with no instruction or information. After each and every emergency, absolutely no changes were made.”
This person parted ways after years as a junior counselor and counselor.
Whistleblower #3
“I do know that we were not drug tested and a majority (90% ) of the kids that worked there would party together, drink and do drugs like weed and coke and come in hung over a lot!!! I know cause I went to a few of those party’s.”
This whistleblower said, “I think with the amount of kids there in the pool and the risk involved each day, [lack of training] was a bad move on their part. I think the lifeguarding class they provided was less than a half a day. It was like, here’s the info, let’s practice CPR and we were done. The amount of kids in the pool was always more than I felt comfortable with.”
“I can’t imagine how anyone would drown if they were paying attention and knew what to look for. This really pains me to hear about this.....it had to be negligence on the people put there to watch them. Accidents do happen, of course... but an accident is something like a kid hit their head on the side of the pool but was recovered quickly.....If they found her underwater, unconscious, and were unable to revive her, that’s a different story. I would want to know exactly what they did or didn’t do? Was CPR given properly? How long was she under for? This shouldn’t ever happen in my opinion, not with the right people with the right experience. They should drug test their employees before hiring. That was my biggest concern.”
This person said that Water Safety Instructor training was “a one evening thing.” There wasn’t “any water safety that I can remember,” this person said. “If I’m not mistaken, it was only about 2 or 3 hours long.”
Whistleblower #4
While not a counselor or staffer, this person said the Summerkids owners disregarded multiple mandated permit and safety procedures to avoid the city's intervention in its business. The person was involved with the owners for months and witnessed, firsthand, how they took short cuts to avoid paying fees, despite health and safety concerns, especially operating a child care business.
Whistleblower #5
This person said that the camp owner-mother is the “ultimate bully.” This person said that she attacked the person’s personality, faith, personal choices and background. The person said that she humiliated the person in front of another parent. She constantly flaunted the family’s wealth and was “extremely classist, always bigger, better, brighter than everyone around her.”
This whistleblower said the Summerkids owners were doing “sketchy” things with their business and their money. They also “seemed to enjoy embarrassing a lot of the young counselor candidates and counselors even though they always promoted inclusiveness. The camp owner-mother allegedly said of one counselor candidate, "He's just SO GAY," with a dramatic emphasis on "so" and "gay."
Like other whistleblowers, this person said the Summerkids owners demanded that the person do other jobs for which they were not at all qualified or trained. And, the family demanded that this person do this extra work without extra compensation. This person was constantly blamed for issues “that weren't my doing… I couldn’t win and it felt like they were trying to set me up to fail.”
This whistleblower said, “I also remember feeling very uneasy about the supervision. The grounds were fenced, but in my experience as a camp counselor, we always had a specific group of kids assigned to us. Summerkids counselors were in charge of an activity, not a group of kids, and the campers went to them. But no one staff person knew where any one kid was at any time.
Although they had a full staff of counselors at the beginning, each new week of camp they would fire a counselor or two. This person said the Summerkids owners fired at least half the original staff by mid-summer, and it was often for petty reasons or one mistake. This person said, “I remember distinctly feeling like they really got off on it, like it was just this major power trip for them to be able to hire & fire at will.”
Another memory is that the Summerkids owners demanded that Summerkids be looked at as an educational summer program and “they couldn’t handle it if the program was seen as babysitting.” This person said that camp owner-mother “laid into a parent-mom in front of everyone there” about this issue. “I was so shocked that she would treat a paying customer that way…but her pride and image was always more important than other people.”
Finally, this person said a little boy had seemingly hit his head. The owners seemed far more concerned about the insurance than the child’s welfare—they didn’t further tend to the child who was walking oddly and hit his head again.