These similarities between the two facilities that killed young children are eerie. However, parents should be keenly aware that the vast majority of camps that are caught abusing (injuring, killing sexually assaulting, neglecting) children follow an eerily similar public relations-driven “script” that obfuscates facts and deflects responsibility.

Yoni Gottesman attended a private summer camp in August of 2005. Roxie Forbes attended a private summer camp in June of 2019.

Yoni’s camp allegedly gave him a swim test, determined he was not a fully capable swimmer and relegated him to hold on to the side of the pool. Roxie’s camp determined she was a non-swimmer and relegated her to the steps area.

Both camps claimed their pool facility was safe.

Both camps claimed they had well-trained lifeguards.

Both children were killed by wholly preventable drownings due to gross negligence.

Both facilities remained open after killing children.

Both facilities retained their employees.

Counselors-lifeguards ignored Yoni drowning for at least eight minutes. Counselor-lifeguards apparently ignored Roxie drowning and floating dead for no fewer than five minutes and perhaps 10 minutes, according to experts.

Counselors-lifeguards from both camps administered flawed rescue and CPR efforts.

Both camps delayed calling 911.

After both drowning deaths, the State of California Department of Social Services investigated the camps.

Both camps were co-mingling personal and business assets, attempting to bury wealth.

Both camps apparently committed fraud. Yoni’s camp fraudulently transferred assets. Roxie’s camp fraudulently certified counselors as lifeguards (no requisite training or testing) and also apparently certified counselors and the owner-director and assistant director in CPR, First Aid and AED without proper training.

According to Yoni’s family’s attorney, the facility “knowingly took shortcuts, failed to properly train staff, and utterly ignored the need to implement basic safety protocols.”

Roxie’s father, the Plaintiff and the father’s attorneys proffered a nearly identical explanation.

Yoni’s facility director aggressively attempted to cover up the facts and shift the blame to his own employees.

Roxie’s camp director immediately and aggressively attempted to cover up the facts and shift the blame to Roxie herself. The director wrote a series of erroneous emails to their large database, removed Roxie’s parents from the parent database without permission and, while withholding their $3,000+ camp tuition, continued to deny any accountability.

However, the director’s own counselors have admitted to neglecting Roxie and to holding fraudulent lifeguard certifications, which the director orchestrated with a fake lifeguard instructor, according to publicly available documents and testimony.

Both facilities withheld vital information related to the preventable drownings that occurred due to gross negligence. Yoni’s facility failed to turn over the video of the drowning. Roxie’s facility has withheld numerous documents, including a non-disclosure agreement that allegedly demanded the silence of one minor counselor allegedly responsible for neglecting Roxie to death. The camp owner demanded that the minor sign the NDA without her parents present. Defense counsel contends that they do not have to provide that document because it is “work product,” an erroneous argument.

Yoni’s facility baselessly tried to disqualify his parents’ attorney.

The defense attorneys for Roxie’s camp repeatedly attempted to bully the Forbes family and even baselessly jeopardized Roxie’s mother’s career in an attempt to keep them quiet about the preventable death, ignoring regulations, free speech and Prior Restraint laws that protect victims’ rights.

The same attorney and her camp clients, have forced Roxie’s parents to confront the careless indifference toward personal freedoms, truths and facts. Numerous persons previously associated with camp’s operation have delivered accounts of the camp-owning family’s intimidating, disturbing pattern of behavior over the years.

Soon after Yoni’s death, the facility changed management.

Soon after Roxie’s death, assistant director of Roxie’s camp quit after a decade. The camp director hired a replacement with no camp experience. The director’s LinkedIn recruitment ad for the job not-so-subtly shifted blame toward the former camp director.

Other wholly preventable safety incidents occurred at Yoni’s facility and the sister facility.

Other preventable safety incidents occurred at Roxie’s facility, including a very serious child injury only weeks after Roxie’s death. The camp operator, however, said to media that Roxie’s death was the only serious safety incident in their history, as if one preventable death should be acceptable to any parent. The camp operator and former assistant camp director admitted to sending at least eight children to the hospital during a span of roughly 5 years.