CSASurvivors.org

Kanakuk Kamps sex abuse accuser says camp leadership told him to ‘back off’ when he reported abuse
Date Shared: March 16th, 2025
Date Released: June 26th, 2024
Source: nbcnews.com

Excerpt


A 37-year-old Colorado man who says he was sexually abused by a director at a Kanakuk Kamps, one of the biggest Christian summer camp operations in the country, has sued the organization and one of the camp’s insurance providers, alleging fraud.

Andrew Summersett said that after he revealed to Kanakuk Kamps directors in fall 2009 that, years earlier, he’d been abused by Pete Newman, then director of the Kanakuk Kamp in Branson, Missouri, high-ranking officials in the organization denied knowing that Newman had been accused of molesting other children and told him to keep quiet about it, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Taney County Circuit Court in Missouri.

Summersett attended the camp every summer from 1994, when he was 7 years old, until 2005, when he was 18. For the next two summers, he nannied for two of the camp’s directors, Andrew Braner and his wife at the time, Jamie Jo Johnson. 

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Andrew Summersett

A 37-year-old Colorado man who says he was sexually abused by a director at a Kanakuk Kamps, one of the biggest Christian summer camp operations in the country, has sued the organization and one of the camp’s insurance providers, alleging fraud. Andrew Summersett said that after he revealed to Kanakuk Kamps directors in fall 2009 that, years earlier, he’d been abused by Pete...