Posted on: Thursday, April 14, 2005
Campers' families due refund
By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor
The state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs has won a judgment against the operator of a Maui summer camp who shut down and fled the state without reimbursing families.
A Maui Circuit Court judge ordered Raymond L. Thomas to pay $46,379 in refunds to some families and a $250,000 civil penalty. The refunds are due 21 families that lost from $900 to more than $4,000, department spokeswoman Christine Hirasa said.
More than 100 other families that paid for the Aloha Adventure Camps with credit cards were able to receive refunds totaling $150,000 with help from the state Office of Consumer Protection, Hirasa said.
Now, as many parents are deciding whether to send their kids to summer camp, dozens of families are still trying to get over what happened last year on Maui.
The camp was closed July 7 when it was discovered that Thomas had falsified insurance documents. Children ages 10 to 17 were stranded, and more than 100 families lost their prepaid fees.
But what upset parents most was learning that Thomas was a convicted sex offender, and that no state regulations prevented him from running the camp.
Thomas, 50, was not accused of sexually abusing any campers, but he apparently left Hawai'i shortly after the camp closed without refunding the fees, which were $1,150 per week.
Minda Wood of West Hills, Calif., is hoping for a refund of $3,500, money she struggled to save to send her 10-year-old daughter to Aloha Adventure Camps. Wood said she has spent months unsuccessfully arguing with her bank over the debit-card charge she used to pay for the camp.
Her daughter was briefly stranded after fellow campers forgot to include her in a group that left in a taxi for Kahului Airport after the camp closed. It was Thomas who drove her daughter to the airport for a flight home, Wood said.
This summer, her daughter will be attending a day camp in California that offers surfing instruction. "When we brought up the subject of camp, she was very adamant that she didn't want to go to a sleep-away camp. This is still affecting her," Wood said.
Diana Crew, of Denver, said her daughter is still "freaked" by the experience.
"It still bugs me, and now that it's time to go to camp again, and there are unsuspecting parents — you never know who to trust now," she said.
Crew paid for a total of seven weeks at Aloha Adventure Camps for her 15-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter, and was able to get a refund from her credit-card company.
It appears unlikely officials will be able to recoup any substantial sums from Thomas, whose whereabouts are unknown. The Girl Scout Council of Hawai'i, which leased its Camp Pi'iholo to Thomas for his summer camp, has received court permission to seize a van, surfboards, kayaks and other assets he abandoned there.
Hirasa said an Office of Consumer Protection staff member has been assigned to routinely check law-enforcement databases to see if Thomas surfaces. As a convicted sex offender, he is required to report any change in address.
Thomas had operated Aloha Adventure Camps for several years and many campers were repeat customers. The operation was accredited by the American Camping Association in 2000.
But campers last year reported the camps seemed chaotic and disorganized. During the first week, a counselor filed a police report alleging sexually inappropriate remarks by Thomas, who used the name Llew Lazarus in connection with the camp. In the ensuing uproar, Thomas ordered the children to go home.
Girl Scout officials started investigating and ordered the camp to shut down when they found Thomas had falsified insurance documents.
As a "specialty" camp, Aloha Adventure Camps was exempt from state licensing regulations for childcare facilities. Employees of licensed facilities are required to undergo criminal background checks.
Thomas was sentenced in California in 1991 to six years and eight months in prison for lewd and lascivious acts on a girl who was 6, and for two counts involving sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old girl and using her for the purpose of making sexual photos or videos.
The Maui court judgment against Thomas, Aloha Adventure Camps and the Hawaiian Cultural Preservation Association, which he set up as a nonprofit entity to run the camp, is a "hollow victory" for Susan Goldberg of Sherman Oaks, Calif., whose 14-year-old daughter signed up for four weeks at the Maui camp.
"It's good to know they've stayed on top of it," said Goldberg, who received a refund through her credit-card company. "With all the horrible stories that have been in the news and with the high recidivism rate for pedophiles, I'm just grateful at how lucky we really were."
Jayne Gumpel of New York said she has pretty much written off any hope of getting back the $3,500 she paid to send her 16-year-old son to three weeks of camp. In order to get a discount, she paid in cash. Gumpel called the Aloha Adventure Camps saga "traumatic and disappointing."
"The hardest thing for me was that you work real hard to give your kids a special experience for the summer, and what he's going to remember is that," she said.
Crew, the mother from Denver, said she and other parents have learned that it's not enough to rely on Web sites, brochures or even accreditation status and references from other families when considering overnight camps for children.
"I would question somebody to death, asking about who runs the camp, what's their policy on background checks. ... I would be very skeptical and look at very, very established camps."
Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.
