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(NECN: Ally Donnelly, Boston, MA) – "I
remember he had brown hair. I remember he was thin. I remember he said if I
told anyone he'd kill my mother," said Cheryl Madden with tears in her eyes.
Forty-five-year-old Madden says a former janitor at Camp Good
News in Sandwich on Cape Cod started sexually abusing her in a camp bathroom
when she was just seven years old.
"He would fondle me," she said. "Pull my pants down, things like that."
The South Boston woman -- now living in Florida -- says she's angry camp leadership allegedly turned a blind eye to abuse like hers for decades.
Camp Good News first made headlines in February when U.S.
Senator Scott Brown revealed in his memoir that he had been abused as a child
at a Christian Camp on the Cape. Camp Good News confirms he was a camper there
in the 1970s.
Since then more than a dozen people have come forward to say they
too had been abused by different camp employees. In April, the camp's
groundskeeper killed himself after a criminal investigation was launched
against him.
Criminal statutes have run out for Madden, but she says she's suing
in civil court to help give kids the courage to come forward.
Local
"If you think you have to hold this
in for 30 years, you don't. Tell an adult," she implored with tears streaming down her face.
Madden -- who says she was abused for three summers by a
man she thinks is now dead -- told the camp directors about the abuse after her
father died in 2009 and had left his estate to the camp. She says Hope Brooks
only reacted when she learned Brown was coming out.
"She told me that Scott Brown was going to be on 60 minutes and she wanted to know if I was going to come forward," she said.
Brown has never named the Christian camp where he was
abused and, for tnat, Madden calls him selfish and cowardly.
"I think that Scott Brown knew exactly what he was doing here," she fumed. "He just wanted me to do his dirty work for him."
Brown's press person did not return our call requesting comment. Camp Good News released a statement in response to the allegations. The camp voluntarily shut down as a criminal investigation is ongoing.