Former camper sues Missouri-based Christian camp claiming ‘fraudulent’ abuse settlement

A Branson Christian summer camp is being sued by a former camper who alleges leadership concealed their prior knowledge of a director’s sexual misconduct to persuade his family to sign a settlement and non-disclosure agreement.

Logan Yandell, now 27, filed a lawsuit last week against Kanakuk Kamps alleging he was sexually abused from around 2005 to 2008 by former camp director Peter Newman. Yandell settled for a confidential amount in 2010 and signed a non-disclosure agreement, according to the lawsuit.

Kanakuk is one of the largest Christian summer camps in the country and claims to have hosted over 500,000 kids since it was founded in 1926. In 2020, it boasted an annual revenue of nearly $24 million.

Yandell’s was one of several settlements that included a non-disclosure agreement, the lawsuit alleges, which victims signed “without knowing the true facts regarding [Kanakuk’s] active misrepresentations and concealment of Newman’s sexual misconduct.”

The case hinges on whether Kanakuk leadership knew in advance that Newman was abusing campers, or whether, as Kanakuk puts it, Newman was a “master of deception.”