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2 More Claim Sexual Abuse At Camp Good News

BOSTON (CBS) – Just days after it announced plans to reopen, a camp on Cape Cod linked to sexual abuse allegations made by Sen. Scott Brown is being sued.

A woman from Florida and a man from Massachusetts filed the lawsuit against the owners of Camp Good News in Sandwich in Barnstable Superior Court.

Both claim they were raped in separate incidents by different people.

WBZ-TV's Karen Anderson reports

There has not been a statement yet from the camp.

In the suit, Robert Roe said he was severely beaten for getting help after his attack.

The woman, Cheryl Madden, claims she was sexually assaulted, battered and raped by a janitor from 1973-to-1975, starting when she was seven years old.

The suit claims the camp's system of supervising its employees provided potential sexual predators with opportunities to abuse children in their care.

Madden said she doesn't know the name of the janitor, who is referred to in the suit as John Doe.

She claimed on one occasion, a counselor at the camp observed the abuse in a girl's bathroom, but failed to intervene or protect her.

Madden says she didn't understand that she had been harmed until April 2009. She believes the janitor sexually assaulted at least one other young girl at the camp.

In the other case, Roe claimed he was sexually abused, battered and raped on several occasions by camp counselor Ernest Milnes in 1970 when he was eight years old.

Milnes died in 2009.

In one of these incidents, Roe said he was injured in the genitals and needed medical treatment.

He claimed Milnes threatened him and told him that he would hurt him if told anyone how he became injured.

After a couple of days, the injury was so painful, Roe says he was forced to be treated by a nurse.

He says Milnes learned from someone at the camp that he told the nurse how he became injured, and said Milnes took action to punish him.

Roe says Milnes picked him up by the legs and banged his head on the ground until he was nearly unconscious.

"He also punched me square in the head so I had black eyes," says Roe. "The nurse's reaction was disbelief."

He was taken to the hospital for X-rays, but his parents were told the two black eyes was an accident.

The former camper says he didn't understand he had been harmed by Milnes until this past summer.

In their lawsuit, the former campers say they have suffered permanent psychological damages from the abuse.

"The camp reopening to me is just sickening," says Robert. "They're not even trying to address this issue."

District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said "The matter (involving Camp Good News) has been under investigation and remains under investigation. It's still ongoing."

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Mark Katic reports

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O'Keefe said they have received allegations from 13 people claiming they were abused at the camp, starting in 1971.

Most of the alleged perpetrators are unidentified. He says there may be an incident going back as far as 1969.

The allegations began to surface after Senator Scott Brown disclosed he was abused.

He only said he was abused at a Cape Cod summer camp, but Camp Good News later confirmed that Brown was a camper there.

You can follow Karen Anderson on Twitter at @karenreports.

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