734: Joe White – Republican Sexual Predators

Joe White is the son of the founders of Camp Kanakuk, one of the largest Christian camps in the United States, a camp that hosts about 12,000 children each year. He remains the Camp Kanakuk director despite his role in covering up and protecting child molesters who worked for him.

While Pete Newman worked for him, White was aware of Newman encouraging young men to take off their clothes and of him doing activities in the nude with the students. He was also apprised of allegations and complaints about Newman’s behavior. John Doe IX lists several times White was made aware of Newman’s questionable behavior as early as 1999, more than a decade before Newman was arrested.

While White did put some limits on Newman’s interactions with children, he lifted them after White got married. He seemed to think that would solve everything. He even told Newman’s wife she needed to make him behave rather than actually doing something himself.

When a girl told her mother she saw Newman touching a young boy, the mother called the camp. Rather than taking her report seriously, they suggested her daughter wasn’t really camp material, questioning whether she had a “heart for Christ.”

When Newman confessed his crimes, White did not immediately report it to the police. He began contacting victims’ parents. One father said White reached out to him to tell him it was no big deal, just childhood experimentation. That was a lie.

And Newman was not the only child molester on Kanakuk staff!

One victim even had to get a restraining order because White would not leave him and his family alone.

To this day, the extent of abuse is unknown because Kanakuk had so many victims sign nondisclosure agreements. Camp Kanakuk has taken to disparaging victims in its official response.