Six Years Later, Camp Owners Continue to Delay Justice
PASADENA, Calif. – Roxie Forbes was only six years old in 2019 when she drowned under dubious circumstances at the Altadena, California, summer camp named Summerkids, but her father is more determined than ever to bare the truth at an upcoming federal trial six and a half years after her death.
Within months of her drowning, Roxie’s father Doug Forbes, co-founder of Meow Meow Foundation, said he discovered that Summerkids Owner-Director Cara DiMassa helped orchestrate a scheme to fraudulently certify her counselors as American Red Cross lifeguards. Forbes said DiMassa did so to save money on training time at the risk of imperiling children as young as three years old.
“Cara DiMassa and the DiMassa family traded my daughter’s life for approximately five to seven thousand dollars in extra profit, it’s that simple,” Forbes said. “I possess a preponderance of evidence that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that, for decades, DiMassa and her family intentionally lied about their insidious camp practices to thousands of parents, including my wife and me.”
Forbes said the DiMassa family, their attorney Margaret “Peggy” Holm and Mary Campo, attorney for former Summerkids Assistant Camp Director Jaimi Harrison, have delayed his jury trial five times over four years. Forbes said, “The truth is the truth. The facts are the facts. The evidence is the evidence. I possess all of it, and they know it. This is why they have done everything possible to muzzle me, to manipulate me, to dismiss me and to outlast me. But they have failed. Why else would they or anyone do this were it not for the fact that they are guilty?”
Federal Courthouse downtown Los Angeles
According to publicly available lawsuit documents, Forbes has successfully convinced a federal judge that DiMassa, her father “Cowboy Joe”, former Assistant Camp Director Harrison, former counselors Daniel “Hank” Rainey, Faith Porter, Natalie DelCastillo and Joseph Natalizio and a apparently fraudulently self-certified lifeguard trainer named Andrew Cervantes should stand trial for charges ranging from negligence to gross negligence and fraud.
Roxie’s camp “buddy counselor” was Daniel ”Hank” Rainey, whose father Jim is a longtime, high-profile Los Angeles Times reporter. Rainey was in the pool when Roxie drowned. According to records and statements, his lifeguard certification was fraudulent. His water safety instructor certification was fraudulent. He failed to keep Roxie — a learning swimmer — at arm’s length. He failed to notice Roxie floating dead. He failed to properly perform CPR.
Rainey violated Summerkids staff policies by posting photos of himself on social media in which he publicly urinates on a black-owned restaurant and also posts fake driver’s licenses.
Daniel “Hank” Rainey is on the left. This was his public social media page.
Rainey’s mother Alison, a senior media relations specialist at Keck Medicine of USC, told homicide detectives “boys will be boys.” She also said her son was “another victim of the tragedy,” equating Roxie’s drowning to her son whom she said, “was unfortunately right there.” She said “it was bad luck that day that he was in that pool and that girl was right there.” She ended by saying her son Hank “wasn’t even watching… he was the fun one in the pool.”
Because the DiMassas, by way of attorneys Holm and Campo, have subjected Forbes to trial delays for five years, Forbes has otherwise had to relate the camp safety impact of this federal lawsuit via other means.
According to documents, Holm, however, has repeatedly attempted to further muzzle Forbes. Holm threatened to shut down two websites that Forbes manages. Holm threatened to shut down portions of filming of Forbes’ soon-to-be-released feature documentary. According to documents, Holm lied about the nature of Doug Forbes’ contact with aquatics experts Tom and Rachel Griffiths for his research and advocacy work. Holm threatened Elena Matyas’ law career by lying about Matyas whom she said threatened DiMassa after a deposition, including hovering over her after removing her face mask during COVID. According to video, Holm’s assertions are also lies.
Holm is apparently no stranger to being accused of such tactics. She was an attorney who defended the U.S. Gymnastics Association in the shocking civil lawsuit brought by dozens of former Olympic gymnasts against USGA serial sex abuser Larry Nassar. Olympic and world champion Jordyn Wieber accused Holm of attempting to muzzle female victims of horrific sexual molestation. “Here we are finally trying to get past this and get the justice we deserve, and they keep sticking the knife in even further,” Wieber said of Holm, according to a multitude of news coverage of the Nassar trial.
Forbes said that proverbial knife was also stuck to thousands of parents immediately following Roxie’s death at Summerkids when DiMassa wrote an email in which she said, “Do not plan to pick up your child early. We have kept the day as normal as possible.” DiMassa’s mandate prevented parents from consoling dozens of traumatized children who witnessed Roxie’s death on a day that was, according to multiple accounts and Roxie’s preventable death, anything but normal. Forbes said he spoke with parents whose children required trauma therapy.
In that same email, according to subsequent evidence, DiMassa lied about her lifeguard certifications, lied about the time Roxie was floating dead unseen, lied about the children (as young as four) being in their designated spots, lied about counselor communications at the pool and withheld the information that DiMassa herself holed up in her office and refused to call Doug and Elena.
The federal judge had rescheduled the high-profile federal trial for a fifth time to have commenced November 5. However, both Holm and Harrison’s attorney Campo filed Motions only weeks before the trial requesting yet another delay until next year, at which time Roxie Forbes will have been dead longer than she was alive.
Forbes’s wife Elena Matyas will never get the opportunity to see justice served. She died at 50 years old. Matyas suffered severe depression after Roxie was killed at Summerkids. Although Matyas courageously carried on as co-founder of Meow Meow Foundation, ruthless heartbreak and trauma buckled her immune system. She died from complications of cancer and pneumonia in March of 2022.
“She was my everything, and the most selfless soul I have ever known” Forbes said. “There’s plenty of science that draws a straight line from depression to fatal illness. In the end, Elena graciously agreed to have me record her final wishes. Her exact words were to get as much justice for Roxie as possible and to take their land, their money, their power.”
Forbes said they both knew that this was the only way justice could be served, despite no manner of money or any other resource being worthy of Roxie’s life.
Summerkids Camp burned down in the Eaton Fire in January of this year. Los Angeles County had already designated the 54-acre Summerkids parcel that the DiMassas owned as subject to the most severe risks of fires, earthquakes, landslides, ecological encumbrances and other logistical restrictions. The county deemed the property virtually undevelopable but for the two structures that already existed on site.
Cara DiMassa’s father Cowboy Joe made a statement at a public hearing in December of 2024, weeks before the Eaton fire, where he voiced outrage about not being able to develop on his land. Not once did he mention anything about a summer camp or serving children or protections of fellow citizens. Instead, he believed his property, which was very close to the origin of the fire, should be an exception while neighbors should be penalized. “The downzoning of our property from 52 homes to two isn't just a number, it destroys the dreams we hold for our family's future. There are homes that are built within that same area. None of those people are being downzoned the way we are. Why can’t they be downzoned and leave us alone.”
Cara DiMassa entertained an NPR interview before the Eaton Fire. She too never mentioned the summer camp, serving children or protections for her neighbors in Altadena. Instead she focused on her land value. “We really feel like the county did not do a great job at taking a look at some of these really large parcels that are family-owned, that suddenly were becoming completely devalued.” However, after the fire, DiMassa suddenly struck an entirely different tone. “It gives us hope that our hillsides will be hillsides again and I certainly don't want to see huge developments go up.”
Forbes said this is precisely the kind of “talking out of both sides of her mouth” that he has repeatedly witnessed from DiMassa and her father since he said their grossly negligent and willful acts killed Roxie in their small summer camp swimming pool. Forbes was sickened but not surprised that DiMassa would leverage the devastation of thousands of lives for her own public relations purposes.
Although, Forbes’s wife Elena asked that Forbes do everything possible to take the DiMassa property from them, he said he and they would have never done so if, in exchange, the DiMassas demanded his silence about his discovery of their apparent intentional, fraudulent acts that killed Roxie.
Forbes also said that any attempts by the DiMassas to pawn off the property on him before the fire struck would have been entirely untrustworthy. “That Summerkids land was glorious, but for Elena and me, it had been a graveyard since June 28, 2019, when the DiMassas remorselessly buried our child, our lives and the truth. I wouldn’t have put it past them to offer the property to me at some point after they found out that it was, in their words, ”completely devalued.”
The federal judge has set a final trial date of January 13, 2026. While the federal court bars cameras or recordings, Forbes plans on taking copious notes, which he will publicly release only after a jury renders its verdict. Forbes said he will do so because the trial has national legislative and policy implications related to his widely known camp safety advocacy efforts at Meow Meow Foundation.
The summer camp industry is a colossus with a $70 billion economic impact. Approximately 25,000 camps and 1.5 million employees serve 25 million children. Yet, only slightly more than half of states require licensing for camps. Only a fraction requires meaningful child protections, including health supervision, certifications and training for high-risk activities including gun ranges with live ammunition and emergency action plans.
California does not license day or overnight (resident) camps. Although shocking as it may be, a camp lobby organization named the American Camp Association is largely in control of the few requirements that apply to overnight camps. Summerkids was a member of the Association. According to documents, the morning Forbes and his wife removed Roxie from life support, DiMassa immediately called representatives of the American Camp Association to request public relations assistance in an apparent effort to overcome the impact it would have on her camp enrollment.
Forbes spent six years advocating for change. Forbes successfully passed the Elena Matyas Camp Safety Ordinance and the Roxie Swim Safe Ordinance in Los Angeles County. Earlier this year, Governor Newsom emailed Forbes directly to say that he signed Forbes’s latest statewide camp safety bill into law. Forbes is working with federal legislators on national protections, which are currently stalled by the Trump administration.
“I do this work around the country to honor my child and my wife and other families and children who do not have to suffer as we have,” Forbes said. “I have assisted families from other states, and their attorneys, in their lawsuit discovery processes. I have assisted many media outlets in investigations of camp harm. It remains no less than stunning to witness how the DiMassa family and camp counselors continue to refuse to admit what they did, let alone make every unconditional offer they could to make it right. As a journalist—documentarian I know what they did and why. Cara and Joe DiMassa cowardly covered up circumstances to protect reputation and assets. Come January 13, however, truth and fact will be on trial and I get to occupy the witness stand to say what I have wanted to say for six barbaric years. This is why I expect Roxie and Elena to finally obtain the justice they so deserve.”
