HAMILTON TOWNSHIP - Ohio child abuse investigators plan to finish next week first-round interviews with girls exposed at Camp Butterworth to a counselor accused of fondling at least 10 campers.
Known as a legal ''SWAT Team'' that helps local authorities crack down on child abuse, the Rapid Response Team was sent July 18 by the state attorney general to help Hamilton Township police and Warren County Children Services coordinate the four-county investigation.
For a week, Rapid Response members talked to about 24 campers supervised by the 19-year-old counselor, who allegedly touched some of the girls' breasts and buttocks. The counselor was an exchange student from Tanzania.
''These cases are by far the most complicated cases to handle properly,'' Attorney General Betty Montgomery said Friday.
''They are exacerbated by the fact that you're dealing with (alleged) sexual activity, youths as victims and families afraid of what the system is going to do to their children.''
Launched statewide in 1993 after being piloted in several Ohio counties, the Rapid Response Team has assisted in 55 cases in 35 counties at the request of local agencies, Ms. Montgomery said.
Including the Camp Butterworth probe, the response team has six open cases, state officials said.
Staff at Warren County's Children Services department and police sought the group's manpower and expertise, Hamilton Township Police Chief Gene Duvelius said, after receiving reports July 14 of alleged sexual misconduct at the Girl Scouts camp.
Two days before returning to their homes, spread from southeast Indiana to Clermont County, the campers expressed concerns about the way counselor Namsembiaeli Nduma was touching them.
The team specializes in complex child abuse cases, particularly those involving multiple suspected victims or multiple suspected perpetrators, said Assistant Attorney General Alice Robinson-Bond. With fellow team members from the state's Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, she is working on the Camp Butterworth case.
Interviewing at least 24 campers as well as counselors ''takes a lot more coordination,'' Mrs. Robinson-Bond said.
''It's important to get the child's version of what happened while it's still fresh in their mind and before too many people have talked to them about the situation to cause any confusion,'' she said.
Parents and prosecutors have questioned why Girl Scouts leaders waited 11 hours on July 14 to report the incidents to police, after allowing Ms. Nduma to board a bus for New York.
Barbara Bonifas, executive director of the Great Rivers Girl Scout Council, which manages the camp, said Friday the delay stemmed from confusion over the exact nature of the ''touching.''
When the girls initially complained about Ms. Nduma, ''We had no information about sexual misconduct,'' Ms. Bonifas said.
Girl Scouts administrators have not met with the Rapid Response Team, she said, but are eager to provide its members with information.
''We have no reason to hide anything, and we're not,'' Ms. Bonifas said. ''But we are now trying to let the investigation happen.''
No criminal charges have been filed against the counselor, Camp Butterworth or the Girl Scouts.
Despite assistance from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), Tristate authorities Friday still were uncertain whether Ms. Nduma had left the country. INS spokesman Mark Thorn in New York city declined to comment on Ms. Nduma's status, citing privacy laws.
''It's tragic that the alleged perpetrator was allowed to leave the state and apparently leave the country,'' Ms. Montgomery said. ''The ability to properly investigate it is diminished significantly.''
