UPDATED: Child Porn Allegations Against Camp Counselor Surfaced in 2014

This story has been updated.

Three employees of the Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit were fired Wednesday over their handling of allegations against a former camp counselor accused of abusing and taking graphic photos of young children at a summer camp.

In a statement, a spokesman said officials at the Jewish Community Center learned last week that supervisors at the camp had been informed of some of the allegations against Michael Kuppe, 21, of West Bloomfield, as early as 2014.

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“The information reported was not passed on to senior JCC management. Supervisory personnel who did not act on this communication have been terminated. We have shared this information with licensing officials in Lansing and with the West Bloomfield police department,” the spokesman, Michael Layne, said.

Federal authorities allege Kuppe abused several children, had graphic conversations with them and then shared nude photos he had taken in a folder marked “Jewish boys” on Internet sharing website based in Russia. Kuppe was fired early this month about administrators of the Jewish Center learned of the allegations against him.

The Jewish Community Center is conducting its own internal internal investigation, Layne said. The West Bloomfield Police Department is interviewing additional victims.

“We’ve interviewed at least five different children,” West Bloomfield Deputy Police Chief Curt Lawson said. “We’re going to interview more children down the road.”

After the Jewish Community Center disclosed the new information Thursday, West Bloomfield Police Chief Michael Patton said the scope of the investigation would be expanded.

“We’re looking at a number or things over there,” Patton told the Free Press. “There were some allegations that something was reported to some of the staff last year. Whether that has something to do with the current investigation, we’re looking at everything. We’re not saying that there’s no substance to it. Someone raised a red flag... Our concern is, is this something that has evidentiary evidence? Our concerns are how many potential victims there are, are there victims we don’t know that exist, those are questions that have not been solved yet.”

Earlier on Patch:

• West Bloomfield Camp Counselor Faces Child Porn Charges

Kuppe was back in federal court Thursday on charges of production, distribution, receipt and possession of child pornography. His attorney, Walter Piszczatowski, has asked that Kuppe be released on bond to the custody of his parents on specified conditions, the Free Press said.

His parents, Richard and Linda Kuppe, are willing to serve as a third-party custodian of their son, a college student with no criminal history, according to court records.

“We have lived in the same home since Matthew was four years old,” Richard Kuppe wrote in a sworn affidavit. “Other than the three years ,he has lived in a dormitory at MSU, he has lived with us his entire life. My wife and I run our business out of our home. One of us can be physically present in the home at virtually all hours of the day and night.”

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Woodward has described the case as “every parent’s nightmare.”

The photos shared online can never be retrieved, Woodward said.