PHOENIX (AP) - Three people listed as directors of a boot camp for troubled youths where a 14-year-old died deny being asked or agreeing to hold the posts with the civilian nonprofit camp.
Documents filed five days after the boy's July 1 death list as directors former Senate candidate Craig Savage; Patricia Bassett, head of the Omega Academy charter school in Phoenix; and Ernest Daurham Jr., a hair-products entrepreneur who heads the Ernest Daurham Community Foundation in Scottsdale.
Savage, Bassett and Daurham all said they were unaware they had been named as directors. All three said they had worked with the group and generally supported it but had not agreed to serve on its board.
Gov. Jane Hull wants the state to consider increasing oversight of private boot camps in the wake of the death of Anthony Haynes, who had been attending the Summer Camp boot camp outside Phoenix before he died July 1. A court document said Haynes was forced to stand in sweltering heat as punishment and drowned at a motel where he vomited mud.
The camp is operated by America's Buffalo Soldiers Re-Enactors Association, a nonprofit organization, and Charles F. Long.
Long and his wife, Carmelina, the organization's secretary, both said they didn't know who submitted the names on an annual report filed with the state Corporation Commission, the couple's attorney David Burnell Smith said Friday.
Savage said someone also forged his name on two documents filed with the state that listed him as the organization's statutory agent.
Savage, an accountant, said he had prepared tax forms for the association without charge but was not involved in making decision and had no detailed information about its programs.
Daurham said he knew the association had used his name on its Web site but that listing him as a director went too far. ``I want to support them as much as I can, but I can't share any liability with them,'' Daurham said.
Bassett said she had helped Long with grant proposals and talked with him about his plans to create a military charter school but never gave permission to be listed as a director.