In Florida, Sellers and his team have filed three lawsuits on behalf of girls who say a coach at the now-closed Champion Elite Legacy gym in Daytona Beach inappropriately touched them and repeatedly exposed himself in person and on video. "But nothing could be further from the truth." "Our clients have been led to believe that they're alone," Sellers said in news release announcing the Ohio lawsuit. The suit alleges he reported the abuse to the USASF cheerleading governing body but was told there wasn't enough evidence. In another lawsuit filed in November, a former cheerleader in Ohio says two male choreographers repeatedly had sex with him in a hotel room in 2016. NPR tried to contact Herrera by calling the gym and was told by a woman who answered the phone Herrera and her co-owner husband were not available for comment. All Star Federation or USASF, only to be met with skepticism and a "deeply traumatizing and unsettling" process.Ī USASF website shows one of the owners of CheerForce, Becky Herrera, serves as a voting board member for the organization but does not indicate how long she's held that role. She says she was too terrified at the time to report the abuse.īut last year, she says, she came forward and filed a report with cheerleading's governing body, the U.S. In the latest suit, filed in late December, a former cheerleader says a coach at the CheerForce Simi Valley gym in Moorpark, Calif., gave her drugs and alcohol, and had sex with her when she was 15 years old. "Similar to other sports which have had their reckoning, this is a reckoning for cheer nationwide," says one of those attorneys, Bakari Sellers. The attorneys who filed the suits say they expect to file even more in other states as plaintiffs continue to come forward with cases that span decades. Of the dozens of defendants named, two have been criminally charged. The suits, filed in civil court, accuse some of cheerleading's top institutions of conspiracy for failing to protect minors and seek compensatory and punitive damages. In all, 12 lawsuits on behalf of 21 plaintiffs allege a culture of sexual abuse, drugs and pornography in competitive cheerleading. Similar suits have also been filed in six other states, naming five gyms, 15 coaches and two choreographers. Since that first federal civil lawsuit in South Carolina was filed, Rockstar has been hit with three more. NPR has confirmed his death but does not know whether his suicide was related to the federal investigation.ĭHS handles child pornography but won't comment on the case.
The suit says the owner killed himself in late August after learning he was under federal investigation by the Department of Homeland Security. It shuttered in September after a civil lawsuit accused the owner of sexually abusing minors and allowing several coaches to do the same, including the coach the mother says abused her then-13-year-old. Nearly a decade later, Rockstar Cheer and Dance is closed.
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