![]() She too says she reported the abuse to cheerleading’s governing body but has yet to hear back about an investigation. Her son was physically threatened if he told. The mother of one of those boys, a 15-year-old, says she just learned about the abuse in September. This one alleges a coach at the Premier Athletics Knoxville West gym sexually abused two boys. Sellers and his team have since filed a similar lawsuit in Tennessee. Sellers says the owner killed himself after learning he was under federal investigation.Īssociated Press Sellers and his team have since filed a similar lawsuit in Tennessee. The Greenville gym closed after the suit was filed in September and following the August suicide of its owner. He’s one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit against Rockstar. “What they’re going through is unimaginable,” says attorney Bakari Sellers, with the Strom Law Firm in Columbia. The suits filed in South Carolina, Tennessee and North Carolina not only allege coaches sexually abused minors, but gyms and some of cheerleading’s top institutions engaged in civil conspiracy in failing to stop it.Īt Rockstar alone, a dozen male and female cheerleaders say they were supplied with drugs and alcohol, and sexually abused in cars, hotels and private homes. Now, those two Rockstar coaches and several others are named in a series of federal civil lawsuits. The mother, whose name is not being used to protect her daughter’s identity, says reports to authorities and cheerleading’s governing body were ignored. “I paid for someone to murder my daughter’s childhood.” The mom says her daughter, now an adult, still suffers from emotional trauma from the abuse eight years ago. Another coach, the girl said, had inappropriately touched her and sent sexually explicit photos. The mother pulled over and pried for details, until her daughter finally revealed the coach, she praised, had forced her to perform a sex act when she was 13-years-old. ![]() “I said, ‘he just seems like a nice guy’ and my daughter said, ‘Mom, he’s not what you think’.'” She even worked part time at the gym.īut a casual conversation in the car about a coach quickly became concerning. As a single mother of two, she held down several jobs so her daughters could compete for a prominent cheerleading gym, Rockstar Cheer and Dance in Greenville.
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