Rockstar Cheer founder Scott Foster
The legal fallout over a prominent cheerleading company’s ongoing sexual abuse scandal continues to expand as attorneys representing several former cheerleaders have filed an amended federal lawsuit naming a bevy of additional defendants and victims earlier this week.
As Law&Crime originally reported, the first lawsuit against Rockstar Cheer and affiliated organizations was filed in a South Carolina state court late last month. That suit contained explosive allegations against since-deceased founder Scott Foster, who shot and killed himself as myriad sexual assault allegations came to light in August.
The ensuing scandal, rife with claims of extreme child sexual abuse and grooming, has since ensnared various governing bodies and standards organization related to the national cheerleading infrastructure, including the United States All Star Federation, which released a statement saying they were “devastated” to learn about the allegations in South Carolina and “potentially other areas as well.”
Numerous lawsuits in the Palmetto State promised litigation on behalf of survivors and a federal lawsuit was quickly filed on Sept. 1, 2022.
On Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022, attorneys with the Strom Law Firm substantially expanded that federal lawsuit.
“We’re talking about serious repeated abuse that was reported to everyone including the Greenville County Sheriff’s Department,” attorney Bakari Sellers said in a statement provided to Law&Crime. “For Varsity Spirit, the USASF and Bain Capital, these survivors didn’t matter. Their checks did. They did nothing to stop this abuse then and they’re doing nothing now.”
At the heart of the revised 76-page petition filed in South Carolina District Court is the allegation that child sexual abuse was both facilitated, and known but ignored and allowed to run rampant, within the vast orbit of Rockstar Cheer in order to keep the money coming in.
“Defendants’ conduct included misleading and fraudulent messaging to children and their families which Defendants knew or should have known would endanger children who were not in a position to discover the danger since Defendants were concealing the danger and failing to report it, acting in reckless indifference to the safety of the children in the name of growing profits,” the filing alleges.
Additional iterations of this claim are repeated throughout the filing:
The Defendants, and all of them in concert with the Enterprise, were engaging in misleading and fraudulent messaging to children and their families which they knew or should have known was endangering children who were not in a position to discover the danger since Defendants were concealing the danger and failing to report it, acting in reckless indifference to the safety of the children in the name of growing profits….The Defendants knew or should have known that inappropriate contact was occurring between coaches, choreographers, videographers, and other adults and minor athletes based on the one-on-one coaching being marketed and the travel of children across state lines with their coaches who stayed in hotel rooms with them and had been rumored, and even captured on camera, engaging in illegal and inappropriate acts with the minors.
Arguably the most egregious claim in the new complaint is leveled against coach Kenny Feeley, who allegedly “climbed into bed with” then-16-year-old Jane Doe 3, “and groped and fondled her, and digitally penetrated her.” The girl, the lawsuit claims, was later raped by Feeley after Foster arranged a “private lesson” between the two.
The filing details those allegations and their aftermath:
Instead of training, however, Defendant Feeley took Plaintiff Jane Doe 3 to his apartment, where he gave her alcohol and marijuana, before transporting Plaintiff Jane Doe 3 to a secondary location, where he raped her.Plaintiff Jane Doe 3 did not try out the next season and ultimately dropped out of the sport because of these incidents.After she was raped by one of Defendant Foster’s coaches, Defendant Foster would comment on the rape while Plaintiff Jane Doe 3 trained at the gym, insinuating that Defendant Foster knew what happened
Five other coaches are named as defendants in the revised lawsuit – which anticipates a very large, 100-plus, class of plaintiffs.
Josh Guyton is accused of touching Jane Doe 5 inappropriately, including “in a sexual and inappropriate way, tickling her and attempting to ‘cuddle’ her.” He also allegedly asked the girl about her “bikini area” shaving habits. The sum of the allegations against Guyton amount to claims he groomed his alleged victim to the point his alleged behavior “was so normalized,” Doe 5 “perceived it as normal.”
Nathan Allan Plank is alleged to have repeatedly sent Jane Doe 7, who was only 13 years old at the time, “videos of himself masturbating” and “nude photos of himself” on at least one occasion. Additionally, the lawsuit claims that Plank “would often grope and touch” Doe 7 inappropriately. The alleged abuse, the filing says, left the girl “feeling powerless” to stop the coach’s alleged behavior out of fear of being “demoted in the program or otherwise punished in a way that would negatively impact her cheer career.”
Christopher Hinton also stands accused of targeting Doe 7, who was 14 at the time, by asking her about her sex life during a movie he had invited her to watch one night. The girl was “uncomfortable, but conflicted as to how to respond” and feared upsetting the coach because she thought it might have resulted in “being targeted by other coaches or ‘blackballed’ in the gym,” according to the filing.
Traevon Black and Peter Holley allegedly bullied John Doe 2 by “making inappropriate and vulgar comments to him” while he cheered for them as a high school student. That behavior continued, the lawsuit says, until he was 16 years old, when Black and Holley “pressured” him to send them nude photographs until he eventually “relented and sent the photos.”
After that, the lawsuit claims, “one of the coaches” sent the boy nude photos as well. The filing goes on, becoming increasingly vague, and without naming a defendant, says Doe 2 was pressured by a coach to attend drug-and-booze-fueled parties at the “Rockstar house” where the coach “tried to engage in oral sex” with him and “forced” him “to watch pornographic videos.”
The local sheriff’s office is also accused of dismissing a mother’s complaints:
Plaintiff Jane Doe 7’s mother reported the abuse of Plaintiff Jane Doe 7 to the Greenville County Sheriff’s Department, and Defendants USASF and Varsity.Plaintiff Jane Doe 7’s mother’s complaints were dismissed as an attempt to manipulate her daughter’s position on the cheer team and in the gym. Plaintiff Jane Doe 7’s mother was told that if she did not like what she was seeing or experiencing at Rockstar, she could “find another gym.”Plaintiff Jane Doe 7 quit cheer and left Rockstar when she was fourteen (14) years old.
Law&Crime reached out to Bain Capital, Varsity Spirit and Feeley’s cheer organization, Spring CDT, for comment on this story but no response was immediately forthcoming at the time of publication.
[image via screengrab/WHNS]