Ex-students file 12 sex abuse lawsuits against 6 cheerleading gyms in 7 states
GREENVILLE, S.C. — It's been eight years since a South Carolina mother told her daughter she thought her cheerleading coach at Rockstar Cheer and Dance in Greenville, S.C., was a nice guy. The comment elicited a conversation and guilt she still can't shake.
"My daughter said, 'Mom, he's not what you think,' " said the woman, who NPR is not identifying to protect her daughter.
It was then that her daughter told her she had been forced to perform oral sex on the coach when she was 13 years old.
"I paid for someone to murder by daughter's childhood," the woman said.
Nearly a decade later, Rockstar Cheer and Dance is closed. 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.
The suit says the owner killed himself in late August after learning he was under federal investigation by the Department of Homeland Security. NPR has confirmed his death but does
