More Rockstar Cheer sexual abuse accusations revealed in new lawsuits

Three new plaintiffs accused coaches at a local cheerleading gym of sexual abuse in three lawsuits filed Tuesday, the latest escalation in a case that has thus far involved nine coaches, targeted the highest authorities in cheerleading and ensnared gyms in two states.

The unnamed plaintiffs allege Scott Foster, Christopher Hinton, Josh Guyton, Traevon Black and Jared Carrubba committed various forms of misconduct with and against underage athletes, including sexual assault, and providing drugs and alcohol to minors.

The abuse is alleged to have occurred while the defendants were coaching at Rockstar Cheer and Dance Inc. The Greer-based competitive cheerleading gym closed in September amid snowballing allegations of abuse against Foster, its deceased owner and founder.

Josh Guyton "strongly" denied the allegations through his attorney, William Yarborough, who noted Guyton has never been criminally charged.

"He had a very good relationship with the employer and the people that they coached and was just shocked that anyone said anything like that about him," Yarborough said.

The Greenville News reached out to Traevon Black, also known as Tracey Black, and Christopher Hinton on social media in September after they were accused of misconduct in a previous lawsuit. Black said they were unaware of the allegations and subsequently deactivated their social media account. Hinton never responded to messages.

Rockstar Cheer scandal:What to know about Scott Foster lawsuits, allegations

Previous reporting:New Rockstar Cheer lawsuit alleges sexual abuse, attacks competitive cheerleading culture

Likewise, attempts to contact Carrubba via social media and phone were not successful.

The lawsuits filed this week in federal court are the third, fourth and fifth overall alleging abuse at Rockstar. Though plaintiffs' attorneys announced the lawsuits in a press release Tuesday, copies of the verified filings didn't become available through online court records until Wednesday.

Thirteen unnamed plaintiffs have accused Foster, Guyton, Hinton, Black and other Rockstar coaches of a range of misconduct, including rape, providing drugs and alcohol to underage athletes, groping and inappropriate touching, and exchanging sexual images with minors.

Foster died by suicide in August, according to the Greenville County Coroner’s Office.

No law enforcement agency has publicly acknowledged an investigation into the accusations.

Like their predecessors, Tuesday's lawsuits also allege institutional failures at cheer's highest levels, attacking the sport’s business model and governance. Entities like Varsity Spirit, which organizes cheer competitions, Varsity's parent company Bain Capital, and the United States All-Star Federation, competitive cheer's governing body, are accused of having "created, organized and propagated a system of young-athlete abuse against innocent victims."

Varsity and cheer's governing bodies "knew or should have known that... coaches and gyms were pervasively abusing their athletes," according to the lawsuit.

Coaches accused of "sexual assault," providing drugs and alcohol to minors

In the first of three lawsuits, a plaintiff identified only as “Jane Doe 8” accuses Guyton, Black and Hinton of a variety of misconduct. Guyton, the lawsuit alleges, brought the 15-year-old plaintiff to a party where he, Black and other unidentified individuals provided her and other minor Rockstar athletes with alcohol and marijuana.

At the party, Jane Doe 8 claims she “was forced to participate” in an activity called “the firetruck game,” which the complaint describes as “a form of sexual assault.” According to the lawsuit, participants in “the firetruck game” “slide their hands up the upper thigh of another person until that person says ‘red light.’ The person whose hands are traveling typically does not stop and instead replies, ‘firetrucks don’t stop for red lights.’”

Jane Doe 8 claims Guyton touched her inappropriately during “the firetruck game” and then had sex with her in Black’s bedroom. The plaintiff alleges she and Guyton had sex in the same location “on at least two or three occasions” while she was still a minor.

Guyton categorically denied these allegations through his lawyer, William Yarborough.

Jane Doe 8 also accuses Hinton of abuse, alleging he sent her “sexually explicit messages” and nude photos on social media and solicited nude photos from her. Around the same time, Jane Doe 8 claims Hinton “forcibly kissed" her at Black’s home and touched her inappropriately “on multiple occasions” during training.

Jane Doe 8 alleges Foster knew about Hinton and Guyton’s misconduct, in particular, because Foster “would make comments” to her about her sexual encounters with Guyton.

In the second of the three lawsuits, a separate unidentified plaintiff, “Jane Doe 9,” describes a culture of pervasive drug and alcohol use by Rockstar athletes, coaches, and even athletes’ parents. The lawsuit alleges Jane Doe 9 was exposed to a range of illegal substances through her participation at Rockstar and eventually became “dependent on drugs and alcohol,” leading to an ongoing “substance abuse disorder and… related mental health problems.”

The lawsuit characterizes Jane Doe 9's time at Rockstar “as a ‘cycle’ of practice, using drugs to the point of gross intoxication, engaging in sexual acts, returning to the gym the following day for practice, and repeating the cycle.”

Jane Doe 9 accuses coaches Black and Guyton of participating in and taking advantage of this culture. Black is alleged to have provided the plaintiff with cocaine and helped her purchase the substance. Guyton, meanwhile, is accused of having “sexually assaulted” the plaintiff while she was “heavily intoxicated” at a competition in Florida.

Guyton had previously sent Jane Doe 9 “sexually explicit messages” on social media and requested replies in kind when she was just 15, according to the complaint.

Yarborough, Guyton's attorney, acknowledged that Guyton was "probably" at the competition in Florida but strongly denied any accusation of sexual misconduct.

"I don't think there's any substantive truth in it," he said. Guyton "would not have put himself in a situation that was not appropriate."

The plaintiff in the third and final lawsuit filed Tuesday, identified only as “John Doe 3,” makes accusations against three coaches — Foster, Black, and Carrubba.

Drawn to Rockstar by its reputation and “the caliber of its coaches,” John Doe 3 began training at the gym when he was 15. Black, then an adult coach, allegedly “engaged in sexual intercourse with… John Doe 3 on numerous occasions” soon thereafter.

According to the lawsuit, this “sexual conduct… was well known” within Rockstar, but no adult ever attempted to intervene. John Doe 3 has since “participated in sexual abuse therapy to cope with the trauma associated with the years of abuse” by Black, the lawsuit claims.

John Doe 3 also alleges misconduct by coaches Foster and Carrubba. Carrubba allegedly sent “sexually explicit messages and photos” via social media to the 15-year-old plaintiff, while Foster is accused of providing alcohol, cigarettes, and cocaine to the minor. 

Sexual abuse allegations surfaced in previous lawsuits

Several of the coaches implicated in Tuesday’s lawsuits were accused of abuse in prior filings.

Foster is alleged to have committed a range of misconduct. One suit, filed Aug. 31 on behalf of an unidentified minor plaintiff, claims Foster exchanged sexual messages and images with the child and "persuaded" the girl "into performing various sexual acts" with him on at least 10 occasions. Foster is also accused of providing alcohol to the minor "in an effort to further persuade" her "to perform sexual acts with him."

A subsequent lawsuit amended Sept. 15 makes similarly graphic allegations against Foster, accusing him of exchanging sexual images with female and male minors, providing drugs and alcohol to athletes under his care, and engaging in a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old.

Several of the other coaches named as defendants in the most recent lawsuits were also accused in the Sept. 15 filing. In that complaint, an unidentified female plaintiff alleged Hinton forced her to perform oral sex on him when she was 14 years old and an athlete at Rockstar. According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff did not report Hinton’s alleged assault for fear that “coaches or others at Rockstar would target” her sister, who also trained at the gym.

In the same lawsuit, Guyton is alleged to have touched a different female plaintiff inappropriately while coaching her at Rockstar, while Black, in addition to another coach, Peter Holley, is accused of "making inappropriate and vulgar comments" to an unidentified male plaintiff after the plaintiff joined the gym at age 14. Two years later, when the male plaintiff was 16, Black and Holley solicited “nude photographs” from the minor, according to the complaint.

One of the two coaches, whose identity is left unspecified, was alleged to have also sent nude photos of himself to the plaintiff.

Holley is not named in the most recent lawsuit. Guyton denied the accusations of inappropriate touching through his attorney.

Hinton, Guyton, Black and Holley are all included on USASF and USA Cheer’s unified list of individuals ineligible for membership. Black and Guyton were added to the list after the Sept. 15 amended lawsuit was filed. Hinton had been permanently banned since March 2022 after his employer, James DeFranco of Island All Starz in Staten Island, New York, said he discovered that Hinton had been providing private lessons at his gym without his knowledge.

According to a notice reviewed by The Greenville News, Hinton's USASF membership was initially suspended in January 2019. Hinton submitted to appeal the decision in December 2019 and in August 2020. His USASF membership was then reinstated with conditions on a probationary term, according to the notice.

According to DeFranco, Hinton's initial USASF violation was for a text message he sent to a minor. DeFranco said he thought the message was sent to an athlete at Rockstar Cheer but that USASF indicated no inappropriate physical conduct had occurred in the case.

USASF cleared Hinton to coach as long as he wasn't training athletes alone and was not permitted into the warm-up or backstage areas at competitions, DeFranco said.

Meanwhile, Guyton was suspended by the Pittsburgh Superstars following the Sept. 15 lawsuit, where he was employed three and a half months earlier, according to a spokesperson for the team. According to a statement verified by The News, employees at the gym in Pittsburgh had no knowledge of Guyton's alleged conduct.

The Pittsburgh Superstars have since hired an "out-of-area law firm" to investigate claims made against Guyton, according to the statement. The gym was previously licensing the Rockstar name before the initial lawsuit against Foster in August and was among gyms that have since rebranded.

Jared Carrubba was publicly accused for the first time in the lawsuit filed Tuesday. He is currently not included on the USASF ineligibility list.

Premier Athletics in Tennessee among other cheerleading gyms accused of abuse

The complaints against coaches at Rockstar have precipitated a bevy of abuse allegations against coaches at other, unrelated gyms.

On Sept. 26, Strom Law Firm filed a separate lawsuit alleging a coach sexually abused underage boys at Premier Athletics, a cheer gym in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Though the suit did not name Rockstar, Hinton, Black, Guyton or Foster, it shared language with its South Carolina predecessor characterizing the competitive cheerleading system as corrupt and rampant with abuse.

“Rockstar is emblematic of the culture that is pervasive throughout the industry,” said Bakari Sellers, an attorney for Strom. “Rockstar is not the only gym (where abuse is alleged to have taken place). But the drugs, the alcohol, the influence of adults over minors, the lack of rules, breed this across the country.”

Sellers also said his firm intends to file similar suits against gyms in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Maryland and California in the coming weeks. These lawsuits will also name Varsity, USASF and Bain as defendants, Sellers said.

Rockstar Cheer and Dance Inc. was founded in 2007 by Scott Foster and his wife, Kathy. When Foster died, 16 other gyms across the country were using the Rockstar Cheer name and brand through licensing agreements. At least 10 severed their connection in the wake of the allegations.

None of the Rockstar-affiliate gyms have been named in the lawsuits.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: More Rockstar Cheer sexual abuse accusations revealed in new lawsuits