Victim of coach's sexual abuse sues Simi Valley school district

A Simi Valley High School student who was sexually assaulted by a coach at the school in 2019 is suing the Simi Valley Unified School District, claiming it didn’t protect him from someone district and school officials should have known was a threat to children.

Bijan Nickroo, Simi Valley High’s head lacrosse coach and an assistant football coach from 2012 to 2019, is serving three years in state prison for more than 30 sex crimes committed against children, including oral copulation with a minor under 16 and possession of child pornography. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced in January to five years, but given credit for two years spent in Ventura County jail while the trial was pending.

For years, Nickroo “catfished” teen boys, including many Simi High students, by using fake profiles on social media and dating apps and asking the boys for nude photos and videos. During their criminal investigation, police identified 28 such victims.

His behavior only came to light after the parents of a 14-year-old boy told police that Nickroo had engaged in sexual acts with their son in his classroom after contacting him on an app and soliciting nude photos and videos. That boy, now 17 and a senior at Simi Valley High, filed a lawsuit last week against both Nickroo and the district.

The boy is identified as "John Doe" in the lawsuit, and The Star does not name underage or adult victims of sexual abuse unless they choose to be publicly identified. He is seeking unspecified damages as well as attorneys' fees from both Nickroo and the school district.

Jake Finch, a spokesperson for Simi Valley Unified, said the district has not been served with the lawsuit and can't comment on pending litigation. The district also can't comment on matters related to student or staff privacy, she said.

The student's attorney, Neil Gehlawat of Los Angeles law firm Taylor & Ring, said that in a case like this, "the perpetrators rarely, if ever, contribute to a settlement."

Gehlawat said the lawsuit is less about whether Nickroo abused the boy — since he pleaded no contest and is serving a prison sentence — but whether the school district should have done more to protect the student. If the case ends up before a jury and the student wins, the jury will decide what portion of the responsibility will be born by Nickroo and how much by the school district, Gehlawat said.

Nickroo worked at a Boys & Girls Club before he was hired at Simi Valley High, and then was a coach and yard supervisor at the school for seven years before he was arrested. Gehlawat said that should have been more than enough time for the district to discover that he was targeting students.

"What I can tell you from handling other cases like this is, there are almost always red flags along the way," Gehlawat said. "Someone who has a proclivity to do this to so many students is going to leave tracks along the way."

Nickroo messaged Gehlawat's client on the dating app Grindr in the fall of 2019, when Nickroo was 32 and the boy was 14.

The student told Nickroo his age, according to the lawsuit, and Nickroo replied, "I know. Don't remind me." They began to talk regularly and "engage in wildly inappropriate and sexually explicit conversations," the lawsuit states.

Nickroo then arranged to meet the student on campus, outside of school hours, while the boy was preparing with the cheer team for an upcoming football game. According to his lawsuit, the boy left the cheer team to go to Nickroo's classroom, where the coach sexually assaulted him, gave him candy and send him back to the gym. The cheer coach was in the gym when the boy left, the lawsuit claims, and "knew or should have known" that he was missing.

"Those kids should be supervised at all times," Gehlawat said. "They're not allowed to go off on their own and do whatever they want. …When the kid’s gone for 30 minutes, it's not like he stepped out to the restroom. Why was he allowed to wander off and go into this classroom? It wasn’t like it was in the middle of the school day. It was in the evening before a football game."

The boy is now in his last year at Simi Valley High and "he's been struggling," Gehlawat said.

"It's been challenging for him," he said. "There are whispers and people saying things and gossiping, and that's never easy. He's experienced embarrassment, humiliation, guilt, anxiety and all of that for a kid who's in high school."

Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Sexual abuse victim sues Simi Valley school district