Cheer Lawsuit Filed in Tennessee

It’s no longer just the Rockstar Cheer sex abuse scandal. It’s now officially the Cheer Incorporated sex abuse scandal. According to a new lawsuit filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Memphis, Tennessee, allegations of systemic sexual abuse within the American cheerleading industry have spread from Greenville, South Carolina – where the death by suicide of Rockstar gym owner Scott Foster last month launched a deluge of criminal investigations and federal complaints.

And as I previously reported, this is just the beginning of the metastasis, as additional federal lawsuits are planned for Tennessee – as well as Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Maryland.

Tuesday’s lawsuit was filed in Memphis by attorneys with the Columbia, S.C.-based Strom Law firm – along with their co-counsel, Tennessee state representative John Ray Clemmons.

It was filed on behalf of an anonymous Mary Doe – the mother of one of two John Does who are also listed as plaintiffs.

“This happened to my son,” Mary Doe told me. “They knew. They covered it up. They need to be held accountable.”

Many of the defendants named in the latest lawsuit have already become household names as this scandal continues to escalate.

According to the filing (.pdf), three affiliations of Varsity – the Memphis-based company that’s made billions of dollars selling cheerleading apparel and organizing cheerleading and dance camps/ competitions across the country – are named a defendants. So is Jeff Webb, Varsity’s founder and former owner, along with two companies which purchased ownership interests in Varsity within the last decade – Charlesbank Capital Partners and Bain Capital, the Boston-based investment firm co-founded by U.S. senator Mitt Romney.

Bain purchased Varsity for nearly $3 billion in 2018.

The suit also named the U.S. All Star Federation (USASF) the USA Federation of Sport Cheering (a.k.a. USA Cheer) – two nonprofit entities which purportedly regulate competitive cheerleading and protect cheer athletes. As our audience is well aware, though, both of these nonprofits have long been accused of being “nothing more than fronts for the corporate entities profiting from their lax oversight – both financially and in terms of the widespread sexual exploitation of minors.”

Like the amended South Carolina lawsuit filed on September 15, the first Tennessee complaint also alleges the defendants engaged in “a civil conspiracy in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) act.”

*****

DON’T MISS A STORY …

*****

In other words, attorneys believe they can prove the existence of a “criminal enterprise” in which defendants collaboratively engaged in “a pattern of racketeering activity.”

“Defendants established a competitive environment soliciting young athletes to cross state lines with minimal parental or adult supervision to converge at prescheduled locations where these athletes were then exposed to drugs, alcohol, and predatory conduct by adults, including coaches choreographers, and music producers, all while publicly representing that (they) provided a culture of safety in the sport,” the suit alleged.

The Tennessee case is unique, though. Not only does it implicate new defendants in alleged criminal conduct – it provides a direct link to the alleged sexual abuse and the Varsity empire which has sought to distance itself from the allegations.

New to this suit? Premier Athletics, a Knoxville, Tennessee-based company which teaches gymnastics, cheerleading and tumbling to children. Premier Athletics has facilities in Tennessee, Kentucky and Michigan, according to its website.

According to the lawsuit, this company – through its manager Susan Traylor – “allowed a coach and athlete … to emotionally, physically, and sexually exploit and abuse Premier’s young athletes.”

Both Traylor and Dominick “Nick” Frizzell – the coach accused of perpetrating this abuse – are named as defendants in the case.

The suit claimed that in May or June of 2022, Premier and Traylor received reports that Frizzell, 22, had “engaged in sexual misconduct with some of (Premier’s) minor athletes.” Shortly thereafter, one of these minor athletes “directly reported” multiple alleged sexual solicitation attempts by Frizzell to USASF and to local law enforcement, specifically the office of Knox County sheriff Tom Spangler.

According to the lawsuit, Frizzell “sent nude photographs of himself, as well as videos of (himself) masturbating.” Some of these materials have been provided to this news outlet in support of the allegations contained in the pleading.

Despite these reports, Frizzell was “allowed to continue accessing Premier Athletics’ gym,” the lawsuit noted.