SC firm files new lawsuit in growing cheerleading sex abuse saga

The South Carolina law firm behind the Rockstar Cheer lawsuit has filed a new suit in Tennessee alleging that a cheerleading gym turned a blind eye to a star coach’s abuse of two young cheerleaders.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for West Tennessee, accuses Premier Athletics, a Tennessee cheerleading gym, of continuing to employ Dominick “Nick” Frizzell after receiving credible allegations that he had abused underage athletes.

The new suit widens the Strom law firm’s claims that competitive cheer’s regulatory bodies, leading for-profit competition organizer and the private equity firms that own them have profited off of a culture of silence around endemic sexual abuse.

“It feels as if they simply don’t care,” Sellers said at a press conference Tuesday. The Columbia attorney and formerS.C. state representative indicated that he “fully expects criminal charges to be filed.” Sellers said that he had been in touch with U.S. Attorneys and that his office had already sent material that they had gathered to an unnamed federal agency.

Sellers was joined in announcing the lawsuit by two attorneys from the Strom Law Firm, Alexandra Benevento and Jessica Fickling, as well as Tennessee state Rep. John Ray Clemmons.

Frizzell, a University of Tennessee cheerleader and a national “cheerlebrity,” according to the lawsuit, which names two John Does, is accused of sending sexually explicit messages and nude images and performing sexual acts on boys as young as 14.

The lawsuit accuses Premier Athletics of being aware of Frizzell’s ongoing behavior with underage athletes. When some athletes and parents attempted to report the abuse, the lawsuit alleges that they were stymied by an intentionally slow and confusing reporting process.

Even after Premier finally reported accusations to United States All Star Federation, the lawsuit alleges that Frizzell continued to coach and train at the gym, which failed to contact victims while conducting an internal investigation.

As in their previous lawsuit against Rockstar Cheer Greenville, the attorneys for the Strom law firm are building the case that cheer’s tremendous profitability has created pressure at every level to cover up allegations of abuse. It charges cheer’s supposedly neutral regulatory bodies, among them the United State All Star Federation, with being complicit in this scheme despite publicly promoting athlete protection.

“We’re going to take a hard look at the system... what it has been done and what it promises to do,” Fickling said.

Also common in both lawsuits is the monopoly cheerleading merchandiser Varsity Brands and its owners, the Boston-based private equity funds Bain Capital and Charlesbank.

“We see this pattern, of Varsity and USASF accepting money from parents to have their children cheer, promising an atmosphere of safety,” said Beneveto, “of not only allowing for this abuse to occur but turning a blind eye when they knew it was occurring.”

USASF has not responded to any requests for comment.

The USASF currently lists Frizzell as temporarily ineligible pending an investigation for a policy violation “related to athlete protection.”