Why aren’t SC investigators looking closer into Rockstar Cheer child sex abuse claims?
Rockstar Cheer is at the center of five lawsuits in South Carolina that identify at least a dozen youth victims. Federal agents are investigating the cheerleading gym, which was near Greer. Another related lawsuit is filed in Tennessee. But South Carolina state investigators aren’t touching the case.
Why not? They should be all over this situation. Any allegations of systemic harm to children as broad as described in the lawsuits should be fully investigated by federal and state authorities.
The sheriff of Greenville County needs to call in the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to investigate because crimes might have happened across county lines. The state Attorney General’s Office should also make inquiries into the case. If either of these agencies don’t get involved, criminal acts against children may go unpunished.
In late August, Rockstar Cheer owner Scott Foster killed himself as the federal Department of Homeland Security investigated him. Later that month, Columbia and Greenville attorneys filed the first of a series of lawsuits against Rockstar Cheer on behalf of children and parents who allege that Foster and at least six others coaches sexually abused the children and plied them with drugs and alcohol.
In the lawsuits, the victims and their attorneys claim that a culture of silence, cover-ups and indifference among national cheerleading organizations allowed coaches at Rockstar Cheer and a Tennessee-based coach to get away with abuse. Foster’s wife, who was also the gym’s co-founder, closed Rockstar Cheer in September.
This week, the attorneys filed three new lawsuits with similar claims against Foster’s estate and others, as reported by The State’s Lyn Riddle.
The lawsuits will no doubt remind people of Larry Nassar, a USA Gymnastics doctor who sexually abused girls and young women for more than a decade, and of the Catholic church’s sexual abuse scandal, in which the church was found to have covered up crimes of priests by, in part, moving the them to new churches.
Federal investigators will be looking for evidence of the most serious allegations; maybe human trafficking, racketeering and sexual abuse. Some allegations of supplying alcohol and drugs to minors and soliciting minors might be dropped if federal prosecutors offer plea deals. That’s why South Carolina investigator need to step in.
If substantiated, none of the heinous allegations in the lawsuits should go unpunished in criminal court. That punishment is less likely to happen if the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office doesn’t ask SLED to investigate.
SLED agents don’t typically open independent investigations but instead serve as a support agency when other municipal or county police agencies request help.
Lt. Ryan Flood of the sheriff’s office said the department hasn’t called in SLED because “nobody has brought forth a complaint” to deputies.
Greenville County investigators can read. Claims of criminal acts are being alleged in the lawsuit documents. Not getting any complaints is not an excuse for Greenville County Sheriff’s Office officials to sit on their hands and avoid calling in SLED. The sheriff’s office can act independently of a complaint. If this was a clearly frivolous lawsuit, of course deputies shouldn’t look into it. But the allegations in the Rockstar Cheer lawsuits have all the characteristics of other child abuse conspiracies that were substantiated.
The homeland security department “initiated the investigation” into Rockstar Cheer and its former owner, Flood said. “Federal investigations regularly result in stiffer penalties and carry more weight than state charges. Additionally, if local agencies were to run their own investigations you can run the risk of compromising the already ongoing investigation.”
Certainly federal and state police can figure out how to work together and not compromise any investigations. U.S. agents and state police work together on cases all the time.
Where’s the Attorney General’s Office in all this? Attorney General Alan Wilson is typically a hawk on allegations of crimes against children.
Robert Kittle, spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, said that the 13th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, which prosecutes criminal cases in Greenville and Pickens counties, “is already ensuring that South Carolina’s role in justice is being taken care of.”
The solicitor’s office is quick to investigate crimes against children, and the office has a special division for crimes committed against children over the internet, Kittle said. “If the Rockstar Cheer investigation shows that any of these alleged crimes against children involved the internet, then we might get involved. The bottom line is that our office might get involved in this case.”
That’s a start. But the “might” should turn into “will definitely.”
With at least a dozen victim allegations, the Rockstar Cheer case has the potential to be a sprawling child sexual abuse conspiracy. The lawsuits have alleged that Foster and other coaches used text and social media apps to send nude photos and sexually explicit messages and to request the same from minors. That should be enough for the AG’s office to get involved.
The public needs be assured that some of the most disturbing allegations that can be brought are fully investigation at all levels. More than the public, the victims deserve an investigation by the state.
This story was originally published October 14, 2022 at 9:11 AM.