Men accuse defendants of negligence
Four men who were sexually abused as children by Terence Stevens, their former youth soccer coach convicted of the crime, have filed a lawsuit.
The suit alleges that abuse was caused by negligence on the part of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office and the American Youth Soccer Organization.
According to the lawsuit, four separate complaints of suspected child molestation were made to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office in the 1980s and early ’90s.
However, the lawsuit states that those complaints were neither properly investigated nor cross-reported to other child protective agencies as is required by law. The suit alleges that due to negligence by both the AYSO and the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, numerous children were sexually molested by Mr. Stevens from the 1980s to the 2000s from Lompoc to San Diego County, where Mr. Stevens coached youth soccer teams.
In 2013, after being caught on video tape molesting a child, Mr. Stevens was criminally prosecuted and convicted. He was convicted of sexually abusing numerous children and is serving a 30-year prison sentence.
The suit alleges that in response to the first complaint, which was filed in 1982, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office failed to interview the suspected victims or their families and failed to cross-report the suspected abuse to Child Protective Services, as required by the California Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act. At the time, the sheriff’s investigating officer noted in his report that Mr. Stevens was the varsity soccer coach for a high school in Lompoc and an AYSO youth soccer coach. The lawsuit alleges additional complaints of suspected child molestation in 1989 and two in 1991 and states they were similarly not properly investigated or cross-reported.
“The failure to properly respond to complaints Terence Stevens was sexually abusing children caused countless children to be sexually molested by Stevens over his more than three decade long soccer coaching career,” said Anthony M. DeMarco, the attorney representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
“The Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act and its investigation and cross reporting requirements were established to ensure as much diligence and expertise as possible are put into responding to complaints of suspected sexual abuse of children,” Mr. DeMarco said.
“These laws were not followed by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, and because of it, a serial predator like Terence Stevens was allowed for decades to ravage the lives of this community’s children. It is our belief that this failure was part of a broader policy and practice of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department of not cross-reporting complaints of suspected child sexual abuse to other children protective agencies,” the attorney said.
The lawsuit was filed using a window in the civil statute of limitations, which allows for the filing of child sexual abuse lawsuits regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred. That window will close on Dec. 31, 2022.
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office is “unable to comment on pending litigation,” Raquel Zick, the department’s public information officer, told the News-Press Tuesday.
email: kzehnder@newspress.com
