More than ten years after the initial sexual abuse case against a former high school tennis coach was declared a mistrial, the school district of Marin County, California, has paid $17.5 million to four former students who accused the coach of abusing them while they were on the team.
In 2006, Alex Harrison, 38, was the first student that came forward to tell the police about the events at Tamalpais High School in the affluent neighborhood of Mill Valley. Harrison, who had been a star player on the tennis team, said he was not believed by anyone when he first testified against the high profile coach and gym teacher, Normandie Burgos, 61.
During the trial, Harrison’s teammates, friends, and their parents showed up in support Burgos. At one point, they snickered at Harrison so loudly the judge threatened to remove them, according to court papers obtained by The New York Times. The criminal case ended in a mistrial in 2010, resulting in Harrison being blackballed in his sporting community.
Burgos was later convicted of molesting two more star tennis players, and was eventually found guilty of 60 counts of child molestation. He is now serving a 255-year prison sentence.
Only in recent years since Burgos’s mistrial have some states such as New York, California, and New Jersey temporarily lifted statutes of limitations to allow adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file civil cases.
After initially testifying as John Doe to protect his identity, Harrison went public in The New York Times about his trauma. He also filed a lawsuit accusing Burgos’s employer, the Tamalpais Union High School District, of being negligent. Four more students accusing Burgos of sexual abuse also sued.
A jury believed Harrison in 2022 and awarded him $10 million, but the district, which contended it acted reasonably with limited information, appealed. In September, a state appellate court ruled 2 to 1 against the district, and it elected to pay the judgment at that point, going on to settle without acknowledging liability or wrongdoing, and with three plaintiffs who had been scheduled to go to trial this month.
Tara Taupier, the district’s superintendent, said in an email to The New York Times that the district would not comment on the cases.
“I’m just relieved for it to be over,” said Harrison, who is now a lawyer in Southern California. “It’s been over 18 years. I didn’t have control over my life.”
He said his experiences had influenced his decision to become a prosecutor, and he worked for several years for the Orange County and Santa Barbara County district attorneys offices. In one high-profile case, he helped two women who said they were abused at a well-known horse ranch in the San Diego area win almost $10 million.
Last week, the district mailed out checks totaling $11.5 million for Harrison and $4.5 million for a plaintiff who said he was sodomized by Burgos in the school locker room multiple times. The district also paid $750,000 each to two more plaintiffs, said Mark Boskovich, whose law firm represented the four accusers.
Burgos lost his criminal appeal in California’s state courts. Eric R. Larson, his court-appointed appellate lawyer, said a separate appeal is pending in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California.
According to court documents, one of Tamalpais’s top players introduced the student who received $4.5 million, a talented player who attended a small private school that did not have a team, to Burgos, who invited him to join the Tamalpais team. Burgos eventually lured him into the locker room and warned him that he would be kicked off the team if he did not comply, the lawsuit reads. It also records that at least one school official had witnessed the incident and did nothing.
“Burgos had his hands on John Doe’s naked genitals when the door to the coach’s locker room opened and an adult male exclaimed, ‘Oh, looks like you’re having fun’ and laughed off the situation,” court papers said.
In an interview with The New York Times, the student, now 41, said he has since struggled emotionally and contemplated self-harm. He said he had set up a shelter for abused children in Peru, where he lived for several years, and said he planned to use some of his settlement money to help others.
A fifth case against Burgos, filed by another anonymous plaintiff, is scheduled for trial in February.
“Our client was sexually abused by Mr. Burgos in the same fashion as Mr. Burgos’s numerous other victims,” said Adam Slater, whose firm represented the fifth plaintiff. “We are continuing to fight vigorously to bring justice for our client and commend all others for coming forward.”
