A Marin high school district will pay $17.5 million to settle lawsuits filed by four former students who say they were sexually abused by a tennis coach in the early 2000s.
School coach Normandie Burgos was convicted in 2019 on 60 counts of child molestation after an athlete secretly recorded him admitting to having sex with a minor. He is serving a 255-year prison sentence.
In 2022, a Marin County jury found the Tamalpais Union High School District liable for failing to protect a student from Burgos despite evidence of misconduct. The student in question was Alexander Harrison, who won the bulk of the settlement — $11.5 million — according to a press release from his attorneys.
The other three men remain anonymous. The earliest victim said Burgos raped and sodomized him starting in 1999.
“These men have gone through life-changing moments over the years,” attorney Mark Boskovich said in a press release. “They have contemplated suicide. They have turned to drugs and alcohol to mask and hide the pain. Relationships have been ruined.”
In court filings, the victims said Burgos subjected them to “body fat tests,” which involved taking students to a private room, undressing them, laying them on a massage table, then abusing them.
A victim previously said under oath that, in one instance, a school administrator witnessed Burgos abusing him but failed to intervene — and instead made a joke and left the scene.
Tamalpais Union previously contested the Marin jury’s 2022 ruling that it owed Harrison a $10 million settlement. Its appeal was denied in September by a state appellate court, and the district had to pay Harrison an additional $1.5 million in interest as a result.
The school district confirmed the settlement, and superintendent Tara Taupier said the district’s portion of the payment was $1.1 million.
“We hope this brings closure to all those involved,” Taupier said via email.
An attorney for Harrison did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a 2021 interview with The New York Times, Harrison said that after he reported the abuse in 2006, friends and former teammates who had packed the court in defense of Burgos snickered while he testified.
Harrison, who is in his late 30s, is a Southern California attorney at the sexual abuse law firm Manly, Stewart, Finaldi.
His web bio notes that he spent nearly a decade as a deputy district attorney in Santa Barbara and Orange counties, where he prosecuted child molesters and rapists.
“Alexander is experienced working with survivors of sexual assault and is passionate about helping them getting justice and holding others accountable,” his bio says.