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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Ex-Coach Hit With Underage Sex Lawsuit

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CN) - A teenage volunteer worker was impregnated by a Boys and Girls Club coach twice her age who had been hired in spite of his criminal record, the girl's guardian claims in a lawsuit.

The teen's guardian filed the case in Palm Beach County Court, claiming coach Corey Collier, a Boys and Girls Club employee with a "criminal history," carried on an inappropriate sexual relationship with the sixteen-year-old.

Collier, 32, had met the girl while she was volunteering at the club's Wellington, Fla. location, the court documents say.

He allegedly began flirting with her at the facility and then connected with her online after putting his Twitter name, "Sweetdickwillie," into her cell phone, the complaint says.

The girl's guardian claims the relationship culminated with sexual encounters in Collier's vehicle, outside the teen's family home.

On one occasion, the coach supposedly sneaked into the home to have sex with the girl before she went to school.

A policereport indicates that the girl found out she was pregnant last year, and during a subsequent investigation told the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office that Collier was the father.

The baby was aborted, court documents say.

In June 2014, about two months before the girl's seventeenth birthday, Collier was arrested on felony sex-crime charges.

He admitted to having a sexual relationship with the girl, the police report states.

Collier is listed as a defendant in the civil suit, alongside the Boys and Girls Club of America, and the local Boys and Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County. His defense attorney did not return a phone call.

The lawsuit keeps the teen's name confidential.

The case seeks to hold the Boys and Girls Club defendants liable, alleging that their "institutional culture" led the teen "to respect, emulate and obey Collier," a mindset which made her ripe to be exploited.

Attempting to assert a pattern of lax employee screening, the pleading chronicles recent sexual-misconduct scandals related to Boys and Girls Club of America, including two well-publicized 2014 cases in which a former club mentor from Texas and a counselor in Massachusetts were charged with sexual assault. Also mentioned is a 2012 Chicago lawsuit filed by two teens who said they were coerced into sex with a club employee with an extensive criminal background and more than twenty prior arrests.

In a statement released to Courthouse News, Jaene Miranda, president of Boys and Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County, said the organization's "primary concern is the safety and well-being of the young people we serve."

"[The club] conducts criminal background checks on all employees and volunteers prior to their involvement with young people. The organization does not tolerate illegal or inappropriate activity or behavior on the part of any staff, volunteer or youth members. All facilities are safe and secure," the statement continues. "Mr. Collier was terminated and is barred from any access to Boys & Girls Clubs facilities and programs."

Amanda Lundergan, an attorney for the Florida girl's family, told Courthouse News that the "criminal history" attributed to Collier in the lawsuit did not consist of sex crimes, but rather a set of unspecified charges from Nevada's Clark County area.

The Clark County clerk's office said its records turned up a disorderly conduct case against Collier, as well as a driving-under-the-influence charge.

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