VAN NUYS (CNS) - A teenage girl who sued a former jiujitsu trainer and his Agoura Hills business, alleging he sexually molested her when she was one of his students, has reached a tentative settlement with another academy where she sometimes trained.
The girl is identified only as Jane Doe in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed on her behalf by her guardian in November 2020 against 32- year-old Nicollas Welker Araujo, owner of the Overall Brazilian Jiujitsu Academy which opened in 2016 and has since been closed. Overall also is a defendant in the suit, as is the second school, Cobrinha Brazilian Jil Jitsu Executive.
Attorneys for the plaintiff filed court papers on Thursday with Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Shirley K. Watkins notifying her of the tentative accord.
"The settlement agreement conditions dismissal of this matter on the satisfactory completion of specified terms," the plaintiff's attorneys' court papers state, adding that a request for dismissal will be filed by Aug. 22. No settlement terms were revealed.
The judge was scheduled to hear Cobrinha's motion to dismiss the part of the plaintiff's case against the business on Friday. Cobrinha lawyers maintained in their court papers that although Cobrinha allowed Araujo the use of the Cobrinha logo and that a link to Overall was on the Cobrinha website, Cobrinha "had no further arrangement with Overall and lacked any oversight or control over Overall."
Doe went to Cobrinha once or twice weekly in order to train with better competitors and although Araujo arrived with her, he did not coach her and was instead himself a student there, according to the Cobrinha attorneys' court papers.
"Despite Cobrinha's deep sympathy for the pain and suffering that Araujo put plaintiff and her family through, there is no basis in law or facts to hang liability for these egregious attacks on an innocent third party," the Cobrinha lawyers argued in their court papers. "The law is clear that the use of Cobrinha's logo, without any control of Overall, does not transform Cobrinha and Overall into a single entity for liability purposes."
Neither Araujo nor Overall have responded to the suit, according to the Cobrinha attorneys' court papers.
But according to the plaintiff's attorneys' court papers, Araujo was "so emboldened by the platform that Cobrinha provided him with its utter lack of any supervision, Araujo would sexually abuse plaintiff in the parking lot serving Cobrinha within mere minutes of when plaintiff and Araujo were in Cobrinha's gym."
The plaintiff, then 13, began attending Overall Brazilian for jiujitsu training in December 2016 and Araujo often coached the girl at Cobrinha, a jiujitsu studio affiliated with the academy, according to the suit.
That same month, Araujo began grooming Doe with the goal of "manipulating her emotions and taking advantage of her young age so that he could ultimately sexually abuse her," the suit alleges.
Araujo began online adult-level conversations with Doe and gave her extra attention, the suit states. His first improper act was a kiss he gave the girl in February 2017 and that behavior progressed to unlawful sex acts that continued until October 2018, when Doe was 15 years old and for the first time had the mental strength to tell her family about the abuse, according to the suit.
Her relatives called law enforcement and Araujo was arrested in March 2019 and charged with felony counts that resulted in his being sentenced in September 2020 to three years in prison, according to the suit.
The suit alleges the academy "engaged in a concerted effort to hide evidence relating to childhood sexual assault, abuse and harassment perpetrated by Araujo against other minor children" before he allegedly abused the plaintiff.
"As a result of this coverup, plaintiff was sexually assaulted by Araujo," the suit states.
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