In a significant legal development, a school district in Marin County, California, has agreed to pay $17.5 million to four former high school students who accused a predatory tennis coach of sexual abuse.
This resolution marks the conclusion of a long legal and personal journey for one of the plaintiffs, Alex Harrison, who was the first to come forward with the allegations.
Harrison, now a lawyer in Southern California, was once a star tennis player at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California, but his efforts to expose the abuse were met with resistance and disbelief from those around him.
The abuse took place in the late 1990s and early 2000s under the coaching of Normandie Burgos, a respected coach and gym teacher at the school.
Harrison’s testimony in 2006 was pivotal in bringing the allegations to light, but it was initially met with skepticism. His teammates and their families rallied behind Burgos, and the court proceedings became hostile.
At one point, Harrison recalled, people in the gallery laughed at him so loudly that the judge threatened to remove them. Despite his courage to speak out, the criminal case ended in a mistrial in 2010. However, Burgos was later convicted of molesting two other players and sentenced to 255 years in prison.
Harrison’s case did not end there. After his initial testimony, he filed a lawsuit against the Tamalpais Union High School District, accusing it of negligence for failing to protect students from Burgos’s predatory behavior.
In 2022, a jury awarded Harrison $10 million, but the district appealed the decision, claiming it had acted reasonably given the limited information at the time. In the meantime, four more students came forward with their own allegations, including one who said Burgos had sodomized him in the school’s locker room.
In September, a state appellate court ruled against the district, prompting them to settle. The district paid $11.5 million to Harrison and $4.5 million to the plaintiff who alleged he was sodomized.
The remaining two plaintiffs received $750,000 each. The school district, however, did not acknowledge any liability or wrongdoing in the settlements. Mark Boskovich, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, confirmed the settlements.
Harrison, now 38, expressed relief that the case was finally over after nearly two decades. His experiences during this time have influenced his career choice; he worked for several years as a prosecutor with the district attorney’s offices in Orange and Santa Barbara counties.
Reflecting on the years of legal battles and personal struggle, he said, “It’s been over 18 years. I didn’t have control over my life.” The legal journey had been exhausting, but it had also given him the opportunity to help others.
In another ongoing case, a fifth plaintiff, who remains anonymous, is scheduled to go to trial in February. The plaintiff’s attorney, Adam Slater, commended the courage of all the victims who had come forward, noting that their experiences were similar to those of many of Burgos’s other victims.
The district, represented by Superintendent Tara Taupier, declined to comment on the cases. Meanwhile, Burgos, now 61, has lost his criminal appeal in California state courts. A separate appeal is pending in the Federal District Court for Northern California, but his lengthy prison sentence remains intact.
At the time of the initial mistrial in 2010, other high-profile sexual abuse scandals, like those involving Jerry Sandusky at Penn State and Larry Nassar with U.S. Gymnastics, had not yet surfaced.
In recent years, however, states like California, New York, and New Jersey have temporarily lifted statutes of limitations for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, which allowed the victims in the Burgos case to pursue civil suits.
The abuse occurred between 1998 and 2002, with most of the victims being part of Tamalpais High School’s tennis team. One of the plaintiffs, who attended a small private school without a tennis team, was introduced to Burgos by a top Tamalpais player.
The lawsuit claimed that Burgos had lured the student into the locker room, threatening to kick him off the team if he did not comply. One incident was allegedly witnessed by a school official, who did nothing to stop it.
The plaintiff, now 41, said he has struggled emotionally with the trauma and has contemplated self-harm. He plans to use part of his settlement money to help other victims of abuse by setting up a shelter for abused children in Peru.
Harrison, after his legal victory, left his job as a prosecutor to work at a private law firm representing sexual abuse victims.
One of his most high-profile cases involved two women who received nearly $10 million in settlement after they accused a San Diego horse ranch of sexual abuse. But Harrison admitted that the case hit too close to home. “It was very overwhelming,” he said.
Looking ahead, Harrison has marked a date in July 2037 on his calendar: the date when Burgos will be eligible for parole. Harrison plans to remind the other survivors of Burgos’s crimes at that time, continuing the fight for justice and ensuring that their voices are never forgotten.
