CHICAGO (IL)
New York Daily News
March 1, 2018
By Christian Red
It’s not enough for Laura Mullen that influential volleyball coach Rick Butler has been banned for life by USA Volleyball, permanently disqualified by the Amateur Athletic Union and indefinitely suspended from participating in any Junior Volleyball Association-hosted or insured events due to multiple women accusing Butler of years-long sexual abuse.
According to Mullen’s attorney, Jay Edelson (who is representing Mullen pro bono), the main objective behind Mullen’s explosive class-action civil lawsuit filed against Butler, his wife Cheryl, and the Sports Performance Volleyball Club and Great Lakes Center Butler started more than three decades ago, is to prevent the Butlers from ever interacting with minors.
“If we can prove our allegations — and we feel good about that — the objective is, we think, that Butler and his wife should not be around kids,” Edelson told the Daily News. “This is not about money.”
Mullen, the lead plaintiff and whose daughter played for Butler at Sports Performance, filed the complaint in Illinois federal court Tuesday. Mullen accuses Butler and his wife of “deceiving parents and youth volleyball players to become members of the Sports Performance Volleyball Club based upon false information and material omissions of fact regarding Defendant Butler’s sexual abuse of underage girls.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.