More allegations for ex-Naperville cheer coach

A former co-owner of a private Naperville cheerleading school recently sentenced to 40 months in prison for molesting an underage student has a history of sexual misconduct, including impregnating another teen, a lawsuit filed Monday alleges.

Bradley S. Abrahams, 30, was ordered last week to register as a lifetime sex offender for having an unlawful sexual relationship with the girl, beginning in December 2005 when she was a 13-year-old cheerleader.

Her family is seeking more than $50,000 in damages from Abrahams and the now-defunct Illinois Cheer Extreme (ICE) Athletics, which opened in May 2003 at 123 Ambassador Drive.

The lawsuit accuses Abrahams of:

• an inappropriate relationship with an underage girl while working at an undisclosed cheer/dance summer camp in 1996. The camp director sent Abrahams home.

• soliciting, while an assistant coach in 2002, a Naperville Central High School student cheerleader to meet him at a hotel to go swimming and repeatedly calling the girl. He was fired.

• impregnating a 16-year-old cheerleader, to whom he was later ordered to pay child support, in 2002.

• inviting a 17-year-old female recruit to come to his house to play "strip Monopoly" and with bath toys in May 2003.

• groping a 17-year-old female recruit after inviting her to his Naperville apartment to watch a cheerleading video in summer 2003. Abrahams later was acquitted of misdemeanor battery at trial.

In Monday's lawsuit, the cheerleading school is accused of "carelessly and negligently" supervising Abrahams despite his "dangerous criminal propensities to commit acts of sexual abuse/assault against young girls."

His former business partner, who operates a new cheerleading school at the same Naperville location, is not a defendant in the civil action, but he is named as a respondent for depositions.

"There were a lot of red flags at the facility and during Abrahams' prior work history in which he was dismissed for inappropriate conduct," said attorney Michael S. Cetina, of the Oakbrook Terrace firm Cetina & Jacques, which filed the lawsuit. "His partner should have known of his conduct and propensity to commit deviant acts against children."

Abrahams pleaded guilty in October to aggravated criminal sexual abuse of the 13-year-old student. At last week's sentencing, an apologetic Abrahams acknowledged he betrayed the girl's trust and said he accepts full responsibility. She, too, spoke about the crime's impact.

"I may not have screamed or fought against Brad, but I was only a child who was incapable of making such a grown-up choice," the now 17-year-old Aurora girl said.

An attorney for Abrahams' former business partner said Monday he is reviewing the lawsuit. A message left with Abrahams' civil attorney was not immediately returned.