Coach dismissed from lawsuit over teen’s distribution of sexually explicit video

A retired Bella Vista High School football coach has been removed from a lawsuit that accused school officials of failing to stop the distribution of child pornography. The suit also accuses a high school student of sexual assault for illegally recording and spreading sexually explicit video of his girlfriend.

On behalf of her daughter, a parent is suing a student and his parent for child sexual abuse and infliction of emotional distress. She is also suing Bella Vista High School employees and San Juan Unified School District for negligence.

The complaint alleges that in September 2023, a male student secretly recorded the plaintiff performing oral sex at the baseball field dugout on the Bella Vista campus in Fair Oaks. A few days later, the male student told her that he had a video recording of this encounter on his phone.

The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento Superior Court in October 2024, alleges that the plaintiff brought this information to the attention to school employees, who it alleges failed to report the information to the authorities as mandated reporters of child sexual abuse. The lawsuit also alleges the school officials failed to prevent the male student from circulating the video to others.

The Sacramento Bee is not naming the students or their parents to protect the identity of the minors.

Former coach Jim Gray was named as one of the school employees in the lawsuit, but a letter provided to the court by the plaintiff’s law firm Brelsford Androvich indicates that Gray’s inclusion in the lawsuit was made in error. The court has dismissed him from the case.

“Plaintiff has no information to suggest that Jim Gray was involved in any of the underlying allegations, nor any knowledge at any time regarding the sexual contact or cell phone video, or that he had any knowledge or reasonable suspicion of any abuse,” wrote attorney William Brelsford and the victim’s mother in the letter.

Gray became head coach for Bella Vista in 2019. He said he gave the school notice in June 2024, months before the lawsuit was filed, that he would retire at the end of that season.

The lawsuit against the school and administrators and the student and his family is proceeding, according to court records. A date for the next hearing has not been set.

Brelsford and San Juan Unified School District spokesperson Raj Rai declined to comment on the case.