A girl who said she was sexually abused by her martial arts instructor is suing the now-defunct Clackamas studio and its manager for negligence.
The lawsuit contends, among other things, that Team Hermes Franca LLC and Mark Wright failed to properly check the background of instructor Hermes Franca Barros. It also alleges that the business failed to observe “troubling behaviors of Barros that were consistent with his pedophilia” and did not have a
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A girl who said she was sexually abused by her martial arts instructor is suing the now-defunct Clackamas studio and its manager for negligence.
The lawsuit contends, among other things, that Team Hermes Franca LLC and Mark Wright failed to properly check the background of instructor Hermes Franca Barros. It also alleges that the business failed to observe “troubling behaviors of Barros that were consistent with his pedophilia” and did not have a policy forbidding instructors and others from taking students off premises and without adult supervision.
As a result of such negligence, the suit contends, the girl “suffered inappropriate sexual contact by Barros on several occasions in December 2010 after Barros had removed Plaintiff from the gymnasium premises and while in Barros’s car.”
The civil suit, filed Thursday in Multnomah County Circuit Court, comes more than a year and a half after Barros, who had competed in Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts, pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful penetration and one count of first-degree sexual abuse. He was sentenced by a Clackamas County judge to 3½ years in prison for sexually abusing one of his students in December 2010.
Barros operated the Team Hermes Franca Brazilian Jiu-Jutsu Academy. He has a 22-12 record as a professional mixed martial artist and fought for the UFC off and on between 2003 and 2009.
According to Oregon Secretary of State records, Team Hermes Franca filed for dissolution on Jan. 31, 2011.
Wright, the manager, did not return a phone message.
The suit seeks $900,000 for mental and emotional distress and embarrassment and another $5,000 or more for the girl’s counseling.
— Helen Jung