Water polo champ tipped for Team USA sexually abused black scholar at star-studded LA non-public faculty and handled him as slave, lawsuit claims

A black student who was sexually assaulted by a bully on his water polo team was also whipped in a degrading ‘slavery reenactment’, a lawsuit claims.

Aidan Romain was just 14 when he joined the team at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles in August 2022, and the abuse began at his first practice.

‘He was sexually assaulted by an older teammate, Lucca van der Woude, who digitally penetrated him underwater,’ the lawsuit read.

‘[Aidan] jumped up in the water and yelped in surprise. [He] knew the assault was wrong. It felt invasive and terrifying. But he said nothing – afraid that speaking up would cost him everything.’

This assault, and another later that day in the weight room, set the tone for 16 months of terror, mockery, bullying, and sexual assault, the lawsuit claimed.

Despite Aidan, now 18, and another student complaining to coach Jack Grover and higher school officials, he claimed Harvard-Westlake did nothing.

Lucca was only arrested – on the school’s campus – in February 2024 after another parent complained to police about their son being abused too.

Aidan’s parents only learned of the sexual assaults of their son days later when detectives came to interview the family, as the boy was too afraid to tell them.

Lucca pleaded guilty in juvenile court to sexual penetration with a foreign object (digital penetration) against a minor on November 7, 2024, according to court records.

By then 17, he was ordered to complete probation in a plea deal with Los Angeles County Juvenile Court prosecutors that dropped a more serious charge.

The lawsuit claimed Lucca was so brazen about his sexual abuse of Aidan that he joked in front of coaches during a bout of conjunctivitis that ‘he had acquired the condition from digitally penetrating his teammates before rubbing his eyes’.

But according to Aidan’s lawsuit, filed in the LA Superior Court by his mother last week, the frequent sexual assaults were only one part of the abuse.

The 54-page complaint details a shocking campaign of bullying by teammates, led by Lucca, that Aidan was allegedly subjected to.

‘These assaults were only part of the terror [Aidan] endured at Harvard-Westlake,’ The abuse was relentless, documented, and happened in plain sight,’ it claimed.

Aidan’s family also accused Harvard-Westlake, its president Richard Commons,  Grover, and other officials of doing nothing to stop it.

The lawsuit claimed Lucca and another Harvard-Westlake player even ‘whipped [Aidan] in the weight room in a reenactment of slavery’ in one particularly degrading incident.

‘They began whipping [Aidan] with a rope and then an elastic band, making references to slavery as they demanded that [Aidan] ‘get back to work!’ while striking [him],’ the lawsuit claimed of that incident.

‘They taunted him with racial slurs, calling him a n****r nearly every day for approximately five months.

‘When [the teammate] and Lucca Van Der Woude were questioned by the school, both admitted it. Harvard-Westlake still failed to take necessary steps to protect [Aidan].’

Lucca and other teammates also mockingly complained Aidan’s black skin made him difficult to see during games and joked he was the team’s ‘secret weapon’ as opposing players wouldn’t be able to see him in the pool.

‘This constant degradation – which occurred virtually every single day for five months – was a frequent reminder of [Aidan’s] status as an outcast on his own team and important context for an environment with rampant physical abuse,’ the lawsuit claimed.

Harvard-Westlake is a storied high school nestled in the Hollywood Hills just south of North Hollywood in Los Angeles County.

Tuition costs $52,500 a year plus thousands more for food, books, and extra-curriculars and a $2,500 new student fee.

Its star-studded celebrity alumni includes movie stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Lily Collins, along with award-winning actors, writers, and directors.

Famous politicians, mayors, and governors, Olympic gold medalists, astronaut Sally Ride, and business magnates like Jean Paul Getty also went there.

Lucca, like many young athletes who went through Harvard-Westlake’s elite sporting programs, was a rising star in water polo and considered a future Olympic prospect.

But Aidan and his parents claimed despite the school’s illustrious reputation and former students, it did not do anything to end the bullying. 

‘Time and time again, on Harvard-Westlake’s campus – in its pool and elsewhere – Lucca van der Woude approached [Aidan] from behind to ambush and digitally penetrate him,’ the lawsuit claimed.

‘[Aidan] reported this abuse to Harvard-Westlake immediately after learning that Lucca van der Woude was assaulting another teammate. 

‘But Harvard-Westlake did nothing. It took none of the steps that the school – as a mandated reporter of child abuse – was legally required to take.’

Schools have a legal obligation to report alleged abuse to police so it can be investigated, rather than just handle it in-house, but the lawsuit claimed this never happened.

Police were never called, and neither was the Department of Child and Family Services or Aidan’s parents.

‘Instead, they looked the other way – and punished [Aidan] when he insisted on speaking the truth,’ the lawsuit claimed.

‘Harvard-Westlake had a legal obligation to report the abuse and protect [Aidan]. And its failure to honor its obligations directly resulted in the continued abuse that [Aidan] was forced to endure.’

The punishment the complaint mentioned was allegedly in retaliation for Aidan complaining to school officials about a different teammate’s alleged sexual assault.

The lawsuit claimed athletic director Matt LaCour decided ‘not to protect [Aidan], but to suspend him for four games’ after discussing it with Grover.

Another time when Aidan and another student complained about Lucca sexually assaulting them, the school dismissed their concerns after four other players denied it.

‘As a result, [school dean] Sharon Cuseo explained, Harvard-Westlake could not do anything,’ the lawsuit claimed.

The lawsuit claimed that had the school fulfilled its reporting duties, the abuse could have been stopped in its tracks.

Aidan said in a victim impact statement at Lucca’s sentencing that the bullying ‘went from very bad to sometimes unmanageable’ after he complained. 

‘I would sometimes eat my lunch in the dean’s office just to have a break as more lies were spread about me,’ he said.

‘Even a coach told me that my only option was to turn the other cheek and try to be a good teammate while being shunned by most people on the team because I disclosed what happened to me. 

‘If I tried to focus alone and give them space, they said I thought I was better than them, if I tried to be a part of the group, they ignored me. I knew that I was alone, and it was a very difficult time in my life.’ 

Lucca sexually assaulted Aidan for the last time, as he came up behind him in a stairwell at the school, just days before he was arrested.

However, the lawsuit claimed the abuse did not stop with Lucca’s arrest. 

‘Believe it or not, even after Lucca was arrested at the end of February 2024, my time at Harvard-Westlake became even more toxic,’ Aidan said in his victim impact statement. 

‘People assumed that I had called the police or reported Lucca’s behavior, but I had not.’

He claimed his sibling, who was at Harvard-Westlake’s middle school, received threats warning ‘our family had messed with the wrong people’.

Aidan’s parents were forced to withdraw him from the school in May 2024.

Lucca was also a frequent threat, the lawsuit explained, as he allegedly violated a non-contact order 23 times in the year after it was issued.

The two crossed paths at at USA Water Polo-sanctioned national team selection and training camps, tournaments, and international competitions with Team USA.

Lucca transferred to Newport Harbor, a public school in Orange County, California, and continued competing for Team USA in junior events.

He was also called upon to mentor players as young as 13, even after admitting to sexually assaulting Aidan when his victim was 14.

However, his acceptance to UCLA was rescinded after his crimes were made public last year, and he instead played for Golden West College last season.

Grover is under formal investigation by the US Center for SafeSport for failing to report claims of sexual assault.