A church founded by Yankees Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera and his wife, Clara, has been sued in a New York court for multiple instances of allegedly covering up child abuse.
The complaint was filed on behalf of an anonymous Jane Doe by her mother, who is also not named. The filing claims that the daughter was sexually abused by an older girl in 2018 while at a church-sponsored summer internship and barbecue, and sexual abuse by a man who was a youth leader for the church. The suit says the Riveras silenced the girl about the abuse she endured from the older girl and assured her mother that she was safe, and the church did not adequately protect her from either abuser.
The suit was filed Jan. 16 in Westchester County, New York.
“Allegations that they knew about or failed to act on reports of child abuse are completely false,” a lawyer for the Riveras said in a statement.
The lawyer, Joseph A. Ruta, said that the Riveras first learned of the abuse years after it occurred, and that the suit was “full of inaccurate and misleading statements.” Ruta said that the incidents were never reported to the Riveras, as claimed in the suit.
Rivera won five World Series with the Yankees and is the only unanimous first-ballot Hall of Famer in baseball history. The relief pitcher was a 13-time All-Star who spent his entire career in the Bronx from 1995 through 2013. He and Clara started an education-focused nonprofit called the Mariano Rivera Foundation that helped earn him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019.
Clara and Mariano founded Refugio de Esperanza in their home in 2009, according to the church’s website. It has since expanded and took over a church in New Rochelle, N.Y., where Clara serves as senior pastor. The church is a part of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God denomination, the suit says. Defendants are listed as the church and the LLC of the home where the Riveras lived.
In 2018, 10-year-old Doe went to a summer internship through Refugio at an affiliated church in Gainesville, Fla., called Ignite Life Center. It was a program recommended for Doe to her mother by Carla Rivera and funded by Refugio, the suit says. There, she shared a dormitory with other campers including an older girl from Refugio named in the suit by her initials. During the trip, the suit says, the older girl “repeatedly sexually abused [Doe] in the camp’s dormitory and shower by fondling and penetrating [Doe’s] breasts, buttocks and genitals against [Doe’s] will.” According to a Florida police report obtained by Front Office Sports, she molested Doe 15 times in two weeks, including trying to kiss her, rubbing the “outside of her vagina area,” and climbing into her bunk bed to touch her at night while others slept.
Doe called her mother during the camp, who then became concerned for her daughter’s safety enough to call Clara Rivera, the suit says. The pastor told the mother she would look into it, and flew to Florida to see Doe with her husband, Mariano, according to the suit. In Florida, Clara and Mariano Rivera “separately isolated … [Doe] to remain silent about her abuse” to “avoid causing trouble” for their church and the internship program, the suit reads. The Riveras then told the mother that her daughter was safe in Florida despite knowing about the abuse, according to the filing.
Later that same summer, Refugio hosted a children’s-only barbecue at the Riveras’ home, the suit says. There, the older girl again sexually abused Doe, according to the suit, which doesn’t describe what the abuse entailed. According to a New York police report obtained by FOS that included testimony from the mother, the incident happened at a pool party where the offender touched the victim’s breast and buttocks without her consent in the pool. The suit says the defendants failed to investigate or take action after the mother made allegations in 2018 of MG’s abuse.
The suit also alleges sexual abuse in August 2021 by Ruben Tavarez, whom the filing identifies as an adult, a youth leader at Refugio, and the son of an associate pastor at the church. Tavarez “obviously showed inappropriate physical affection” toward Doe in front of Refugio staff and volunteers, then eventually sexually assaulted her (the details of the abuse are not named), according to the suit. He forced her to continue with “graphic electronic communications of a sexual nature” for several months until Doe’s mother found out, the complaint reads. The suit says Tavarez admitted to the sexual misconduct at that time. Tavarez does not appear in the New York state or federal sex offender registries.
The suit is seeking unspecified damages. One of the plaintiff’s attorneys tells FOS that complaints have been made to the FBI and New Rochelle Police Department about Tavarez, and about the older girl to police departments in Harrison, N.Y., in April 2022 and in Gainesville, Fla., in October 2023.
Requests sent to Mariano Rivera, Refugio de Esperanza, and all three police departments were not immediately answered.
Three men associated with the Florida church and summer camp have been arrested for sexually abusing minors within the last 18 months, and two of them have been sentenced in criminal court, attorneys for the plaintiff said in a blog post on their website. The Florida police report has a supplemental document about one of the arrested sons of pastors: “[Redacted] and [Redacted] believed that God would take care of the bad behavior and did not wish to involve the Police.”
“We were contacted after the police reports were made. Our client’s focus and energy in 2022 was on getting criminal justice. Then in 2024, news erupted about multiple perpetrators of abuse at Ignite Life Church in Gainesville being arrested and her mother realized this was a serious issue in the church’s culture and considered a civil case,” one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, Adam Horowitz, tells FOS. Horowitz said his firm is also representing one of the other Ignite Life Church victims.
“Our lawsuit alleges that Mariano and Clara Rivera had a duty to protect our client and missed the opportunity to save her from the harms of sexual abuse,” Horowitz wrote on his website.
Mariano Rivera was sued in 2019 in his home country of Panama over claims that he stopped lending support to two children he had outside his marriage. He called the claims “unfounded.”
