A former star of the Boston Ballet was named in a federal lawsuit that accuses the ballerina and her husband of sexually abusing dancers they were mentoring.
Earlier this summer, Sage Humphries and Gina Menichino filed suit against dance instructor Mitchell Taylor Button and made disturbing allegations that he groomed them before sexually abusing them while they were his young students.
Then last week, that civil complaint, filed in Nevada, was amended to include three more plaintiffs and named former Boston Ballet principal dancer Dusty Button, Mitchell Taylor Button’s wife, as a co-defendant.
“The is a case about a couple who exploited their position of power and influence in the dance world to sexually abuse young dancers across the country,” the complaint filed on Sept. 23 in the District of Nevada.
The new suit included allegations by dancers Rosemarie DeAngelo, Danielle Gutierrez and a “Jane Doe 100” plaintiff.
The Buttons live in Las Vegas and they could not be reached for comment Thursday at any of their publicly listed phone numbers. But their lawyer said the couple denies all allegations.
“Our position remains the same,” defense attorney Marc Randazza said in a statement. “We look forward to clearing both of their names in court.”
The anonymous accuser was a minor in 2014 and dancing with a contemporary dance company that rented studio space from the Boston Ballet, when she met Dusty Button, the lawsuit said.
The Buttons took an interest in the young dancer and together they sexually assaulted her, according to the civil complaint.
Humphries also said she was abused by both Buttons who “regularly used painful sex toys on Sage and would tie Sage up, in order to have sex with her,” the lawsuit said.
“Sage never consented to these violent sex acts,” according to the complaint.
The Associated Press and Whitney Lee contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
