A former Belton-Honea Path basketball player has filed a lawsuit against the school and Anderson School District 2.
The lawsuit says that a volunteer assistant basketball coach sexually targeted him while he was a player, and that the school and district failed to properly screen the volunteer or help the student once the inappropriate behavior was reported.
The lawsuit states that BHP coach Russ Tysl brought on Darius Bryant as a volunteer coach in the fall of 2018. It says that Bryant developed "predatory grooming behavior" to get close to the defendant, whom the lawsuit refers to as "John Doe."
Screenshots of explicit text messages sent to Doe from Bryant are included in the lawsuit, and WYFF News 4 has decided not to print any of them as they are graphic in nature.
The lawsuit states that Doe's grades began slipping in October 2018, and that his mother confiscated his phone, found the messages and reported Bryant to the school and the Anderson Police Department.