A few days after he moved into his dorm at the prestigious boarding school in Manatee County, the teenager called his parents and told them he was exactly where he was meant to be.
At 15, with a flop of sandy hair and the acne that chases puberty, he had been nervous to leave his mom and dad. But as a competitive lacrosse player with dreams of earning a college scholarship, moving hundreds of miles in pursuit of his passion felt like the sacrifice he was supposed to make.
IMG Academy in Bradenton is one of the world’s top training grounds for young athletes. The boarding school has produced dozens of Olympians and pros, including the likes of NFL quarterback J.J. McCarthy and tennis superstar Maria Sharapova. That reputation attracts hundreds of students in grades 6-12 each year. The sell to parents is simple: Entrust the school with your kid, and IMG could make them great.
But months after his arrival in 2021, the teenager and another boy were sexually assaulted on campus by an older teammate, according to sheriff’s office reports and the lawsuit.
A criminal investigation followed, and the teammate was sentenced to nearly a year in jail. Now, the assaults, their aftermath and the circumstances that preceded them are the subject of a civil suit against IMG and the convicted former student.
The lawsuit, filed in Manatee County Circuit Court last November, depicts a darker portrait of the academy during that school year, where boys as young as 13 lived in residence halls alongside teammates as old as 20, where drug and alcohol use among minors was alleged to be rampant and adult supervision scarce.
IMG Academy declined requests for an interview, but in an emailed statement, spokesperson Mike Lovecchio denied the allegations in the suit and said the school would defend itself against “salacious misrepresentations and inaccuracies.” He wrote that the assaults described in the civil suit were “student-on-student” and “happened behind closed doors.” Lovecchio said the school worked “quickly and decisively in engaging law enforcement” as soon as IMG became aware.
“IMG Academy has spent nearly 50 years building a reputation as a world-renowned educational and athletic institution that has helped thousands of young people pursue their academic and athletic goals,” IMG Chief Legal Officer Dan Malasky wrote in an email to the Tampa Bay Times. “We strongly believe that IMG Academy is among one of the safest k-12 education environments in the country.”
An attorney for the former student listed as a co-defendant also denied allegations, many of which are related to the assaults for which he is serving time.
The transgressions aren’t the first involving the school, its staff or its student-athletes in recent memory. In September 2021, an English teacher at IMG was arrested for having sex with a 17-year-old student and later convicted of sex crimes. This March, an academy employee was arrested near campus, according to news and sheriff’s reports, after being charged with a sexual assault offense out of state. The alleged assault took place before he began working in Florida and did not involve IMG staff or students. That case is ongoing.
For the young athlete at the center of the recent lawsuit, whom the Times is not naming because he was a minor at the time and the victim of a sex crime, the civil case represents a call for accountability. He believes IMG Academy failed to protect him. That the school failed other students, too.
Soon after he’d moved across the country in pursuit of a dream, the teenager dropped out.
He hasn’t picked up a lacrosse stick since.
A culture of ‘chaos and neglect’
His sport was the backdrop to his earliest memories. He got his first lacrosse stick at 3, when his parents enrolled him in a camp for tots in the mountain town where he grew up. By middle school, he was playing for hours a day.
As a freshman in high school, the teenager began thinking of college. He wanted to compete at the highest level, and few places boasted the record of IMG Academy in helping student-athletes get there. He enrolled in his sophomore year.
The campus was beautiful, with palm trees and locker rooms that rivaled those of pro venues. But quickly, he found the environment to be more raucous than he’d expected of a premier school where tuition and board could near $100,000 a year. Yes, there was an emphasis on excellence on the field, with early morning gym sessions, nutrition coaching, leadership training and high-pressure workouts scheduled around schoolwork. But in the off-hours, outside of the purview of teachers and coaching staff, it felt to him like the campus descended into a chaos more reminiscent of college fraternity parties he’d seen in movies.
“It was a ‘Lord of the Flies’ type of environment,” the teenager recalled during an interview with the Times. “Anything could happen. It didn’t feel like there was oversight at all.”
IMG student-athletes live in four residence halls that promise 24/7 safety and security. But the lawsuit said students often went unsupervised, with staff hardly present.
Students openly consumed alcohol and drugs like LSD, MDMA and marijuana in common areas of the dorms, according to the lawsuit. In some instances, the suit alleges, students left campus to buy drugs or ordered drugs and alcohol directly to a school mailroom.
In this way, the teenager said he felt like he had traded childhood for a phantom manhood, surrounded by kids playacting as adults. Intensifying this blurred boundary was the fact that living on the same floor with students fresh out of middle school were actual adults: Post-graduate athletes, ages 19 and 20, who were delaying college in hopes of gaining a leg up in the recruiting process the following year.
Lovecchio attributed the housing arrangements during the 2021-2022 school year to a pandemic-era “pod”-based setup. The academy did not answer questions about whether those mixed-age living situations persist, but said post-graduate students never share rooms with younger students.
On any given night during that school year, the lawsuit states, a visit to the boys’ lacrosse floor would turn up scenes of kids running naked through the hallways, “yelling, fighting, vomiting, or otherwise behaving in a clearly unsafe and inappropriate manner.” Photos and videos taken from the dorm show teens throwing back cups of bright-colored liquids while teammates holler in approval. Others show one kid body slamming into a coffee table, pushing shopping carts through the halls and smoking.
Lovecchio from IMG said staff lived on the floor and performed regular room checks. Additional staff were stationed in the dorm lobby, and campus safety officers patrolled the dorms, Lovecchio wrote.
If anyone was watching, the lawsuit states, they failed to intervene.
“It became obvious to all residents that no one was actually monitoring the dormitory or reviewing the camera footage,” the complaint read, which notes that IMG had told parents it recorded surveillance video throughout campus, including in public areas of the dorms. “The children quickly learned that they were effectively free to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.”
The teenager had come here to be pushed to his limits, both on the field and in the classroom. Outside of training and beyond supervision, the teenager felt pressure to conform socially, too. So he started drinking.
Ripe for abuse
A few weeks before the assaults, the boys lacrosse team underwent drug testing, according to the lawsuit. About half the team failed, the lawsuit alleges, but the school didn’t report the results to parents.
“Instead of enforcing its policies and playing by the rules, IMG Academy swept the drug tests results under the rug and allowed the team to play to avoid raising suspicions and having the information leaked on social media,” the lawsuit reads. “The students were directed to keep the information quiet and warned not to say anything on the internet.”
In an email, IMG spokesperson Lovecchio called those allegations false. He wrote that of the 42 members tested in October 2021, three presented with THC levels that violated NCAA and school policy. The school took action, the academy said, suspending those athletes.
He did not answer questions about whether it tested team members before or after that October date.
“Both at the time of the incident and today, IMG Academy regularly conducts random testing of student-athletes throughout the course of the academic year consistent with its drug and alcohol-free policy and drug testing protocols,” Lovecchio wrote.
The suit says IMG knowingly ignored drug abuse and allowed a dangerous environment to fester — one where impaired children were “left exposed to predatory conduct.”
Then, on a weekend that November, in the hazy hours when Saturday bleeds into Sunday, the teenager and another boy were sexually assaulted by an adult teammate living on the floor, according to the civil lawsuit and the criminal case file.
The teenager and a friend had been drinking vodka in his dorm room when 19-year-old Patrick Guinee Jr. returned from Hooters and joined them, sheriff’s office reports show.
When the teenager’s friend, also 15 at the time, became sick from the alcohol and started throwing up, Guinee, according to police reports, offered to escort the friend to his room on the floor where they all lived. There, reports state, Guinee pulled down the boy’s pants and began touching him. When the boy realized what was happening, according to interviews with police, he shouted for help, and Guinee left the room.
Soon after, Guinee returned to the room down the hall where the group had been hanging out, reports state. The teenager, according to police reports, was lying on a couch, drunk, when Guinee reached into his pants and began touching him, too. The teenager said he remembers Guinee asking him for sexual favors and telling him that he must have liked it. He remembers seeking help from another teammate when it was over. He remembers feeling numb.
“People describe being paralyzed by fear. I think that’s the closest explanation I can give,” the teenager told the Times.
IMG Academy said room checks and head counts were conducted “post-curfew” that night — including in the room where the assault took place. The academy did not offer additional details, nor did it say whether it turned over security video of the halls and dorm common areas from that night to police. The lawsuit asserts the academy failed to do so.
“IMG Academy’s commitment to providing a safe, structured, and supportive environment for everyone in our community is evident in the comprehensive, rigorous safeguards we have in place to ensure our student-athletes’ physical and mental wellbeing,” Lovecchio wrote in the statement. “This civil suit relates to an isolated student-on-student incident that occurred five years ago perpetrated by one former student-athlete behind closed doors. Upon learning of the incident, IMG Academy took swift, decisive action that resulted in the student-athlete’s permanent removal, engaged local law enforcement and informed parents and the broader school community.”
Shortly after the assaults, with the help of an older teammate whom they’d confided in, the teenager and his friend told academy staff and law enforcement what happened. Guinee was expelled immediately and arrested on two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation of a minor.
Guinee initially pled not guilty to those crimes. After nearly four years of litigation, the charges were reduced from sexual offenses to felony battery in a plea deal, to which Guinee pled no contest.
A judge ruled that Guinee, now 24, was guilty and sentenced him to nearly a year in jail, where he remains. He is listed as a defendant in the civil lawsuit alongside IMG and declined to comment for this story through his attorney, Brooks Ricca Jr.
Like other athletes drawn to IMG, Guinee was a lacrosse player with hopes of competing in college. The eldest son of 11 children, according to court records, he was born while his father was overseas serving in the military.
“He was a young kid from a Boston family that was stuck down here in a bad situation,” Ricca said.
Ricca filed a response in court denying the allegations against Guinee, including those around the assault. He said evidence will emerge to support Guinee’s denials and, in court paperwork, noted an intent to file a cross-claim against the school.
Dreams derailed
In the days that followed the assault, the teenager said he slipped into a depression that would follow him for years.
For a short time, he stayed at IMG — going to classes but skipping lacrosse practice. He couldn’t help but feel like everyone on campus was talking about him, like he had a dirty secret they all knew.
“I would walk into a room and feel whispers and people looking at me,” he remembers.
Before IMG, he’d considered himself “straight edge,” or sober with no interest in drugs or alcohol. After the assault, he began self-medicating in a way he hadn’t before.
“There was such easy access,” he said.
IMG said it took great care to protect the victims’ privacy and worked quickly to notify parents, talking regularly with parents of the victims and delivering “support services” to both students.
But the teenager said the support offered was limited and felt like an attempt to “sweep what happened under the rug.”
IMG did not answer questions about how it supported students after the assault.
Eventually, the teenager said he remembers being told by school officials he needed to return to his sport or leave the academy. IMG did not confirm or dispute that assertion when asked by the Times, “out of respect for the privacy and wellbeing of the students involved.”
So he packed his bags. The other boy who had been assaulted did, too.
A month later, the teenager checked into rehab — a direct byproduct, the lawsuit says, of his experience at IMG.
Seeking justice
He’s sober now. Though the trauma never goes away, he said, it gets easier to live with.
For the last four years, most of his anger has been directed at Guinee.
“Because of you, I now struggle to feel safe, to trust people, and even to trust myself,” the teenager read aloud during criminal court proceedings last year. “What you did wasn’t a mistake — it was a choice. And that choice has changed me forever.”
As the teenager has grown into a man — now 20 years old and on his way to earning two master’s degrees — a fresh feeling of anger has emerged toward IMG Academy.
For a long time, he felt guilt for not calling his parents earlier to tell them that school wasn’t what he’d expected it to be. He felt shame for falling into the rhythms of the pack.
He said he feels more clear-eyed now. He wonders where the adults were. One of the things that upsets him most is the feeling that the school failed to put a stop to the debauchery, even when he believes staff knew students were breaking the rules.
“So all of the things that were going on in the dorms continued to go on,” he said, speaking about the weeks he remained at IMG after the assaults. “It’s just one really clear example of the school doing so much wrong.”
Some of the most beautiful things about sports — the shared goals, the mutual dependence — can come with a darker side.
“Things like resilience, toughness, pushing through pain and being coachable — those same messages, if we’re not mindful, can lead to someone not speaking up when something doesn’t feel quite right,” said Monica Rivera, who has studied assault prevention for more than two decades. “These kiddos, their brain is wired for fitting in.”
That can be particularly true for boys, said Rivera, under pressure to “man up.”
Rivera leads education and research for the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a nonprofit that works with teams and athletes to promote healthy environments. Born out of a response to sexual abuse within Team USA gymnastics, the organization investigates allegations of abuse in Olympic and Paralympic sports.
Rivera, who did not review the IMG case and spoke with the Times generally about sexual assault in sports, said pressure to conform can be heightened at boarding schools, far from the safety of home.
Preventing abuse or assault is less about identifying obvious “monsters,” Rivera said, and more so enforcing simple rules that stamp out circumstances — like heavy drinking — in which abuse can bloom.
“We assume that abuse is this act of violence that happens, but what we miss is, a lot of times, there are smaller, micromoments that lead up to that,” Rivera said. “(That’s) then candy-coated in a culture of silence and not talking about things until something deeply egregious happens.”
Hierarchy in sports environments — where older or standout athletes hold clout or power over younger players — can also affect an athlete’s choice to report abuse or the warning signs that precipitate it, said Avanti Adhia, who studies sexual assault on college campuses.
Whether an athlete comes forward, said Adhia, who is a professor at the University of Washington, hinges on whether they trust an institution to intervene.
And after an assault, Adhia said, research shows that how an institution responds can deepen the effects of the original abuse.
Stalemate
Though the academy has verbally disputed details of the case, it has yet to produce evidence or sworn statements contradicting the allegations in the complaint, said Andrea Lewis, an attorney representing the victims.
In January, Lewis filed discovery requests, asking the school and Guinee to produce records that could prove or disprove the statements in the complaint. Those requests are on hold as the academy has asked to move the case to arbitration, essentially a private trial, instead of continuing in court.
In the meantime, if IMG has evidence that disproves the claims, Lewis said, they could turn it over.
“There is absolutely nothing stopping them,” Lewis said. “They could say, ‘Hey, we have some evidence we want you to see that could put your mind at ease.’ That’s never happened.”
In response, Lovecchio pointed to a motion that IMG attorneys filed in March, which moved to halt all proceedings until a judge decides whether the case will move forward or go to arbitration, as is standard under Florida law. In the court filing, attorneys for IMG state that when enrolling in the academy, parents of student-athletes — including those of both plaintiffs — sign contracts.
“Those agreements contain broad arbitration provisions requiring that all disputes arising out of or related to the agreements or the students’ activities with IMG Academy — including claims for negligence, breach of duty, fraud, or misrepresentation — be resolved through binding arbitration," the filing states. “Despite those agreements, Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit asserting claims against IMG Academy arising directly from their participation in the boarding program and the residential environment provided under the Enrollment Agreements.”
A hearing to determine whether the case will be moved to arbitration is scheduled for next month.
Today, the former lacrosse player doesn’t talk much about what happened at IMG. There’s a stigma around being a man who’s experienced sexual assault, he said — though he knows there shouldn’t be. When he hears whispers of others who’ve experienced the same, he shares his story. It feels empowering to provide comfort to other people, to be able to relate.
A loss that’s taken the back burner is that of his sport. Lacrosse was his greatest passion. Playing made him feel most alive.
“It was such a big part of my identity and how I perceived myself. I loved it my entire life, but after what happened at IMG, I hated it. I suddenly hated it,” he said. “When I’m talking to people about it, I’m like, ‘Oh, I just decided to pursue other things.’ I guess the truth is I just felt so betrayed.”
The lawsuit, he said, is an effort to make sure no one else at IMG experiences what he did.
“I want (IMG) to know they’re not invincible,” he said.
In April, about five months after the lawsuit was filed, IMG Academy sent a letter to students’ parents addressing the litigation and explaining how the school responded in 2021 — reiterating its policies on random room searches and the 24/7 presence of campus safety officers.
“Each of you entrusts us with the safety and wellbeing of your student-athletes,” it read. “That is a responsibility we take seriously. It is — and always has been — our number one priority.”
