The investigation is ongoing and the team remains suspended, a university spokeswoman confirmed to The Post. The school provides limited scholarships to some cheerleaders.
The probe was spurred by a March 8 letter sent to Coastal Carolina President David Decenzo by someone who signed their name only as “Concerned Parent.” It alleged that the school’s cheerleaders were engaging in prostitution, underage drinking, drug use and academic fraud. The school suspended its entire cheerleading team while it investigated the allegations, though one anonymous team member told WMBF in Myrtle Beach that school police officers had informed the cheerleaders that they had done nothing wrong. Police in Horry County, S.C., also said they were not involved in the investigation.
But in a summation of the investigation that was obtained by Deadspin and the Myrtle Beach Sun News, Coastal Carolina Police Investigator Michelyn Pylilo found that “some of the allegations in the letter were true.” Through interviews with current and former cheerleaders and text messages, she determined that four cheerleaders “were and are currently” involved in an online dating service called SeekingArrangement. The women received between $100 and $1,500 per date and also received clothes, gifts and designer handbags from the men who contacted them, though none of the women said they performed sexual favors. One of the women also worked as a shot girl at a local strip club, the investigation found.
Pylilo also uncovered a group text message from one of the cheerleaders advising her teammates to delete the SeekingArrangement app from their phones and to avoid the strip club until after the cheerleading season was over. The school’s investigation is ongoing, Pylilo said.
Amy Lawrence, an attorney representing five of the cheerleaders, condemned the school’s treatments of her clients in a statement obtained by the Sun News, calling the investigation “unprecedented.” The team remains suspended, though the cheerleaders are being allowed to attend class.
“I am shocked and saddened to see these girls become victims of these baseless claims from an anonymous source,” she said. “Even more disheartening is that these girls were not permitted due process in their own defense to show just how outlandish and ridiculous these allegations truly are.”
In an email to The Post, the Coastal Carolina spokeswoman declined to explain why the cheerleading team is suspended even though the school’s investigation turned up nothing that would seem to be illegal. It should be noted, however, that college judicial or investigatory processes often bear little resemblance to the U.S. legal system as a whole, with schools given wide leeway to punish students as they see fit. For instance, the Coastal Carolina Code of Student Conduct vaguely prohibits “activities of a student or group of students that clearly conflict with the University’s interests and mission.” It also states that students “are required to engage in responsible social conduct that reflects positively upon the Coastal Carolina University community and to model good citizenship in any community.”
And then there are the rules laid out by the Coastal Carolina cheerleading program, a copy of which was provided to The Post by a school spokesman. Among the regulations:
— “Your actions inside and outside of practice affect your position on this team.”
— “There is zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol.” (Text messages between the cheerleaders obtained by the school during its investigation mention drug use. “I just wanna get High and chill,” one reads. “His weed is so good,” says another.)
— “Any member of the team can be removed at any time from the team at the coaches and/or administrations discretion without an explanation.”