The guardians of a late crippled Florida understudy competitor are suing the school and its previous track and crosscountry mentor, who they say “embarrassed” their little girl and disregarded her weeps for help before she ended her own life.
Julia Pernsteiner, a 23-year-old understudy at Jacksonville College (JU) kicked the bucket in her quarters in 2021 — only two months in the wake of being cut from the crosscountry group.
The unjust demise claim documented on Feb. 3 by her folks, Beam and Lynne Perstiner, claims JU permitted the group’s mentor, Ron Grigg, to torture the young ladies in the group.
Grigg enlisted Persteiner, who had learning handicaps that affected her perusing, composing, spelling and math abilities, to move to JU and join the crosscountry group.
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As her grades began to suffer, Persteiner tried to remain focused on her sport but was surrounded by “a toxic atmosphere of humiliation and intimidation,” the lawsuit says.
“Teammates recall Grigg taking a special satisfaction in humiliating Julia, referring to her as ‘retarded,’ the slowest f—— runner on the team’ and unable to ‘wipe your own a–,” the suit claims. “Julia, already struggling academically, now found that the sport she loved and found comfort in was the source of her coach’s targeted ridicule and harassment.”
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The mentor frequently “fat-disgraced” the female sprinters, requesting they keep their weight file under 10%. This kind of conduct “provoked dietary problems in specific youthful, naive ladies in the group,” the court recording states.
The claim says that Persteiner was by all accounts not the only understudy to gripe to the college about Grigg, yet “the school moved in around Grigg and wouldn’t make any move.”
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A month after she was started off the group, Pernsteiner messaged the college’s athletic chief Alex Ricker-Gilbert and let him know she was “more than sorrowful.”
“I just don’t know where to go from here,” the email says. “I rely on the athletic academic help to do well. I would like to stay and work on improving my grades. I just am not able to do it myself. I’m looking for advice on how to proceed.”
Her email went unanswered and her concerns “spiraled into desperation and depression.” A month later, Pernsteiner died by suicide.