South Florida coach — a tennis icon’s grandson — accused of sexually abusing players
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Snapchat messages indicate multiple instances of sexual abuse of players by a South Florida coach, who’s the grandson of tennis legend Bobby Riggs.
Those details were spelled out in the criminal complaint filed Monday in Fort Lauderdale federal court that charges Daniel Riggs, 31, with coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity and production of child pornography aka child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Riggs is president of Team Riggs, run with parents Lawrence and Regina Riggs out of their Pompano Beach home. However, the immediate link of the last name for longtime tennis fans is to Daniel Riggs’ grandfather, Bobby Riggs.
Despite Bobby Riggs’ 1939 Wimbledon and U.S. National Championships (now U.S. Open) singles and doubles titles and long professional career, he’s best known for losing “The Battle of the Sexes” match to Billie Jean King at the Houston Astrodome in 1973, one of the era’s most remembered sporting events. Though the 55-year-old Riggs loudly assumed the “male chauvinist pig” role before the match, he and King remained good friends after she beat him in straight sets until his 1995 death.
Daniel Riggs remains in Broward County Jail. A pre-trial detention hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.
Hotel rooms and Snapchat
In September, the criminal complaint says, an 18-year-old woman came to the FBI and described her relationship with Riggs since he began coaching her in 2020.
She said they traveled to tennis events around Florida, in Georgia, North Carolina and Brazil. The woman’s mother said during these trips, Daniel Riggs and Lawrence Riggs were “considered (her daughter’s) guardians.”
While at a tournament in Augusta, Georgia, the woman said, Riggs massaged her back and play wrestled her for her phone in her room. A month later, in November 2021, while in Charlotte, North Carolina, she said Riggs took things farther in her hotel room.
“(She) recalled that Riggs was wearing plaid pajama pants and no condom was used,” the complaint said. “(She advised that Riggs never used a condom while they engaged in sexual acts.”
The complaint said the woman told investigators that she wrote about what happened in Charlotte in her diary, “but crossed it out after her mother located the passage and confronted her about it,” which her mother also said.
She turned over her diary to investigators.
During a 2022 training trip to Brazil, she told investigators, she and Riggs stayed in an Airbnb together. In addition to sexual acts, she said she and Riggs “watched pornographic videos together almost every night, while in Brazil.”
Still, in Brazil, the complaint said, Riggs told the then 16-year-old “he felt they should not do this anymore (referring to engaging in sexual acts) because of the potential repercussions” including Riggs being charged with statutory rape and being tagged as a sex offender.
She said that’s when he told her not to put anything about him or their relationship on paper, “including her diary” and to keep it secret from everyone.
They started using Snapchat to talk to each other and Riggs, his player said, started requesting pictures or videos of her involving sex acts.
“Riggs provided instructions for what he wanted in each image and/or video. If the image or video wasn’t what he wanted, he would advise (her) what was wrong with it and what she needed to change,” the complaint said. “(She), in return, asked for what she referred to as “stories” via Snapchat. These “stories” were messages, sent between Minor Victim 1 and RIGGS, where they would fantasize about what they could do if they were together.”
She saved one of the stories, from when she was 16, in which Riggs describes sexual acts he wanted to do to her.
After the now-18-year-old went to police, she had an October Snapchat conversation in which Riggs, the complaint said, “makes admissions about engaging in sexual acts” in a conversation that “corroborates (her) account of the sexual acts occurring in Brazil and other sexual acts occurring between them.”
Snapchat conversations along with conversations with parents also uncovered, the criminal complaint said, that Riggs “appears to be engaged in a sexual relationship” with another player, who is now 16.
The complaint lists sexual exchanges from late September and “on or around Sept. 28, Riggs and (the 16-year-old) appear to discuss Riggs coming over while (her) parents are out.”
The investigation was handled by the FBI’s Miami office and Broward Sheriff’s Office and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Camille Smith.
This story was originally published December 18, 2024 at 6:48 PM.
