ORLANDO, Fla. — A 61-year-old Windermere man who trained young figure skaters for years in Central Florida is now wanted on sex-crime charges related to an underage live-in athlete in 2005.
- Andrei Berekhovski wanted on outstanding warrant
- Authorities are trying to find where he is
- Live-in athlete was ice skater with Olympic dreams
- Coach attacked her when she was 12, records allege
Andrei Berekhovski is wanted on three charges of lewd or lascivious molestation and two counts of sexual activity with a child, according to an Orange County Sheriff’s Office arrest warrant issued in June 2018.
The warrant says a woman reported the alleged attacks to an Orange County investigator in March 2018.
Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis D. Ayala upheld the charges against Berekhovski in paperwork filed in October 2018.
Berekhovski has not been arrested on the charges. He will be held without bond if he is arrested.
A check of public records in Florida shows his only criminal infraction was a speeding ticket in Polk County in 2004 that cost him $254. He and his wife are still the listed owners of an Orlando home valued at $225,000 on Lake Bryan Drive.
Berekhovski’s whereabouts are not known to law enforcement officers. Attempts to reach him Wednesday were not successful.
Court records in Orange County do not show an attorney for Berekhovski.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement lists Berekhovski online as a wanted person.
The woman filed a civil suit filed against Berekhovski in Orange County in April. The woman, whose attorney is based in West Palm Beach, was interviewed Monday by a South Florida television station. She now lives in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Her suit says she was a professional figure skater from the ages of 4 through 16 and had aspirations of competing in the Winter Olympics.
When she was 12 and living with her parents in Georgia, her family agreed to have Berekhovski coach her while she lived with him and his wife in Windermere. She trained at the Ice Factory of Central Florida in Kissimmee, the suit said.
Berekhovski provided a place to live, food, transportation, and full-time figure-skating instruction/coaching, the suit said.
Berekhovski used his position of power to “repeatedly sexually, physically and emotionally” attack the girl from June 16, 2005 to July 12, 2005, it says.
The last alleged attack happened on a flight with Berekhovski while they were heading from Orlando to Newark, Delaware, to compete in the 2005 Liberty Summer Figure Skating Competition, the lawsuit alleges. She ran to the bathroom, where she stayed until everyone got off the plane, an arrest affidavit said.