Former Agoura Jiu-Jitsu Coach, Convicted Child Sex Offender, Ordered To Pay $50M To Victim

VAN NUYS, CA — A judge has ordered a former Agoura Hills martial arts trainer to pay $50 million to a teenage girl who accused him of routinely sexually assaulting her after he failed to respond to her lawsuit for nearly three years.

The civil judgement comes after the trainer, Nicollas Welker Araujo, 32, was convicted in 2020 of lewd or lascivious acts with a child between 14-15 years old. He was released from incarceration in 20201 and is listed on the state's sex offender registry as being homeless in Ventura.

Araujo was the owner of the now-shuttered Overall Brazilian Jiujitsu Academy located at Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Kanan Road. His former student, identified only as Jane Doe, claimed Araujo began grooming her in 2016 when she was 13 and eventually went on to have sex with her "on nearly a daily basis," according to the suit filed by the girl's guardian.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Shirley K. Watkins on Friday ordered Araujo to pay half of the $100 million the girl sought. The order was a default judgement: Araujo had not responded to the suit in the three years since it was filed, documents show.

The suit also named another Los Angeles school, Cobrinha Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Executive as a defendant, but the case against that school was dismissed this week as part of a settlement, according to court documents.

That school's lawyers in court filings said Cobrinha allowed Araujo to use its logo and linked to Araujo's school on its website, but had no oversight or control over him.

Araujo was "so emboldened by the platform that Cobrinha provided him with its utter lack of any supervision, Araujo would sexually abuse plaintiff in the parking lot serving Cobrinha within mere minutes of when plaintiff and Araujo were in Cobrinha's gym," reads a document filed by the girl's lawyers.

The girl was 13 when she began training with Araujo in 2016; he soon began grooming her with the goal of "manipulating her emotions and taking advantage of her young age so that he could ultimately sexually abuse her," the suit alleged.

Araujo first kissed the girl two months after she began training and went on to commit unlawful sexual acts against her, according to the suit.

"Araujo told plaintiff that because she was a virgin, someone had to teach her how to have sex and that she could not tell anyone," the girl's lawyers wrote in court filings. "From there, Araujo had sexual intercourse with plaintiff on nearly a daily basis."

The abuse continued for nearly two years. When the girl was 15 she told her family about the abuse for the first time, which led the teen's relatives to report the abuse to authorities, leading to his March 2019 arrest, according to the suit.

Araujo, a first-degree black belt, moved from Brazil to the U.S. in 2013 and opened Overall Brazilian Jiujitsu Academy three years later. According to a listing for the school, Araujo chose Agoura Hills, "a family-oriented community," as a location for his school, where he aimed to create a "nurturing environment" for his students.

City News Service contributed to this report.