Former New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera and his wife, Clara, have been added as named defendants in a civil lawsuit filed by a girl and her mother who say that, in 2018, the girl was sexually abused by an older child at events connected to the Riveras' church in Westchester County, New York.
The lawsuit, filed in January in Westchester County Supreme Court, did not originally list the Riveras as named defendants but did accuse them of failing to protect the girl. The suit instead named Refuge of Hope -- the church founded by the Riveras, where Clara Rivera is a senior pastor -- and a limited liability company that included the Riveras' former home address.