ORLANDO, Fla. – A former Central Florida figure skating coach pleaded guilty to sexually battering a former student when she was just 12 years old.
Andrei Berekhovski admitted he was one of the child’s primary caretakers when he sexually battered her back in 2005.
Berekhovski faced 30 years in prison for his crime, but Judge Renee Roche accepted a plea deal for three years behind bars with credit for time served if Berekhovski pleaded guilty to one of three sexual battery counts.
The former coach will also register as a sexual predator and surrender both his Russian and U.S. passports.
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The survivor watched Berekhovski plead guilty for the second time on Wednesday. The former figure skating coach entered a plea last year, and the survivor, now a young woman, read a victim impact statement out loud at that hearing. But Roche rejected the deal and sent all parties back to the drawing board. At the time, Roche categorized the deal as too lenient.
Andrei Berekhovski trained up-and-coming figure skating superstars at the Ice Factory rink in Kissimmee and lived in Windermere, according to court records. It was there Berekhovski sexually abused at least one student back in 2005, according to investigators with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
A separate civil lawsuit alleges Berekhovski forcibly kissed and sexually molested the 12-year-old girl, at a time when he was the child’s sole caretaker.
Berekhovski allegedly offered the victim one month of free training in exchange for her silence.
News 6 learned that a second woman came forward with allegations of abuse by Berekhovski after the initial story went public. However, as part of the plea agreement, the court will not be allowed to bring forth any additional charges related to the second woman.
News 6 is not releasing the names of any survivors since they are victims of sexual assault and wish to remain anonymous.
In 2019, SafeSport, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending abuse in sports, deemed Berekhovski “ineligible” from coaching or participating in any U.S. Olympic or Paralympic figure skating events. U.S. Figure Skating upheld the grievance and posted the disciplinary action on the organization’s website.
After his release, Berekhovski will serve 10 years of sexual offender probation with an electronic monitoring device attached to him during the entirety of his probation.