After enduring a harrowing court proceeding in July that laid bare the grisly details of their daughter’s death, the parents of Celeste Rivas Hernandez are suing singer D4vd for wrongful death and accusing his mother and managers of negligence.
In a new 20-page lawsuit, obtained by Rolling Stone, the parents and their lawyer, Patrick Steinfeld, echo much of the evidence prosecutors presented at the multi-day hearing that ended with a Los Angeles County judge ordering D4vd, born David Anthony Burke, to stand trial. Burke was arraigned last week on his renewed charges alleging he sexually assaulted Rivas Hernandez as a minor before murdering her at age 14, dismembering her body with a chainsaw, and hiding her remains in the front trunk of his Tesla.
Mom Mercedes Martinez and dad Jesus Rivas claim in their new court filing in Los Angeles County Superior Court that Burke started sexually abusing their daughter in November 2023, when Rivas Hernandez was 13 years old. They allege he exchanged text messages with her “concerning an abortion of a pregnancy Burke acknowledged was his,” and that he continued the alleged abuse for more than a year.
“At all relevant times Burke was an adult who occupied a position of authority over decedent, a minor, and was able to and did exercise undue influence and control over her, including by providing her a concealed cellular telephone to maintain contact outside her parents’ knowledge, using false identities, and arranging and paying for her travel,” the lawsuit claims.
The complaint alleges that before Rivas Hernandez’s alleged murder on April 23, 2025, Burke arranged for an Uber to transport her from the vicinity of her family’s home in Lake Elsinore, California, to his house in the Hollywood Hills. It claims Burke then stabbed Rivas Hernandez to cover up his alleged abuse, and that the “front-to-back path of the abdominal wound and the absence of any hesitation marks are consistent with an attack upon decedent by another, rather than any self-inflicted injury.”
The lawsuit says that after Rivas Hernandez’s remains were found in Burke’s towed Tesla months later, on Sept. 8, 2025, her parents had to wait until Sept. 16 for a positive identification because her corpse was in a “severely decomposed condition, with portions never recovered.”
Burke is accused of wrongful death in the new lawsuit as well as battery, sexual battery, childhood sexual assault, assault, false imprisonment, human trafficking, and intentional infliction of emotional distress as survival actions brought by the parents. The complaint alleges Burke also engaged in human trafficking of Rivas Hernandez by causing or inducing her “to engage in commercial sex acts.”
“The money, food, shelter, designer gifts, travel, a ring, and a promise of future marriage that Burke gave to [Rivas Hernandez] were given on account of the sexual acts, satisfying the commercial sex-act element,” the filing claims. “Because decedent was a minor, neither her purported consent nor any mistakes as to her age is a defense.”
The lawsuit names Burke’s publishing and merchandising companies as other defendants, claiming they were the vehicles that funded the alleged abuse. It also names his managers, Josh Marshall and Robert Morgenroth, as co-defendants, along with their company Mogul Vision, and the live-in security guard, identified as Sheldon Jacques, who allegedly drove Burke to pick up Rivas Hernandez from her parents’ house before her family first reported her missing in February 2024.
“Entity defendants and management defendants, through their agents, employees, and funds, and not merely through Burke’s personal acts, provided or facilitated the residence, transportation, travel, communications, security and logistics that enabled Burke to isolate (Rivas Hernandez) from her family and to be alone with her,” the filing states. “Mogul Vision, whose principal client was Burke, leased the Los Angeles residence at which Burke resided and at which acts alleged herein occurred.”
The complaint says Morgenroth managed Burke’s day-to-day affairs and even “resided at” the rented mansion where the alleged murder and dismemberment took place. (A former financial executive at Mogul Vision testified at the July hearing that Burke, known for his hit song “Romantic Homicide,” took home roughly $10 million to $11.5 million in gross earnings through recording, merchandising, and music-publishing deals.)
Burke’s mother, Colleen Burke, was his personal financial manager who was a signatory on his accounts, approved and paid his bills, and “controlled the flow of the enterprise’s funds,” the lawsuit states. “Colleen Burke, by approving and funding arrangements that housed decedent and enabled Burke’s access to her, and by hosting decedent, a minor, for one or more nights in her own home with Burke, undertook conduct giving rise to a duty to exercise reasonable care for decedent’s protection,” it claims.
All co-defendants in the new lawsuit have been accused of negligence in failing to protect a minor.
According to the filing, the entity and individual defendants allegedly “knew or should have known of Burke’s dangerous propensities toward and sexual exploitation of [Rivas Hernandez], a minor, and failed to take reasonable steps to protect her, to supervise Burke, or to prevent the continued abuse.”
Rivas Hernandez’s parents further allege that one or more of the management defendants had “actual knowledge” that Burke was sexually abusing Rivas Hernandez, a minor, but continued working with him. The family said it may seek to amend the complaint with additional allegations as it obtains evidence through discovery.
Jacques, the security guard, is named in an aiding-and-abetting claim tied to the allegations of sexual battery, childhood sexual assault, and false imprisonment. The parents allege Jacques provided “substantial assistance and encouragement” to Burke by helping remove Rivas Hernandez from her family home, transporting her, and facilitating Burke’s continued access to and control over her.
Lawyers for Colleen and the singer’s managers at Mogul Vision did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Rolling Stone on Tuesday. Attempts to reach Jacques were not immediately successful.
Rivas Hernandez’s parents are seeking unspecified damages to be determined by a jury trial. They say in the lawsuit that the alleged childhood sexual assault of their daughter “resulted from a cover-up and a concerted effort to hide evidence” on the part of certain defendants, entitling them to triple damages.
The new lawsuit comes after Rolling Stone published an investigation into the “Romantic Homicide” singer last month that detailed a pattern of concerning behavior on the part of Burke, much of which predated his alleged abuse of Rivas Hernandez.
In a statement released by their lawyer over the weekend, Rivas Hernandez’s parents urged Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman to seek the death penalty against Burke. Hochman recently reiterated that his office has not decided whether to pursue capital punishment or seek the alternative maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“If the death penalty were activated, it would be perfect for this kind of human being, devoid of feelings and emptiness inside, and without conscience, who only caused pain to our daughter, our family, and the world that supports our precious daughter,” the family said in the statement shared by Steinfeld and obtained by Rolling Stone. “But that’s not in our hands, but rather in God’s, and the California justice system.”
