A former track and cross country coach at a small Christian college in Indiana is accused of forcibly doping and sexually abusing some of his female athletes—including while some of them lived in the basement of the home he shared with his wife.
In an explosive federal lawsuit filed this fall, former Huntington University runners Emma Wilson and Hannah Stoffel say ex-trainer Nick Johnson injected them with unknown substances and raped and molested Stoffel repeatedly from July to November 2020.
According to the complaint, Johnson’s alleged abuse went unchecked as his wife, fellow track coach Lauren Johnson, and other enablers at the university looked the other way. Stoffel and Wilson “were victims of a coach” who “gave Larry Nassaresque massages all the while acting like Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France pharmacist injecting unknown substances into their bodies,” the lawsuit states.
Stoffel, the filing alleges, wasn’t the only student Johnson preyed on; it claims he “had sexual contact with multiple students” on the cross country and track and field teams, as well as a 16-year-old high school runner he was trying to recruit.
A police report reviewed by The Daily Beast reveals Johnson was charged with molesting the teenager in the summer of 2020. Johnson, 35, faced child seduction, kidnapping, and identity deception charges in connection to that abuse but in February pleaded guilty only to the last count in a deal with prosecutors. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
“Nick Johnson is the person you need to look out for,” Jonathan Little, an attorney for Wilson and Stoffel, told The Daily Beast. “He came in, he was charismatic. I won’t deny he’s a good coach. Along the way he brought fame and glory to this tiny school in Northern Indiana, and you don’t want to believe it’s him. It’s not the strangers, it’s the non-biologically related males in your life you gotta look out for, and that’s what people don’t want to hear.”
Little, who represented survivors of convicted rapist and ex-USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, added, “This is just a case of epic failure at every level of the system because Nick Johnson was a good coach.” He said his clients’ lawsuit will be amended at the end of December with more accusations against Johnson.
Lawyers for Nick and Lauren Johnson could not be reached for comment.
Huntington University, which is accused in the lawsuit of a Title IX violation, provided a comment to The Daily Beast after the publication of this story. A university spokeswoman said the school received no Title IX complaints against Nick Johnson before his termination, or anytime between his firing and the filing of the civil complaint.
The school published a statement on its website in October that said it “has strived to carry out Christ’s mission in higher education” and was “devastated and heartbroken” by the accusations in the complaint. “These allegations are not only disturbing, but also antithetical to everything we stand for,” the statement continued.
“Police uncovered text messages between Johnson and the 16-year-old, including Johnson explaining how his ‘feelings have evolved for’ the girl. ”
In a court filing last week, attorneys for the university and its board of trustees asked a judge to dismiss the counts against them and said Wilson and Stoffel “have failed to plead facts that raise a plausible claim that the University had actual knowledge of the alleged discrimination and abuse.”
On Monday, lawyers for the Johnsons and Curtis Hines, an assistant coach at Huntington University who was also named as a defendant, requested more time to respond to the lawsuit in light of the future amended complaint.
While Johnson hasn’t commented on the sexual abuse claims, Lauren recently gave an on-camera interview to local TV station Fox 59 and denied the allegations in the lawsuit.
Huntington University named Lauren head coach of cross country after firing her husband following his December 2020 arrest. Soon after Wilson and Stoffel filed their lawsuit on Sept. 30, the university placed Lauren and Hines on administrative leave. (A university spokeswoman told The Daily Beast that Lauren denied having any prior knowledge of her husband’s alleged misconduct when she was hired as head coach.)
“The way things were portrayed and the way they were put out there,” Lauren told the news outlet, “they effectively destroyed my past, present and future in the sport…” She added, “I never had a single complaint from any runner.”
The lawsuit and police report, however, suggest that Lauren knew her husband was intimately involved with some of his runners, and that she was concerned about his contact with the 16-year-old.
Lauren told cops that she confronted Johnson about texting the high-schooler late at night and demanded he only contact the teen if Lauren or the teen’s mother were included in the messages. She added that Johnson admitted to having “affairs” with two university runners including Stoffel, a police report reveals.
According to the lawsuit, Lauren learned of her husband’s sexual activity with Stoffel in September 2020, spoke to Stoffel about it, and “took no steps to protect” her.
Lauren claimed in her police interview that Stoffel and the other runner were unaware that Johnson was pursuing them both, and that she and her husband wanted to keep it that way to avoid jeopardizing their employment. “Mrs. Johnson stated Nick convinced her it was best they did not know about each other because they would be less likely to come forward about the affairs if they each thought they were the only one,” the police report states.
Before they arrived at Huntington in 2018, Johnson was an assistant coach and Lauren a runner for the Nike Oregon Track Club in Eugene. The lawsuit alleges Johnson “developed close contacts with the Nike Oregon Project (NOP),” an elite training group that the shoe giant shut down in 2019 after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency banned its head coach Alberto Salazar for doping violations.
The lawsuit alleges that Johnson “often bragged about his relationship and connections” with Salazar and that he and Lauren instituted a Huntington University “doping program” that was “strikingly similar to the doping program exposed at the NOP.” In 2019, the complaint says, Johnson told athletes and assistant coaches he was conducting a “study” or “experiment” that was allegedly endorsed by Nike and Huntington’s athletic director.
Nike did not return requests for comment by press time.
“She also described feeling bad for the coach and as though she owed him something.”
A Huntington spokeswoman said that the university “has a rigorous approval process for all school-sanctioned research studies” and that its “administration, including its athletic director, its research faculty, and its Board of Trustees, were never aware of or approved any alleged research studies led by Mr. Johnson.”
As part of the purported study, Johnson told select members of the cross country team they would receive injections and sign a non-disclosure agreement. Stoffel was one athlete to receive infusions of the unknown substance on a biweekly basis.
The lawsuit alleges Johnson would inject the women or rub unknown substances on them. “At one point,” the complaint says, “Emma’s knee began to hurt and Mr. Johnson gave her an unknown pill in a plastic bag and stated that ‘it was stronger than ibuprofen and that it would help with the inflammation.’” On another occasion, Johnson is accused of bringing Stoffel to a Huntington athletics building, restraining her, and injecting her with four shots of a substance, which he claimed he obtained from his brother.
The lawsuit and police report indicate that the couple routinely invited university students to their home—often for physical therapy “treatments” on massage tables in the garage, despite Johnson’s lack of medical credentials—and arranged for Stoffel and Wilson to live in a basement room at their residence. The Johnsons would host high-school students, too, leading some parents to complain to university staff about the parade of girls in and out of the home, the lawsuit states.
According to the complaint, Johnson “would isolate Hannah under the guise of her needing ‘treatment’ and molest her.”
The abuse allegedly began one night in July 2020, when Stoffel informed Johnson that their exterior door lock was sticking at an apartment he’d set up for her and Wilson. The lawsuit says the coach instructed her to leave the door unlocked and told her he would come over that night and give her a massage. Stoffel allegedly told Johnson that she didn’t want a massage, but he still allegedly entered her apartment, got into her bed, and began touching her. Stoffel told him “no” and to “stop,” but he “continued to batter” her and sexually assaulted her, the document adds.
After the alleged abuse escalated, Johnson “told Hannah that his conduct was not sexual, that he was merely teaching her how to love and be intimate,” the lawsuit says, adding that “Hannah became concerned that Nicholas would try and get her pregnant.”
The filing details how Johnson would allegedly manipulate and “psychologically torture” Stoffel including by driving her to the scene of a childhood trauma and continuously telling her “that she had never been loved” and that “he was the only one who loved her and that he and he alone could help her achieve her dreams of competing in the Olympic trials.”
“Often after emotional traumatizing and breaking Hannah down, Nicholas Johnson would force Hannah to sexually service him,” the lawsuit states.
“He came in, he was charismatic. I won’t deny he’s a good coach. Along the way he brought fame and glory to this tiny school...”
The complaint also paints a picture of Johnson’s alleged inappropriate hugging and “graphic sexual conversations” with female runners on his team. Such accusations of inappropriate behavior with young runners also pervaded the police report.
The Huntington Police Department began investigating Johnson after one high-school girl told a teacher about her friend’s relationship with a university coach.
The 16-year-old victim had attended the same church as the Johnsons and trained with Nick, who was hoping to recruit her to the university. The victim’s mother told police that the couple were like an “aunt and uncle” to the girl.
In July 2020, Johnson took the girl on a trip to Oregon under the guise of a college visit. Under police questioning, Johnson admitted to creating a fake email address, fake trip itinerary, and pretending to be an official from the University of Oregon in messages arranging a visit for the girl to come to campus on her own. The girl’s parents didn’t know Johnson would be on the trip.
Around the same time, rumors swirled in the community about Johnson’s relationship with the teenager. The police report indicates that the high school’s athletic director met with a Huntington University administrator and Johnson to share concerns about “the constant flow of students in and out of Mr. Johnson’s residence.”
The athletic director told police that during this meeting, Johnson “also brought up athletes on his HU team with past trauma, some sexual, and how he and his wife are helping the athletes get through these traumatic events.” The athletic director added that she saw Johnson on high school property with a massage table setup about three weeks later and advised coaching staff he was no longer allowed to do treatments there.
Meanwhile, police uncovered text messages between Johnson and the 16-year-old, as well as photos from the Oregon trip. Those communications included “terms of endearment,” “statements of wanting to hold or be held by the other,” and Johnson explaining how his “feelings have evolved for” the girl. The report says Johnson sent one message, at 11:08 p.m., stating the teen “will become the most famous person to ever come from Huntington.”
In his own police interview, Johnson told an investigator that he had been taking a testosterone cream which changed his mental state. He also said he had consensual “affairs” with two women including Stoffel, who he claimed “seduced” him. In describing his relationship with a second university runner, Johnson said he confided in her that his wife was allegedly bipolar and abusive toward him. Throughout the police questioning, Johnson suggested the women came onto him.
Johnson also admitted to certain misconduct with the high-school athlete. He said he kissed the 16-year-old and touched her breasts during his “chest release” massage treatments in his garage, and said that he got into the hotel room bed with the victim during the Oregon trip. He claimed, however, not to have had sex with her. “Mr. Johnson stated he knew he had made mistakes,” the report says.
The girl’s account to cops of the Oregon trip was more explicit. She told investigators that she and Johnson traveled to the state so he could purchase a puppy, that Johnson had created the university trip ruse, and that they’d stayed at a hotel room together.
Once in Oregon, she said, Johnson had showered with her and touched her inappropriately. She also described feeling bad for the coach and as though she owed him something. The report notes that “she felt Nick needed her there to support him because, in her conversations with Lauren, Lauren told her Nick needed to see a counselor because she (Lauren) thinks Nick has a ‘sex addiction.’”
After Huntington terminated Johnson, the lawsuit says, university staff told student athletes they could still visit his home for “running advice and camaraderie.” The filing alleges that members of the university’s cross country team also “were told to write down positive thoughts regarding what Mr. Johnson means to them.” The disgraced coach “advised” runners, including some who were underage, while he was on home detention, according to the suit.
According to The Indianapolis Star, Johnson is now an employee of a lawn care service owned by a member of Huntington University’s board of trustees.
Stoffel told the Star that she tried to institute boundaries in the lopsided power dynamic with her coach, who she says threatened her running career.
“Apart from never consenting in the first place, I did verbally tell him ‘no,’ I told him to stop. And he didn’t,” Stoffel told the newspaper. “No matter what I did, he was just as relentless. It was humiliating.”
“Even saying ‘no’ was humiliating,” Stoffel added. “He violated me, and I had to tell him to stop. I had to tell my coach to stop sexually violating my body. It sounds ridiculous, and it felt surreal.”
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