The son of a Hollywood director who was accused of cheating on Harvard-Westlake water polo

An exclusive private school in the Los Angeles area has been rocked by allegations that three of its water polo teammates, including a star who is the son of a famous film director, racially and sexually abused his teammate for years.

A civil lawsuit filed by Aidan Romain, who was a junior and water polo player at the swanky Harvard-Westlake School at the time of the alleged incidents, says he suffered persistent sexism at the hands of his teammates.

Another colleague, Lucca Van Der Woude, was named in the lawsuit, along with the school itself, school president Richard B. Commons and boys water polo program manager Jack Glover. Van Der Woude is the son of Thomas “Basti” Van Der Woude, an assistant director of popular Hollywood shows including “Fear the Walking Dead,” “Westworld,” and the current blockbuster “Ballard.”

The young Van Der Woude is considered the best player in the Olympics, and at one point was a prestigious recruit to play water polo at UCLA, one of the top college programs in the country. It is not clear what his current employment status is with the team, but the charge against him is that his behavior is shocking.

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“From August 2022 through February 2024, plaintiff Aidan Romain (then a minor) was sexually assaulted, harassed and humiliated by three of his Harvard-Westlake water polo teammates — often in the presence of Harvard-Westlake agents and employees,” the lawsuit begins.

The lawsuit alleges that in 2022, Romain was the only freshman in varsity water polo at Harvard-Westlake, but that abuse at the hands of Van Der Woude began during her first practice, when the defendant allegedly “digitally entered” her underwater.

“The abuse was not random. It was part of a culture of years where violence and humiliation were normalized and perpetuated by the school’s coaching staff and administrators,” the lawsuit said. “At Harvard-Westlake, sexual misconduct was considered the norm, and silence was the price of inclusion. Speaking out was betrayal and survival meant silence.”

Harvard-Westlake School at Coldwater Canyon in Studio City, CA, on Thursday, July 13, 2023. (Dean Musgrove/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)

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According to the lawsuit, Romain was also subject to using the “N” word consistently.

In another “disturbing display of racism,” Van Der Woude and another colleague who was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit allegedly “began to whip the plaintiff with a rope and then put a rubber band on him, referring to slavery as they demanded that the plaintiff ‘go back to work!’ while beating the Appellant.”

Van Der Woude was arrested in 2024 and later pleaded guilty in juvenile court to “‘sexual penetration by a foreign object (digital penetration) of a minor’ as part of a plea deal with prosecutors,” according to the lawsuit. In February 2025, he was ordered to pay $50,000 in restitution to Romain.

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The lawsuit says Harvard-Westlake, which costs $54,900 to attend, knew about the abuse, but failed to take action.

The Weddington Golf & Tennis Club is expected to close permanently months after Harvard-Westlake officials announced that the school was purchasing the facility from the Weddington family, on August 2, 2019. (David Crane/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)

Romain is now reportedly living in Barcelona, ​​where he continues to train.

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“It was very difficult every day to deal with racial harassment and sexual harassment,” she told ABC7 in March.

Fox News Digital has reached out to an attorney for Van Der Woude and Harvard-Westlake for comment.

Harvard-Westlake previously denied the allegations.