Water polo star accused of sexually abusing black teammate at elite LA school is son of Hollywood director

The water polo phenom accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing and racially tormenting a black teammate at an elite Los Angeles private school is the son of a Hollywood director who has worked on blockbuster films including “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Castaway,” according to a new report.

Lucca van der Woude — a former Harvard-Westlake School standout once considered a future Olympic prospect — is the son of longtime film assistant director Thomas “Basti” van der Woude, the Daily Mail reported.

The elder van der Woude has worked on dozens of major productions over the past three decades including “Fast & Furious 5,” “Thor: The Dark World,” “Battleship,” and the AMC television series “Fear the Walking Dead.”

The filmmaker — known professionally as Basti — won a Director’s Guild of America award in 2016 for Outstanding Directorial Achievement as part of the team behind the HBO film “Bessie.”

Van der Woude’s mother, Nilda, allegedly served as the water polo team’s “team mom,” coordinating logistics and communications for parents — a role that the lawsuit claims helped cement the younger van der Woude’s standing on the squad, the Daily Mail reported.

The titanic allegations against the athlete surfaced in the suit filed last week by former teammate Aidan Romain, who claims he was subjected to months of racist harassment and sexual abuse while playing on Harvard-Westlake’s elite team.

Romain — the only black player on the team — alleges van der Woude repeatedly hurled racial slurs and sexually assaulted him during practices and team activities while they were minors at the ultra-exclusive school in the Hollywood Hills.

Van der Woude was arrested on campus in February 2024 and later admitted in juvenile court to sexual penetration of a minor with a foreign object, The Post previously reported.

The lawsuit also names another player — Connor Kim, now a water polo athlete at Harvard Univeristy — as participating in racially abusive behavior toward Romain, the Daily Mail reported.

In one alleged incident detailed in the complaint, teammates whipped Romain with exercise bands in what the lawsuit described as a degrading “re-enactment of slavery.”

The suit claims school officials and coaches were repeatedly alerted to the abuse but failed to take meaningful action.

Harvard-Westlake has disputed these claims, saying it treated reports of misconduct seriously and complied with man datory reporting obligations.

Meanwhile, longtime Harvard-Westlake water polo coach Jack Grover is under investigation by the US Center for SafeSport over allegations he failed to properly report abuse claims, the Daily Mail reported.

The lawsuit further alleges van der Woude violated a court-ordered no-contact order 23 times by appearing at the same water polo events as Romain, according to the outlet.

Romain ultimately left the US to continue training in Europe after the alleged abuse. Now, Romain has told ABC Eyewitness News he wants to return to America to attend an Ivy League school before hopefully representing the US in the Olympics.

Van der Woude’s lawyer told Eyewitness News that the allegations will be addressed in court, and they have no intention to “litigate this matter in the media.”

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