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. 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.” Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century 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. 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.
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 def
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