students also claimed that they were ignored by the Russell family when they brought the allegations to them in the mid-2000s. The San Diego branch closed for a time, before restarting production less than a year later, with Russell family still in leadership positions. CYT San Diego issued a statement saying “the Russells will no longer serve in leadership roles for CYT San Diego.” As of April 2022, Janie Russell Cox, the daughter of founders Paul and Sheryl, is still listed as CYT San Diego's Artistic Director and regularly directing plays. Although she has dropped the last name "Russell" in response. In October 2021 two former employees were charged with sexually abusing underage girls. Brad Christian Davis, 40, is charged with sexual penetration by a foreign object. A criminal complaint shows the crime, a felony, is alleged to have occurred in 2011. The alleged victim was a 16-year-old girl, while Davis would have been 29 or 30 at the time. David Franklin Hott, 34, is accused of committing lewd and lascivious acts upon a 13-year-old girl in 2007, when he would have been 19 or 20 years old. He faces two felonies. Both men pleaded in February 2022, not guilty. In March 2022 another lawsuit was filed on behalf of six plaintiffs detailing the abuse of at least 10 children between 1991 and 2011, and that Christian Youth Theater’s culture “normalized grooming behaviors in which adults were able to target children, gain their trust, and slowly and incrementally push the boundaries further to the point of sexual abuse.” It also alleges that Paul and Sheryl Russell, who founded Christian Youth Theater in 1981 and grew it into one of the nation’s largest youth theater organizations, knew about the abuse as early as 1992, yet failed to act. It claims that Paul Russell, who remained the leader of the program until 2017, “engaged in negligent conduct in order to cover up child sexual abuse, including failing to report (to law enforcement), denying the reports of children, misinforming parents as to the nature of their children’s abuse, and failing to advise parents of the existence of alleged child abusers within the organization.” Notable alumni Jason Russell co-founder of Invisible Children, Inc. Michelle Williams, film actress Ryan Hanson, actor, Veronica Mars Ashley Tesoro, Film & TV actress, singer Cami Bradley, singer, America's Got Talent finalist Denyse Tontz, Film & TV actress, singer Melissa