More than three decades after an accomplished Orange County ballet instructor was acquitted of molesting a teenage student, several other former students are now speaking out about sexual abuse they say they endured at the time.

Four women filed civil lawsuits last year against the Orange County Dance Center and the organization’s former owner, Anthony Sellars, over sexual abuse they say occurred in the 1970s and early 1980s. The suits were filed before the close of the three-year window in California law that allowed those describing sexual assaults they endured while children to file civil lawsuits as adults.

“They just really want their voices heard,” said Dan Ellis, the attorney representing the women. “They have been suffering with this for more than 40 years. They want someone to hear them and recognize that what they went through was horrific.”

Attorneys representing the Orange County Dance Center and Sellars did not respond to requests for comment about the lawsuits and allegations.

While the Southern California News Group generally does not name people who say they were victims of sexual assault, three of the four women identified themselves and voluntarily spoke to a reporter about the allegations.

The women — Karen Horwitz, Isabel Garcia Schleeter and Cynthia Strang — all described themselves as innocent girls at the time who were relying on Sellars — a former professional dancer — to rise up through the ranks of ballet culture. They all alleged in the suits that inappropriate comments by Sellars turned to uncomfortable touching and ultimately to sexual assaults during private lessons.

“I was like a deer in headlights,” Horwitz said. “To say I was devastated is an understatement. At 12 years old the entire trajectory of my life changed. And it has never been the same since.”

The women said they were intimidated by Sellars as teen students and afraid of telling their parents.

“He could make or break us,” Strang said. “We did everything he said. I did not fight back. One time I pushed him away and said no, and that didn’t stop him. It basically broke me down.”

In 1986, Sellars went on trial for four counts of oral copulation with a 15-year-old student over alleged acts occurring between January and June 1984. A prosecutor argued that the girl had “a crush” on Sellars, according to a Los Angeles Times story on the trial, and that she “acquiesced” to the alleged sexual acts.

Sellars already had taught thousands of students, some of whom had moved on to some of the country’s most prestigious ballet companies. And parents of many of his students remained loyal despite the allegations, according to the Times, regularly attending his court hearings and questioning how such conduct could have occurred at the studio.

Following a three-week trial, the jury acquitted Sellars of the criminal charges. The attorneys involved in the case said then that the jury seemed to focus on conflicting statements between the girl and a police investigator, which they apparently concluded raised reasonable doubt.

After the verdict, Sellars said he was “very relieved that the right decision came out,” according to the news report.

Ellis says what jurors didn’t know is that police had learned of and spoken to other accusers who had alleged that Sellars had sexually assaulted them, as well, but he couldn’t be charged in connection with those allegations and they couldn’t be introduced at trial because the statute of limitations had run out. Those accusers included Horwitz, Schleeter and Strang, Ellis said.

The three women said they were angered and saddened by the not-guilty verdict and the support Sellars had received from many parents, arguing that the full story never came out.

“I learned who my true friends were,” Schleeter said. “And I lost my ability to trust people.”

Horwitz and Strang both left ballet. Schleeter remained in the dance world as a teacher.

“I know we can’t bring about a criminal conviction, but at least we can say this was totally unacceptable,” Strang said.

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