Celeste Rivas Hernandez’s parents are suing the singer D4vd, accusing him of wrongful death after he was charged in the 14-year-old girl’s murder.
Mercedes Martinez and Jesus Rivas are also suing D4vd’s mother and managers, accusing them of negligence. D4vd’s real name is David Anthony Burke.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, outlines much of the evidence presented at a multiday evidentiary hearing in July about the pair’s relationship, which prosecutors said began when Celeste was 13 and ended after she threatened to expose him. Text messages revealed at the hearing showed that she had gotten pregnant by Burke and had an abortion.
Her decomposed and dismembered remains were found in September 2025 in the front trunk of Burke’s Tesla at a Los Angeles impound lot. Prosecutors said the car had been left on a street near his home and impounded at Hollywood Tow after someone reported an abandoned vehicle.
Burke, 21, was arrested in April at a house in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood, Los Angeles police said. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14 and unlawful mutilation of human remains. He remains in custody awaiting trial.
The lawsuit accuses Burke of using his position of authority to “influence and control” Celeste, “including by providing her a concealed cellular telephone to maintain contact outside her parents’ knowledge, using false identities, and arranging and paying for her travel.”
The suit says that on the night she died in April 2025, Burke sent an Uber vehicle to pick her up from her family’s home in Lake Elsinore in Riverside County. After she arrived at his home in the Hollywood Hills, Burke stabbed her, prosecutors allege. Prosecutors said he used chain saws to cut her body apart in his garage.
Celeste’s parents say in the lawsuit that because of the decomposition, they had to wait more than a week after her remains were found for an identification and that some parts of the body were never recovered.
The suit accuses Burke of wrongful death, as well as battery, sexual battery, childhood sexual assault, assault, false imprisonment, human trafficking and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It also alleges that Burke engaged in human trafficking by causing or inducing Celeste “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 Decedent were given on account of the sexual acts, satisfying the commercial-sex-act element,” the suit says. “Because Decedent was a minor, neither her purported consent nor any mistakes as to her age is a defense.”
Burke’s publishing and merchandising companies are also named as defendants in the lawsuit, which claims they were the vehicles that helped fund the alleged abuse. Listed as co-defendants are Josh Marshall and Robert Morgenroth, Burke’s managers; their company, Mogul Vision; and Burke’s live-in security guard, who the suit alleges drove him to pick up Celeste from her parents’ home in 2024.
The suit also lists Burke’s mother, Colleen Burke, as a co-defendant and says she approved and funded “arrangements that housed Decedent and enabled Burke’s access to her.” All co-defendants are accused of failing to protect a minor and negligence.
It was not immediately clear whether Burke had an attorney representing him in the lawsuit. Contact information could not be found for Burke’s companies or his security guard. Marshall, the owner of Mogul Vision, which employed Morgenroth, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on behalf of himself, the company or Morgenroth. Messages left at numbers believed to be associated with Morgenroth and Colleen Burke were not immediately returned.
The suit requests a jury trial.
Celeste’s parents asked for the death penalty this week.
“If the death penalty were activated, it would be perfect for this kind of human being, devoid of feelings ... and without conscience, who only caused pain to our daughter, our family, and the world that supports our precious daughter,” they said in a statement on what would have been Celeste’s 16th birthday.
