Celeste Rivas Family Sues D4vd and His Inner Circle

Celeste Rivas Hernandez’s parents sued singer D4vd on Sept. 7, 2026, and named his mother, manager, live-in guard, and management firm as well. The wrongful death complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court tracks the murder case against David Anthony Burke, 21, then steps past him to the adults who housed him, paid his bills, and, the family says, watched a 13-year-old come and go.

Burke has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder with special circumstances, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, and unlawful mutilation of human remains. He is held without bond at Twin Towers Jail. The civil case landed on the day Celeste would have turned 16, and one day before the first anniversary of workers finding her remains in the front trunk of a Tesla registered to him.

The Complaint Reaches Past the Singer

Mercedes Martinez and Jesus Edgardo Rivas Alvarado say Burke killed their daughter on April 23, 2025, inside a Hollywood Hills rental after she threatened to expose him. They also say the people and companies around him knew, or should have known, about the alleged sexual exploitation and failed to stop it. The filing lists 12 causes of action. Nine of those claims target Burke. The rest aim at the circle that kept the house running.

The named defendants include Josh Marshall, owner of Mogul Vision; Colleen Burke, the singer’s mother; Sheldon Jacques, described as a live-in security guard; finance manager Robert Mogenroth; Mogul Vision itself; and three Burke-linked firms, D4vd Entertainment, Headspace Publishing, and Skullrose Merchandise. The parents ask for money damages, including burial and funeral costs from the Oct. 6, 2025, service in Rowland Heights.

WHO THE SUIT NAMES

Marshall could not be reached for comment on the new filing. Jacques also could not be reached. Mogul Vision and Mogenroth have previously denied knowing about Burke and the teenager.

Who the Family Says Enabled the Abuse

California law says parents may sue for a child’s death caused by a wrongful act or neglect. This complaint does more than name the man already charged. It treats the paid adults around him as people with a duty to intervene.

The parents say Burke first contacted their daughter online in November 2023 and met her in person when she was 13. Over the next 16 months, they say, the pair exchanged almost 10,000 texts and, by Burke’s own admission in the criminal case, had sex multiple times. The suit says a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy later told Burke she was underage and that the contact still continued. Family attorney Patrick Steinfeld has said that warning came in February 2024, after her parents reported her missing.

Some public comment on the filing immediately blamed the parents for letting a pop star near their child. The complaint does not sue them. It sues the people on payroll.

WHAT THE CIRCLE IS ACCUSED OF

• Duty to act: The entity and individual defendants “knew or should have known of Burke’s dangerous propensities toward, and sexual exploitation of, decedent, a minor, and failed to take reasonable steps to protect her, to supervise Burke or to prevent the continued abuse.”
• Housing and security: Mogul Vision leased the Hollywood Hills home and, the family says, arranged for Jacques to live there as security.
• Transport: The parents say Burke enlisted Jacques to help take Celeste from her family’s house and bring her to the Hills residence.
• Money and travel: Colleen Burke is described as running his firm. Mogenroth is accused of approving the payments that funded travel, housing, and security. The suit says those arrangements let Burke isolate her.

On the human trafficking count, the parents write that gifts were the price of sex. “The money, food, shelter, designer gifts, travel, a ring and a promise of future marriage that Burke gave decedent were given on account of the sexual acts, satisfying the commercial-sex-act element,” the complaint says. It adds that he promised marriage “without any intention of performing it, in order to deceive and induce her.”

Marshall, posting in 2025 as JMogul after the Tesla find, denied getting a 2024 email from adults in Celeste’s life and denied living at the Hills house. “I had zero knowledge of anything and I don’t live in California,” he wrote, adding that he works remotely most of the time and is a father of three, including a 14-year-old daughter. That denial is now a civil pleading problem, not a comment-section fight.

Texas Homes Moved Before the Public Defender

The civil case arrives after Burke’s money story flipped in open court. Former Mogul Vision finance director Benjamin Greger testified that Burke’s gross earnings from 2023 to 2025 ran about $10 million to $11.5 million. Darkroom and Interscope had signed him to a multimillion-dollar deal in 2022. Interscope dropped him in late 2025. On Aug. 31, 2026, Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo let his private team of Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski, and Regina Peter withdraw and appointed the Los Angeles County public defender’s office.

A spokeswoman for that office said she was “not at liberty to disclose financial information” but that a thorough review found Burke eligible. Deputy Public Defender Walid Kandeel took the file the same morning. The judge sealed the transcript of the in-chambers discussion about why the switch happened. The next criminal date is Oct. 19, 2026. No trial date is set.

MONEY ALREADY IN DISPUTE

• Gross music take: Greger put Burke’s 2023 to 2025 gross in a range of about $10 million to $11.5 million.
• Texas transfers: Property records show Burke moved two Texas homes into his mother’s name on Sept. 18 and Sept. 23, 2025, days after the Tesla find.
• Houston sale: Dawud Burke, the singer’s father, sold a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 1,819-square-foot Houston house for $229,000 in early July 2026.
• Steinfeld’s stream count: The family’s lawyer cites more than 5 billion streams, 16 million monthly listeners on one platform, and three corporations Burke controls.

Steinfeld called the indigency finding a shield, not a hardship. “It is unfathomable that our justice system qualifies David Anthony Burke as indigent when D4VD has 5+ billion streams with 16 million monthly listeners on a single streaming platform, and controls three corporations,” he said. He has told reporters Burke is owner and director of entertainment, merchandising, and publishing LLCs, and he has pointed to Texas records of those stakes.

The family put the same charge in blunter terms. “Perhaps he would have money if he just asked one of his corporations, or if he had not fraudulently transferred assets to his mother/manager Colleen Burke,” their statement said. They also said Los Angeles County taxpayers should not be paying to defend “this millionaire.”

Greger’s prelim testimony is the document trail the civil lawyers will want. He said he spoke with Colleen Burke about 10 times a month on money. He said he suggested moving title on at least one house because it was a family home, and he gave her a name of someone who could help with the paperwork. Asked whether he had earlier said the point was to keep Celeste’s family from reaching the estate, he said he did not recall that. Prosecutors had already framed the transfers as a civil-suit hedge. The new complaint is that hedge coming due.

We recognize the loss of life underlying the allegations and extend our sympathies to those who are grieving. At the same time, David Burke is entitled to a defense that takes his circumstances seriously and carefully examines the evidence. We are committed to providing him with that defense.

Walid Kandeel, Los Angeles County deputy public defender, Aug. 31, 2026 statement

Berk, Bednarski, and Peter said they still support Burke’s defense and were glad a full public-defender team was in place. They did not explain the money.

A Judge Already Sent the Murder Case to Trial

The civil paper copies the state’s theory. Prosecutors say Burke stabbed Celeste twice on April 23, 2025, then cut up her body and left it in the Tesla, which sat on a street near the house until it was towed and opened at a Hollywood lot on Sept. 8, 2025. They say she had gone to the house after an April 22 fight in which she texted, “I will end ur career and ur life.” The suit says he wrote “gates open, door’s unlocked” at 10:10 p.m. the next night, and that she had asked him around 8:20 p.m. to send a car from Riverside County.

Olmedo held a five-day preliminary hearing in July 2026 with more than 10 witnesses. On July 27 she found probable cause on all charges and on three special circumstances: that he ambushed her, that he killed her to cover up a crime, and that he killed her for financial gain. Those findings keep murder for financial gain can bring death or life without parole on the verdict form if a jury later agrees. “It appears to me, for the purposes of preliminary hearing, the people have met their burden of proof on all charges,” she said. “I order that Mr. Burke be held to answer.”

District Attorney Nathan Hochman said his office showed “a significant but small fraction” of its evidence and that he believes a trial record will prove the three charges beyond a reasonable doubt. He has not said whether he will seek death. The defense has said the actual evidence will show Burke did not kill her. Bednarski told the prelim judge the texts showed care, not “homicidal animus,” and that dismemberment after death does not prove who caused the death, when, or how. Investigators have not recovered a murder weapon. No witness has described seeing the killing. A medical examiner testified she could not absolutely rule out that Celeste held the weapon or tried to harm herself.

THE DATES THE TWO CASES SHARE

1. November 2023: Burke contacts Celeste online; her parents say she is 13 at the first in-person meeting.
2. February 2024: A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy tells Burke she is 13, Steinfeld says, after her parents report her missing.
3. April 22, 2025: After a fight about other women, she texts that she will end his career and his life.
4. April 23, 2025: Prosecutors and the suit say he has her brought to the Hills house and kills her as his debut album Withered is coming out.
5. Sept. 8, 2025: Workers at a Hollywood tow yard find her remains in the Tesla’s front trunk, a day after she would have turned 15.
6. Sept. 18 and 23, 2025: Two Texas homes move into Colleen Burke’s name.
7. April 2026: Burke is arrested and charged; he pleads not guilty.
8. July 27, 2026: Olmedo holds him to answer after the five-day hearing.
9. Aug. 31, 2026: Private counsel withdraws; Kandeel is appointed; the next date is set for Oct. 19.
10. Sept. 7, 2026: On what would have been Celeste’s 16th birthday, her parents file the civil case and ask Hochman to seek death.

Motive, in both files, is the career. Prosecutors say she was killed so she could not wreck the album rollout. The suit says he was making millions and had a reason to keep her quiet. Romantic Homicide had already made him a streaming star. Withered was the major-label debut. That is the financial-gain special circumstance in plain clothes.

The Family Asked for Death on Her Birthday

Martinez and Rivas did not wait for Hochman. On Sept. 7 they called on him to seek capital punishment if Burke is convicted, and they described the man in the dock as empty of conscience.

If the death penalty were activated, it would be perfect for this kind of human being, devoid of feelings and emptiness inside, and without conscience, who only caused pain to our daughter, our family, and the world that supports our precious daughter. But that’s not in our hands, but rather in God’s and the California justice system.

Mercedes Martinez and Jesus Rivas, family statement, Sept. 7, 2026

Hochman said again that he has not decided, and he gave no date for a decision. A capital filing would not, by itself, put money in the parents’ hands. That is the civil case’s job. The birthday statement and the complaint work as a pair: one asks the state for the harshest criminal penalty, the other asks a civil jury to reach the people who, the family says, made the house and the cars and the travel possible.

Steinfeld has already fought the defense over Celeste’s age and over attempts to paint her as violent or suicidal. After the prelim he said the family was “horrified that the defense attorneys brought up evidence to put the blame on a 14-year-old child.” He also rejected the idea that she first told Burke she was 18. “He knew because he was told in February of 2024 that Celeste was only 13 years old,” Steinfeld said.

What a Civil Case Can Still Collect

A civil jury uses a lower burden than a criminal one. The parents do not have to wait for a murder verdict to try to prove that Burke, and the people around him, owed Celeste a duty and broke it. They do have to find assets. That is why the complaint spends so much ink on Mogul Vision’s lease, on Jacques’s bed in the house, on Colleen Burke’s hold on the accounts, and on the three companies.

If those defendants can show they truly did not know, the extra claims shrink. If a judge later treats the Texas transfers as a move to dodge creditors, some of that property can be pulled back into reach. That is not decided. Burke remains presumed innocent in the criminal case. The civil defendants have not yet answered in court.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The filing: Martinez and Rivas sued in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Sept. 7, 2026, naming Burke and the inner circle.
• The criminal track: He has been held to answer, pleaded not guilty, and is due back Oct. 19 with a public defender.
• The denials: Burke pleads not guilty. Marshall denied knowledge in 2025. Mogul Vision and Mogenroth have denied knowing about the relationship.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Death penalty: Hochman has not said whether he will seek it.
• Collectable assets: No court has ruled on the Texas transfers, the three companies, or whether Burke is truly without funds.
• Who knew what: The complaint alleges knowledge or constructive knowledge; that is a fact question for later.

Oct. 19 will not end either case. It is a status date on the murder calendar, with a new lawyer still reading a file that already filled five days of prelim proof. The civil complaint sits in a different stack, aimed at the mother who moved titles, the manager whose company leased the house, the guard who lived inside it, and the firms that, the family says, paid for the life that hid a child. Burke can tell a criminal jury he did not kill her. The people around him now have to tell a civil jury they had no duty to stop him.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a civil complaint and a pending criminal prosecution. It is for information only and is not legal advice, a prediction of any verdict, or a guide to suing, collecting a judgment, or challenging a public-defender finding. Readers who face a related claim, defense, or estate question should consult a licensed California attorney before acting. Charges, court dates, asset facts, and penalty decisions reflect the public record in the sources used for this report and can change as both cases move.