A DOCTOR’S DARK SECRETS Are this couple behind a string of sexual assaults?

Police say reality show bachelor Dr Grant Robicheaux and his girlfriend

Residents of Dr Grant Robicheaux’s upscale neighbourhood in Newport Beach, California, recall waving to the handsome orthopaedic surgeon – named 2013’s Bachelor of the Year by Orange Coast Magazine and featured on a TV reality dating show – as he walked the quaint streets with his pretty girlfriend Cerissa Riley, a substitute public teacher. “He was in his scrubs a lot out walking his dog,” says neighbour Stephen Sumney, 56. “He always looked busy. They always seemed like they wanted to get home.”

What police say was going on in that home has horrified neighbours and revealed a shocking investigation two years in the making. On Sept. 12, police arrested Robicheaux, 38, and Riley, 31, and charged them with drugging and raping two women in separate assaults in 2016. Both have pleaded not guilty and were released on $US100,000 ($137,900) bail. “Dr Robicheaux and Ms Riley believe that such allegations do a disservice to, and dangerously undermine, the true victims of sexual assault,” said their lawyers Philip Cohen and Scott Borthwick in a statement.

But Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas says based on numerous videos police allegedly recovered in a search of Robicheaux’s home in January this year, there could be “hundreds” of additional victims. “We have all heard of a wolf dressing up in sheep’s clothing,” Rackauckas said at a Sept. 18 press conference. “Well, a wolf can wear scrubs . . . or a wolf can be a beautiful woman.” The very public unravelling of the outwardly glamorous and seemingly loving couple has left their friends, and Robicheaux’s patients and colleagues, at a loss. “He was professional, charming, attractive and friendly,” says Jessica Vanden Brink, a lawyer whose firm hired him in July as an expert witness.

Patients often gave Robicheaux – whose now deleted Linkedin profile stated the Louisiana native had “converted his southern gentlemanly upbringing naturally into a comfortable, caring bedside manner” – high ratings in online forums, praising him for his skill and professionalism. Robicheaux’s lawyers have noted that at no time were patients connected to the allegations that led to his arrest. Still, the Medical Board of California has launched its own investigation and Robicheaux’s name has been scrubbed from the Newportcare Medical Group website, where he specialised in hand, shoulder and elbow surgery. Police maintain that Robicheaux and Riley – who is currently going through a divorce from her high school sweetheart, Chad – used their good looks to lull their victims into feeling comfortable and safe. They allegedly targeted women they met at bars and music festivals, plying them with cocaine, ecstasy and GHB, a depressant known as the date-rape drug. According to court documents, one victim told police she lost consciousness while drinking with the couple in a Newport Beach bar before being taken to Robicheaux’s house where the couple began sexually assaulting her.

“It’s all very shocking,” says Riley’s estranged husband, Chad. “We love her. She’s not a monster.” But prosecutors say they have “credible leads” from more than a dozen new potential victims. “Even if you made the conscious decision to party with this couple,” Rackauckas said, “no one gets a pass to have their way with you once you’re unconscious.”

With reporting by K.C. Baker, Adam ■ Carlson and Christine Pelisek

“He was professional, charming, attractive and friendly” — Jessica Vanden Brink