Man says his rape confession coerced
Former Boy Scout leader is accused of raping teenager.
A former Boy CLEVELAND —
Scout troop leader accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy wants a judge to throw out his confession to an Olmsted Falls detective.
The detective who elicited Aaron Robertson’s confession did not advise the 29-year-old man of his right to speak to an attorney during a March 8 interrogation in the Strongsville jail, Robertson’s attorney, Jay Milano, argued in court filings.
Detective Alex Bakos also made several promises to Robertson during the 90-minute interview, including offers to “go to bat” for a more lenient sentence and to personally call news outlets and convince them to back off Robertson’s case in exchange for a confession, Milano said in the motion.
Cuyahoga County prosecutors defended Bakos’ tactics in their own motion, arguing that he read Robertson his rights during his March 6 arrest, two days before the interview, and that those rights were still valid when he conducted the interview.
Milano has asked a judge to hold a hearing to determine whether the interrogation violated Robertson’s Constitutional rights to an attorney and his protections against self-incrimination. That hearing has yet to be held.
Robertson pleaded not guilty to rape, kidnapping, sexual battery and gross sexual imposition charges in the case. He remains free on a $75,000 personal bond.
Robertson was an assistant scoutmaster in Olmsted Falls when prosecutors say he first began abusing the boy, then 13 years old, in early 2015. Robertson took the boy to a home in North Ridgeville to do work for a construction company Robertson ran out of his home.
The abuse continued with encounters in February 2015 at Camp Mantic, in March 2015 in a shelter behind Falls-Lennox Primary School, in November at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, in March 2016 at Camp Firelands, and in June 2016 at Seven Ranges Scout Reservation, according to court records.
The boy told police that the two performed oral sex on each other 10 to 20 times, according to court records.
Robertson, who also worked as an auxiliary member of the Olmsted Falls Police Department and U.S. Coast Guard and was a volunteer firefighter in Columbia Station and Lodi, was stripped of his duty when detectives obtained an arrest warrant in March. Robertson subsequently surrendered to police.
Robertson asked several times to call an attorney or his family, who could hire one for him, but he was not allowed to make that call, according to Milano’s motion.
Bakos interrogated Robertson on March 8, and Robertson denied the charge against him 13 separate times, spanning the first 40 minutes of the interview, Milano argued.
The motion points to the transcript of the interrogation between Bakos and Robertson, in which Bakos repeatedly told Robertson he needed to “come clean.”
The detective told Robertson that his live-in girlfriend told investigators she never wanted to see Robertson again and hoped he would die, the motions says. Bakos also told Robertson he had DNA evidence showing a mixture of Robertson’s semen and the boy’s saliva, the motion says.
That evidence, Milano wrote in the motion, does not exist.
The detective went on to tell Robertson that suspects who have “opened up” to detectives have received shorter sentences. A judge would not be happy that Robertson held a position of trust in the community, Bakos explained.
“That’s when the seven rings of hell come down on you with a reckoning of biblical proportion and sentencing goes consecutive, not concurrent,” Bakos told Robertson, the motion says.
Bakos then promised to go to “go to bat” for Robertson for a reduced sentence that included therapy and counseling, “anything that can minimize the wrath,” the motion says.
“Just take a deep breath, lean forward, let it out, get it over with,” Bakos told him, according to the motion. “I will then be able to — be able to get this resolved and it won’t be such a media thing, and I will personally contact all of the media and ask them to please stay away. They will.”
Two days later on March 10, after Robertson had been transferred to the Cuyahoga County Jail, Bakos and then-interim police chief William Traine came to interview Robertson a second time.
Traine mentioned Robertson’s earlier confession, and Robertson said he wanted to “make it easy.”
“I’m hoping that you keep your promise,” he said, before Bakos cut him off, the motion says.