Another district sued over track coach’s alleged sexual abuse
This marks the third South Bay school district sued for failing to protect students from the same coach's alleged abuse
A former high school track and field athlete is suing the East Side Union High School District for allegedly failing to act after being alerted that her coach sexually abused her.
The suit, filed earlier this month in Santa Clara County Superior Court, marks the third South Bay school district sued for allegedly failing to protect students from the same longtime coach, Chioke “Chee” Robinson.
Robinson is being prosecuted in Santa Clara County on more than a dozen sexual assault counts involving at least five women who were studentathletes under his watch in the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. During that time, he coached at Archbishop Mitty, Los Gatos and Piedmont Hills high schools — all three of which have been sued over his alleged misconduct — as well as for local club teams and served as a private personal trainer. At the time of his arrest, he was working as an assistant coach at San Francisco State University.
Robinson is scheduled for his next court appearance and a trial setting on Nov. 3.
“There are a lot of (school) districts that dropped the ball here and sadly that means young women have suffered as a result,” said Lauren Cerri, an attorney representing the woman who filed the latest lawsuit under the pseudonym “Jane Doe.”
According to the lawsuit, Robinson began exhibiting “grooming behaviors” toward the woman and other peers during her sophomore year of high school. Those behaviors ranged from giving her hugs and spending time alone with her during the off-season to giving her rides in his vehicle and sending her text messages.
By her junior year, Robinson’s behavior escalated and he allegedly sexually abused her on school grounds. The assault began with inappropriate massaging and escalated to sexual intercourse, according to the lawsuit.
In 2012, the mother of another student allegedly reported to the school’s thenprincipal Traci Williams that she had heard rumors that Robinson was involved in a sexual relationship with Jane Doe. Despite the potential danger he posed, the suit states that the district failed to take appropriate actions like alerting authorities or conducting an investigation. Robinson was permitted to continue coaching young female athletes.
East Side Union officials “ratified Robinson’s conduct by failing to repudiate his predatory behavior,” the lawsuit states.
Linda M. Ornelas, a spokesperson for East Side Union, said Monday that the district had not yet been served and was “unable to make comment on pending litigation.”
The former student, who testified in July at a preliminary criminal hearing for Robinson, sustained physical, mental and emotional suffering as a result of the abuse, the suit states.
During the criminal hearing, she said that by her junior year, “I had told my coach that I loved him. I saw the relationship beyond an athlete as a coach.”
Her grades and relationship with her parents deteriorated as a result of her abusive relationship with Robinson, she said, and she transferred to Accel Middle College in San Jose for her senior year.
The latest lawsuit comes after two other women filed similar lawsuits earlier this year against their former school districts alleging that they were also abused by Robinson while competing on their high school track teams.
The first woman, who also identified as “Jane Doe,” sued the Los Gatos-saratoga Union High School District in January. According to that lawsuit, Robinson began “grooming” her shortly after she joined the Los Gatos High girls track team at the age of 14. Robinson allegedly abused her on school grounds from 1999 to 2001, leading her to quit the track team during her junior year.
Then in May, Heather Hennessy, a former star track athlete at Archbishop Mitty and Los Gatos high schools, came forward and said that she was also sexually exploited by Robinson beginning in 1998 when she was a 14-year-old freshman at Mitty. Hennessy has sued both Los Gatos and Mitty high schools on allegations that they each separately failed to protect her from a predatory and abusive coach.
Cerri said it appeared like a “passing of the garbage situation,” where district after district, officials failed to train staff on predatory behavior to watch out for and failed to properly investigate and take disciplinary action for alleged misconduct.
“Hopefully other school districts will learn from this and see that this is not how you protect children,” she said.