Trial ordered for former coach
High school track: Chioke “Chee” Robinson charged with serially abusing female athletes.
SAN JOSE >> A once-prominent South Bay track coach has been ordered to stand trial on charges that he serially preyed on and sexually abused underage female students, following witness testimony accusing him of wielding a “cultlike” hold over them and pressuring them into secrecy by leverag- ing their athletic futures.
Chioke “Chee” Robinson was the focus of a weeklong preliminary examination that concluded July 12 with Judge Julia Alloggiamento determining there is enough evidence for trial.
“He groomed them, he manipulated them, he controlled them, he ruined them. … These young women whose futures were stolen by the defendant,” Santa Clara County prosecutor Anne Seery said in court. “He took a lot of their virginities, he took their honesty, their trust and many of them didn’t even get to run again because he destroyed the one thing that was going to get them to a better place. This is not a man who just had a lone mistake.”
Robinson was arrested in 2019 and charged with 19 felonies encompassing oral copulation with a minor, sexual penetration of a minor and lewd and lascivious acts with a minor. Alloggiamento found sufficient cause for 14 charges involving five women. She did not issue a decision on four charges — involving two accusers — because of disputes over a 10-year age gap required for them to hold up; the district attorney’s office dismissed one count prior to the preliminary examination for the same reason.
The alleged sexual abuse at the heart of the criminal case spans 1998 and 2011. San Jose police Detective Michael O’Grady testified Monday that one of the women reported to investigators that Robinson told her that because she was 171/2 years old, it was legal for them to have sex, “but not to say anything because it could ruin his reputation.”
Defense attorney Laura Robinson — no relation to her client — scrutinized the recall and consistency of the witnesses’ accounts, as well as that of O’Grady. She took aim at imprecise recollections and questioning methods by the detective that she implied had the effect of coaxing answers. She also suggested that O’Grady ignored exculpatory witnesses that could refute authorities’ characterization of Chioke Robinson.
“I just feel like a lot of it’s been pretty sloppy, the way it’s been handled,” Laura Robinson said after the hearing. “There was already some evidence that came out about contradictory statements that the people had made. But obviously more will come out at a trial. But they throw the kitchen sink and it’s basically, ‘Let’s see what sticks.’”
She emphasized in her closing arguments July 12 how no allegations had been made against Chioke Robinson over the past decade, and how “witnesses reluctantly acknowledged that they and other witnesses at one point believed Chioke Robinson was a great coach, was a great mentor, and helped them with other aspects of their lives.”
Chioke Robinson, 46, was a decorated coach who for the past two decades worked at Piedmont Hills High School and Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, at Los Gatos High School, and most recently at San Francisco State University. He also ran a club team, ISC International.
Besides the criminal prosecution, Robinson’s alleged conduct has spurred lawsuits against some of the schools where he worked, and coaches there, with former athletes contending they shielded Robinson from any accountability for his predatory behavior.
In sometimes tearful testimony, five women who were coached by Robinson while in high school testified that they had sexual interactions with him before their 18th birthdays, with one saying her first encounter took place when she was 14 or 15.
Another testified that she was 14 when Robinson grabbed her breasts and touched her genital area.
Authorities alleged Robinson groomed the girls starting with ordinary coach-athlete interactions, slowly growing more flirtatious and then becoming physical. Multiple witnesses testified that they sought to please and protect Robinson. Two women who were coached by Robinson at Piedmont Hills described how he exerted control over their personal romantic lives.
One woman who attended Presentation High School said she began a years-long sexual relationship with Robinson in 2006, when she was 17 and a member of his club team, which she described as having a “cult-like mentality. We all just followed.”
Another woman said under cross-examination that she lied to Los Gatos police about her relationship with the coach. She testified July 8 that she was 14 at the time of her first sexual encounter with Chioke Robinson in 1998, not long after she was recruited as a runner to compete in track and field and cross country at Los Gatos High. In prior statements, she said she was too intimidated by detectives to follow through on pressing charges.
She added that their relationship began with kissing and escalated into sexual acts. By the time she was a sophomore, she testified that she felt she was in a full “secret relationship” with Robinson that lasted six more years. She said the two moved in together around her 18th birthday, but that she broke off the relationship in 2005 when she was 21.
Seery applauded the women who testified and helped bring Robinson to trial.
“I was kind of blown away by their strength and courage these past few days. I think that hopefully this has given them a little bit of closure, and I’m just proud of what they’ve done,” she said. “I think they should be proud of themselves.”