Inside: Ex-student sues Los Gatos High alleging track coach sexually abused her,
SANJOSE>> A former runner has sued the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District and two extrack and field coaches in another sexual abuse case in the South Bay involving athletes.
The suit, filed Tuesday in Santa Clara County Superior Court, identifies the student as “Jane Doe,” a woman now in her mid-30s. The suit alleges Los Gatos High School officials allowed Chioke “Chee” Robinson to sexually abuse her for more than three years.
Robinson was arrested two years ago on suspicion of sexually assaulting four girls over a 12-year period when he had worked at Los Gatos and Piedmont Hills high schools in the South Bay, authorities said. He was an assistant track coach at San Francisco State University at the time of his arrest.
The woman who filed the suit under “Jane Doe” said Tuesday that working with authorities on the criminal case has empowered her to take civil action against Robinson, of San Jose.
“I was living a lie for a really long time,” she said in a Zoom call. If not for the help she has received, the woman said, “I’d still be living in shame, I still would be living in silence.”
According to the suit, Robinson began “grooming” the woman at age 14 when she joined the Los Gatos High girls track team as a freshman. Within a year, Robinson was kissing her and forcing her to touch his genitals, the suit says. Robinson eventually forced the girl into oral sex and intercourse with him in the high school’s track and field shed, according to the complaint.
The abuse occurred on
school grounds from 1999 to 2001, the suit says. The woman said she quit the track team by her junior year.