An Orange County Superior Court judge is expected to rule Friday whether a Newport Beach surgeon and his girlfriend should continue to face charges of drugging and sexually assaulting multiple women.
In February, Superior Court Judge Gregory Jones said he needed more time to consider a request by prosecutors to drop charges against Dr. Grant Robicheaux, 39, and Cerissa Riley, 32. Attorneys for the alleged victims want Jones to assign the case to the Attorney General, who can take over the prosecution or hand it off to a special prosecutor.
Prosecutors filed a brief, saying they do not take the request “lightly,” and added, they “are acutely aware of the gravity of this request and the pain it may cause the alleged victims.”
But prosecutors say “the evidence in this case falls short of the level needed to meet the people’s constitutionally required burden of proof of each and every element of the crimes beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Prosecutors say the couple “engaged in a swinger lifestyle and openly pursued scores of women for consensual sexual encounters.”
It’s a sharp contrast from when prosecutors filed charges in the case as the two were characterized as sexual predators who used their good looks to lure unsuspecting women before drugging and raping the victims in the doctor’s Newport Beach home.
Prosecutors now allege that some of the victims have told investigators at times that they had consensual sex with the two. One alleged victim has a “history of manufacturing events and a documented instance of giving false information,” prosecutors said.
Another victim snorted about 15 lines of cocaine that she was aware was “laced with ketamine” before waking up to a nude Robicheaux “spooning her,” prosecutors alleged. She refused to undergo a sexual assault exam, prosecutors said.
Charges were filed when Tony Rackauckas was the county’s district attorney, and it became a heated political issue during the 2018 election as current District Attorney Todd Spitzer criticized Rackauckas’ handling of the case.
Spitzer initially backed prosecutors on the case after he was sworn in, but he grew more concerned about it as evidence came out of civil litigation in which an alleged victim is suing the doctor and his girlfriend. Spitzer contends that Rackauckas and his former chief of staff used the case for publicity during his re-election bid, prompting Spitzer to ask the Attorney General’s Office to consider taking over the case as he felt it had become too politicized in his office.
The Attorney General’s Office said any conflict was cured by Spitzer’s election and declined to take over the case.
Spitzer then reassigned two new prosecutors to the case whose sole job was going over all of the evidence. That review convinced Spitzer that he did not have evidence to proceed further and asked Jones to dismiss charges.
Spitzer faces fierce opposition from attorneys representing the victims in the case.
Matt Murphy, a former prosecutor in Spitzer’s homicide unit who represents four of the alleged victims, accused Spitzer of continuing throughout the case of making “critical decisions colored by raw personal animus and naked political calculation,” according to his legal brief opposing the dismissal of charges.
Murphy added, “He has removed the assigned prosecutor in favor of less-experienced counsel; he has terminated employment of the lead investigator, Jennifer Kearns, and then effectively stymied the ongoing investigation by failing to assign a new investigator; he announced his intention to dismiss the case without notifying the victims, and he denigrated the integrity of at least two of these women on national television, without first having met them to assess their credibility; he has tearfully, publicly apologized to the defendants; and he has advanced the motion to dismiss in an effort to shield himself from public criticism, making it impossible for the victims to either defend themselves or to address this court.”
Murphy argues that there is enough evidence to continue forward with the case, including the amount of Gamma Hydroxybutyrate, the date rape drug, found in Robicheaux’s home. Police recovered 119 grams of GHB, Murphy said.
Murphy also blasts Philip Cohen, one of the defense attorneys, for courtroom hyperbole and mischaracterizing the GHB evidence. He also accused Cohen of badgering one alleged victim and her family to the point of making a false gas leak report to “smoke the occupants out of the home” and serve the victim in the civil case.
“This harassment continues to this day,” Murphy said.
Murphy argued that Spitzer’s “hatred for Tony Rackauckas is so extreme, and his need to hide his own incompetence and unethical behavior on this case is so pressing, that Mr. Spitzer’s professional judgment has become irrevocably skewed.”
Murphy also accuses Spitzer of working with defense attorneys to leak sensitive information, such as Rackauckas depositions in the civil case, to embarrass his predecessor.