Los Gatos district pays $3.5 million to woman in excess of sexual abuse by ex-mentor

LOS GATOS — A faculty district will fork out approximately $3.5 million to a woman who claimed that Los Gatos Significant College officers overlooked and in some scenarios challenged reviews that she was being sexually exploited by a former monitor coach starting in the late-1990s.

The plaintiff, referred to as Jane Doe in court docket filings, sued the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District past 12 months, immediately after she participated in the investigation of Chioke “Chee” Robinson, who is now remaining prosecuted for much more than a dozen felony fees alleging that he serially sexually abused 5 female student athletes at several South Bay colleges, which includes Los Gatos Superior, involving 1998 and 2011.

At the time of Doe’s lawsuit, Robinson was contesting the accusations in criminal court docket. His former boss, renowned track mentor Willie Harmatz, disputed the lawsuit’s assertions that he overlooked athletes’ accounts of the sexual misconduct for which Robinson is now dealing with trial.

But a district assertion, in the wake of the $3.485 million settlement with Doe, appears to lay to relaxation any dispute that her abuse happened.

“A settlement settlement has been reached with the victim of sexual abuse fully commited much more than 20 a long time in the past by previous Los Gatos Large College coach Chioke Robinson,” the statement reads. “Hopefully, this mutually acceptable settlement arrangement will assistance deliver closure for everyone involved in this regrettable scenario.”

Robinson and Harmatz ended up dismissed as defendants in the lawsuit in May in the direct-up to the district settlement, which first took form in August. Doe sued the district less than Assembly Bill 218, which extended the state’s statute of constraints for litigation from colleges and youth companies for mishandling and masking up sexual misconduct. The legislation, which took outcome in 2020, expires at the stop of this yr.

Doe claimed in the go well with that Robinson began “grooming” her in 1999, when she joined the Los Gatos Substantial women keep track of workforce as a 14-year-aged freshman. Within a yr, the accommodate alleged, Robinson was kissing her and building sexual make contact with. She additional that Robinson ultimately pressured her into oral sex and intercourse with him in the high school’s monitor and industry shed.

In a statement Tuesday, Doe continued to criticize directors for not firing Robinson in 1999, when Los Gatos law enforcement investigated him right after her mom identified a discarded pregnancy take a look at and sexually specific letters written by Robinson to the woman.

“Even following other students instructed the school they had seen Robinson kissing me and engaging in sexual functions with me, the school authorized him to keep on coaching,” Doe explained. “They cared extra about the track crew successful than protecting pupils.”

Doe said her Olympic dreams had been ruined by the knowledge, which created her stop the team as a junior.

“I had a lot of close friends but Robinson took management of my daily life by alienating me from my spouse and children and friends,” Doe mentioned in her statement. “It took place quite promptly – everybody you know gets to be a stranger simply because you are no for a longer time a portion of them and they’re no more time a portion of you. So then it was just him.”

Doe’s legal professional, Lauren Cerri, stressed that administrators and coaches experienced options to quit Doe’s abuse early on, and mentioned the quantity of the settlement must deliver a powerful concept to university districts.