Los Gatos district pays $3.5 million to woman over sexual abuse by ex-coach

LOS GATOS — A school district will pay nearly $3.5 million to a woman who claimed that Los Gatos High School officials ignored and in some instances challenged reports that she was being sexually exploited by a former track coach starting in the late-1990s.

The plaintiff, referred to as Jane Doe in court filings, sued the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District last year, after she participated in the investigation of Chioke “Chee” Robinson, who is currently being prosecuted for more than a dozen felony charges alleging that he serially sexually abused five female student athletes at multiple South Bay schools, including Los Gatos High, between 1998 and 2011.

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

But a district statement, in the wake of the $3.485 million settlement with Doe, appears to lay to rest any dispute that her abuse occurred.

“A settlement agreement has been reached with the victim of sexual abuse committed more than 20 years ago by former Los Gatos High School coach Chioke Robinson,” the statement reads. “Hopefully, this mutually acceptable settlement agreement will help bring closure for everyone involved in this unfortunate situation.”

Robinson and Harmatz were dismissed as defendants in the lawsuit in May in the lead-up to the district settlement, which first took shape in August. Doe sued the district under Assembly Bill 218, which extended the state’s statute of limitations for litigation against schools and youth organizations for mishandling and covering up sexual misconduct. The law, which took effect in 2020, expires at the end of this year.

Doe claimed in the suit that Robinson began “grooming” her in 1999, when she joined the Los Gatos High girls track team as a 14-year-old freshman. Within a year, the suit alleged, Robinson was kissing her and making sexual contact. She added that Robinson eventually forced her into oral sex and intercourse with him in the high school’s track and field shed.

In a statement Tuesday, Doe continued to criticize administrators for not firing Robinson in 1999, when Los Gatos police investigated him after her mother found a discarded pregnancy test and sexually explicit letters written by Robinson to the girl.

“Even after other students told the school they had seen Robinson kissing me and engaging in sexual acts with me, the school allowed him to continue coaching,” Doe said. “They cared more about the track team winning than protecting students.”

Doe said her Olympic dreams were ruined by the experience, which made her quit the team as a junior.

“I had a lot of friends but Robinson took control of my life by alienating me from my family and friends,” Doe said in her statement. “It happened very quickly – everyone you know becomes a stranger because you’re no longer a part of them and they’re no longer a part of you. So then it was just him.”

Doe’s attorney, Lauren Cerri, stressed that administrators and coaches had opportunities to stop Doe’s abuse early on, and said the amount of the settlement should send a strong message to school districts.

“Students said they saw it with their own eyes, but he still continued for years. It was so easily preventable,” Cerri said. “And it’s still happening despite these verdicts and settlements.”

In its statement, the district said “it works closely with students and staff to ensure that safety policies and procedures are in place to educate and prevent such actions from occurring in the future.”

The district is facing at least one other lawsuit related to sexual abuse involving Robinson: Heather Hennessy also sued the district last year with a similar account of being groomed and exploited by Robinson, both at Archbishop Mitty High School and Los Gatos High, after the two changed schools at the same time. Hennessy’s allegations, which overlap in time with Doe’s, include the claim that she brought up her concerns about Robinson at Los Gatos, but was told to train on the other side of the track from him.

Robinson’s trial is set to start in November, according to court records. He was arrested in 2019 after a San Jose Police Department investigation, which included Doe as a primary witness. In the two decades prior, Robinson worked at Piedmont Hills High School and Mitty in San Jose, at Los Gatos High, and most recently at San Francisco State University.