Bravo Reality TV Doctor Faces Five More Rape Charges
An accused rapist who once appeared as a bachelor on a reality TV show is facing additional sexual assault charges in California, officials announced on Wednesday.
Dr. Grant Robicheaux, 38, and his girlfriend Cerissa Riley, 31, are already facing charges in the alleged drugging and sexual assault of two women they met during social outings. Now authorities say additional victims have come forward.
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas announced the development during a Wednesday press conference. According to Rackauckas, Robicheaux has been charged with sexually assaulting five additional women, and Riley received charges in connection with three of those cases.
“Nobody has a pass to rape or to have sexual contact with you once you are unable to give consent,” Rackauckas said.
Through their lawyers, the couple released a statement denying any wrongdoing:
“All allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Grant Robicheaux and his girlfriend Cerissa Riley. They have been aware of these accusations for a number of months, and each of them will formally deny the truth of these allegations at their first opportunity in court.”
Robicheaux, an orthopedic surgeon in Newport Beach, appeared on the Bravo reality TV show “Online Dating Rituals of the American Male” in 2014.
Introduced on the show as “Orange County’s most eligible bachelor,” he said he was “not looking for a party girl” and was hoping to find “a wife to raise a family with.”
At one point, Robicheaux is seen having dinner with a woman at an upscale restaurant. After the dinner, the woman said, “He seems a little too perfect. There might be some dark skeletons in that closet.”
Authorities now say the doctor sexually assaulted at least one woman years before appearing on the reality show. A woman in her 20s alleges she was raped at his home in September 2009.
According to The Los Angeles Times, authorities launched an investigation in 2016, after receiving two separate complaints from women claiming they were raped at Robicheaux’s house.
A search warrant was executed at Robicheaux’s home in January, during which investigators seized numerous photographs and videos.
“There are a substantial number of videos,” the prosecutor told reporters. “I cannot tell you if it is tens or hundreds; it is certainly more than tens. It appears [the women] are highly intoxicated beyond the ability to consent or resist; they are barely responsive to the defendants’ sexual advances.”
The search also turned up drugs and two illegal assault rifles, authorities said.
Prosecutors first charged Robicheaux and Riley, a former teacher from Fullerton, in September with drugging and sexually assaulting two women. Robicheaux was also accused of firearms violations. The pair pleaded not guilty and were released after they each paid $100,000 bail.
In the latest set of charges, Robicheaux is charged with committing crimes against five more women between 2009 and 2018. Riley faces charges only in only three of those cases. Authorities said two of them occurred before the couple started dating.
During a Wednesday court appearance in Santa Ana, the couple entered pleas of not guilty to the latest slew of charges, which include kidnapping with the intent to commit a sexual offense and rape by use of drugs.
Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.
The latest charges carried a judge-set bond of $1 million each, which the couple posted, CNN reported. Authorities said the investigation is ongoing and additional charges could be forthcoming.
If convicted on all counts, Robicheaux would face more than 82 years behind bars and Riley up to 63 years. The pair is scheduled to appear in court again on Jan. 18.
Send David Lohr an email or follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
Related...
Washington State Has Nearly 6,500 Untested Rape Kits
Student Accused Of Bullying, Raping Classmates At Indiana School
Also on HuffPost
El Dorado Jane Doe
READ: We Know Who Killed Her. But 24 Years Later, We Still Don’t Know Her Name
Storyville Slayer
READ: Detective Tries To Solve 25-Year-Old Serial Killer Cold Case. One Suspect Is A Cop.
Eugene Hicks
READ: How Police Failures May Have Allowed A Cocaine Cowboy’s Suspected Killer To Strike Again
Deborah Lee Shelton And Victoria Lee Specials
Read More: Sisters Deborah Lee Shelton And Victoria Lee Specials Vanish 32 Years Apart
Tamala Wells
![Tamala Wells, of Detroit, disappeared on Aug. 6, 2012. Her mother, Donna Wells-Davis, learned of her daughter's disappearance on Aug. 7, 2012, when she received a phone call from her granddaughter, who was then 6 years old. The little girl said that her mom, then 33, had gone out the previous night and never returned. <br /><br />The mystery deepened when the Pontiac that Wells had supposedly been driving was found abandoned just a few blocks from her home. <br /><br />In an interview with HuffPost, the father of Wells' daughter denied any involvement in Wells' disappearance, but he didn't deny how he feels about the mother of his child -- or about the child herself. <br /><br />"She gives me a headache," Rickey Tennant said. "[Wells] used to give me a headache, but I dealt with it, and I'm looking at it right now as 'one headache is better than two headaches.'" <br /><br /><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tamala-wells-one-less-headache_566b0708e4b0f290e522f3bd?utm_hp_ref=cold-cases">Ex-Boyfriend Calls Missing Woman One Less 'Headache'</a>](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/cgngbPtuuoi_VuYMA47Whg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MA--/https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5681564b160000b300eb999b.jpg)
The mystery deepened when the Pontiac that Wells had supposedly been driving was found abandoned just a few blocks from her home.
In an interview with HuffPost, the father of Wells' daughter denied any involvement in Wells' disappearance, but he didn't deny how he feels about the mother of his child -- or about the child herself.
"She gives me a headache," Rickey Tennant said. "[Wells] used to give me a headache, but I dealt with it, and I'm looking at it right now as 'one headache is better than two headaches.'"
READ: Ex-Boyfriend Calls Missing Woman One Less 'Headache'
Joy Hibbs
"She was lying face-up on a mattress that was nothing but springs," Bilson told HuffPost. "Her body was black -- completely burnt beyond recognition. She looked like a mummy and the entire room was charred."
Bilson said fire investigators initially thought Joy Hibbs was the tragic victim of a house fire. The following day, a coroner confirmed part of that theory -- her death was tragic, albeit no accident. "The coroner advised us she died before the fire started," Bilson said. "He located five stab wounds, to her neck and chest, and there was a computer cord wrapped around her neck. At that point, it became a homicide investigation."
Read More: Pennsylvania Mom's Brutal Murder An Enduring Mystery
Terry And Darleen Anderson
Inside the couple's home, Darleen was found still dressed in her nightclothes, slumped over on the couch. A book was in her lap and a bowl of popcorn was sitting next to her. Someone had viciously attacked the 57-year-old woman while she sat relaxing inside her home.
Outside, in a nearby pole barn, lay Darleen's husband of 25 years. Like his wife, the 59-year-old had been brutally bludgeoned to death.
With few clues to follow, the case quickly went cold. Many questions still remain.
READ: Who Killed Terry And Darleen Anderson?
Neal King
"It's so painful, and I don't think the pain will ever go away," Tully told HuffPost at the time. "I'm 25, and I was ready to spend rest of my life with him. Our love was true, honest and pure."
King's mother, Gayle King, described her son's disappearance as inexplicable. "Neal was a kind person and an amazing son," she said. "That's just how he was. He had strong family values. Family for him was everything."
Read More: Marijuana Farmer Neal King Disappears Amid Strange Circumstances
Brian Barton
Read More: Did Seattle Punk Rocker Brian Barton Stage His Own Disappearance?
Judith Geurin
By January 1989, Judith Geurin had collected more than $250,000 in life insurance and pension funds granted to her following her husband's death. She sold the family's four-bedroom, colonial-style house and took out a mortgage on a two-family duplex in nearby Troy. Geurin's children, then ages 21, 16, 13 and 11 -- moved into the duplex. However, unbeknownst to them until moving day, their mother had other plans.
Instead of following her children, Geurin moved in with 27-year-old Curtis Pucci. In 1990, Geurin and Pucci moved some 200 miles southwest of Albany to Sodus Point. Even though she had all but abandoned her children, Geurin kept in regular contact with her eldest daughter until January 1991, when Geurin vanished without a trace.
Read More: Daughter's Search For Mom Goes On, 23 Years After She Disappeared
Anita Knutson
Despite a busy life, she kept in regular contact with her family. So, when she went two days without returning phone calls, her father went to her off-campus apartment on June 4, 2007.
When repeated knocks to the door of her 4th Street apartment went unanswered, her father had the building manager open the door. When the concerned father stepped inside, his worst fears became a reality when he found his daughter's lifeless body on the floor of her bedroom.
Authorities determined the young woman had been stabbed multiple times, more than a day before her body was found. The murder weapon, a bloody knife, was found discarded in a sink. Detectives also determined someone had cut the screen to Knutson's bedroom window, presumable to gain entry into her apartment.
Despite an intensive investigation, authorities were unable to identify a suspect or person of interest in her murder and the case went cold.
READ: Family Of Murdered MSU Student Demands Answers
JonBenet Ramsey
Beginning in 2010, investigators reopened the case and launched a fresh round of interviews with witnesses that could provide more insight into the murder, according to ABC News, but nothing fruitful came of those interviews. The DNA evidence still points to an "unexplained third party" that serves as a vague lead for authorities still pursuing the case, Time magazine reported. Boulder police have tested more than 150 DNA samples and investigated nearly the same amount of potential suspects in their ongoing investigation, but none have ever been linked to the crime.
Read More: JonBenet Ramsey's Killer 'May Be Lost Forever'
Kathleen Kolodziej
Read More: Kathleen Kolodziej's Murder A 38-Year Mystery
John Spira
Read More: John Spira Still Missing 5 Years Later
Bobbi Ann Campbell
Read More: Bobbi Ann Campbell Missing: Daughter Seeks Closure In 19-Year-Old Case
Colonial Parkway Murders
Read More: Unsolved Murders Of Young Lovers In Va.
Sarah Kinslow
Authorities took an article of Sarah Kinslow's clothing from the family home and brought a tracking dog to the school. Investigators were able to pick up her scent where she had exited her father's car. The dog followed the scent around the school and to a location two blocks away, where...
Read More: Sarah Kinslow Missing: 11 Years, No Answers
Robert Levinson
Read More: Retired FBI Agent Missing Since 2007
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
