Prosecutors have received has received multiple calls from women accusing a California surgeon and reality-TV star of sexual assault, one day after announcing a first set of charges against him.
The new allegations came after Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas announced in a press conference on Tuesday morning that the Dr. Grant Robicheaux and his girlfriend, Cerissa Riley, face charges for allegedly drugging and forcing themselves on two women.
A spokesperson told The Daily Beast that the district attorney’s office was still working to confirm the exact number of new allegations, but that they had received “many” phone calls since yesterday.
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In a joint statement, the couple’s lawyers denied the charges.
“All allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Grant Robicheaux and his girlfriend Cerissa Riley,” the statement said. “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.”
The lawyers also confirmed that none of the criminal charges involved patients at Robicheaux’s medical practice.
The original charges date back to April 2016, when a woman, identified as Jane Doe 1, met 38-year-old Robicheaux and 31-year-old Riley, at a restaurant in Newport Beach. There, the couple invited Doe, 32, to a nearby party and brought her back to their apartment after she had become intoxicated.
While she was at Robicheaux and Riley’s home, Doe alleges, the couple gave her drugs, raped her, and orally assaulted her while she was too intoxicated to give consent. When the alleged victim went to Newport Beach Police (NBPD) the following day to report the incident, she underwent a forensic exam and tested positive for multiple controlled substances.
Almost exactly six months later, Newport Beach police received another allegation.
A second woman, identified as Jane Doe 2, told authorities she met Robicheaux and Riley at a bar, where they drank until she was no longer conscious. The alleged victim claims she was brought to the couple’s apartment, where they assaulted her and intended to rape her, when she woke up and screamed for help. Doe’s cries were reportedly so loud that a neighbor contacted the police, who arrived at the scene not long later.
In January 2018, Newport Beach Police Department obtained a warrant to search Robicheaux’s home, where they confiscated “large quantities” of illegal narcotics, including date-rape drugs, ecstasy, and cocaine. The police also found two unregistered assault rifles, four other firearms, and several large-capacity magazines, according to a press release from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
After NBPD filed a report earlier this month, the couple was arrested at their home on Sept. 12, 2018.
At the press conference, Rackaukas described the accused couple as “clean-cut, good-looking people.” Robicheaux, who has the vibe of a surfer Ryan Seacrest, had once been named “Orange County’s Most Eligible Bachelor” by Orange Coast Magazine. He worked as an orthopedic surgeon to the stars, and had been something of a minor star himself, appearing once on the Bravo reality series Online Dating Rituals of the American Male back in 2014, in which he was described as “the total package.” His dating username was “InGoodHands.”
Robicheaux went to medical school at Louisiana State University in New Orleans, where he “converted his southern gentlemanly upbringing naturally into a comfortable caring bedside manner,” according to a now-deleted professional biography for Newportcare Medical Group. After doing his residency at UC Irvine Medical Center, Robicheaux became a board-certified orthopedic surgeon with a specialty in sports medicine.
Riley, whom the district attorney named only as Robicheaux's "female companion" and "purported girlfriend," but whom defense lawyers identified as the surgeon's significant other, allegedly played a role in putting the victims at ease.
"The second defendant, being a female, is key," Rackaukas said at the press conference. "A woman purporting to be his girlfriend clearly played a significant role in disarming the victims, making them feel comfortable and safe."
Prosecutors said they believed the couple had used their good looks to lure women to their apartment, before plying them with drugs and taking advantage of them in a weakened state. In a press release, Orange County authorities said the couple may have attempted to assault women at several festivals and camp sites along the west coast, including the Burning Man Festival, Dirtybird Campout Festival, Splash House Festival, and various tourist landmarks around Page, Arizona.
Robicheaux faces nine felony charges including rape by use of drugs, oral copulation by anaesthesia, assault with intent to commit sexual offense, four counts of possession of a controlled substance for sale, and two counts of possession of an assault weapon. If convicted on all nine offenses, the surgeon faces up to 40 years in state prison.
His girlfriend, Riley, faces nearly all the same charges, except possession of an assault weapon, and could see up to 30 years and eight months if convicted. The two will be arraigned on Oct. 25 in Newport Beach.
When the authorities arrested the couple on Sept. 12, they confiscated Robicheaux’s cell phone, where they found thousands of videos featuring women who “appear intoxicated beyond the ability to consent or resist” and are “barely responsive to the defendant’s sexual advances.”
“Based on this evidence,” District Attorney Rackaukas said in a press conference Tuesday, “we believe there might be many unidentified victims out there.”
