A former Blatchley Middle School teacher spent the morning (5-15-14) under intense cross examination from the defense attorney for Joe Robidou, the woman’s one-time boss accused of sexually assaulting her and two colleagues.
Another teacher testified later in the afternoon to having a previous sexual encounter with Robidou some years earlier, but said she regretted it, and had been trying to move on.
Attorney Julie Willoughby asked the state’s lead witness to review the alleged assaults in intimate detail, testing her credibility, particularly around an evening in January 2013 when Robidou visited her at home, allegedly exposed himself, and placed his hands around her neck while saying the words, “This would be easier if you were passed out.”
Following the incident, the woman sought the counsel of friends who took her to the SAFV shelter, where she was advised to obtain a criminal trespass order from the Sitka Police Department. Shortly thereafter, police launched an investigation, which eventually produced allegations by two other women working at the school.
The defense went to lengths to establish the witness’s prior intimate relationship with Robidou, which the witness admitted was close, but non-sexual. She admitted to “trying to be one of the cool kids” during her divorce in 2009, when she and Robidou developed their friendship, and regularly attending Friday night evenings-out with Robidou, his wife, and other teachers at Blatchley.
She admitted to accepting gifts — including Victoria’s Secret lingerie — from Robidou, and wearing it to school. But she denied that these gifts — and gifts given to her children — conferred any form of sexual consent.
“I feel like you’re trying to make me out to be someone I’m not,” the witness told Willoughby.
She flat-out denied any sexual relationship with Robidou, and said that rumors of an affair had caused her to take stock of their friendship, and she asked him to stay away — to the point of asking a teacher in the next classroom to find an excuse to stop by anytime Robidou was present.
The defense plans to obtain testimony from other school staff, in the hope of painting a different picture of the relationship.
That won’t be necessary with the other alleged victim called to testify Thursday. Also a teacher, she admitted to having sex with Robidou in her home after a night out partying at a bar.
“It was not in my plan,” she said. “I did not initiate it. I never had my sights set on Joe Robidou.”
She offered this testimony under questioning from the prosecutor, not the defense. Assistant district attorney Jean Seaton asked, “Did this occur more than a year before the assault?”
The witness replied that it had occurred several years earlier.
Seaton asked her details of the incident that led to the state’s pressing charges against Robidou: A farewell party on a Friday night in January 2013 after Robidou announced he was leaving Blatchley for a job in the district office.
The woman said she joined a group of fellow teachers at the P-Bar around 10 in the evening. She alleged that Robidou made advances to her that evening — which she rebuffed — but was later waiting on her porch when she went back to her apartment, which was walking distance from the bar.
Believing Robidou to be intoxicated, she drove him home. Parked in his driveway, Robidou allegedly began to compliment her, to talk about physical relations in his marriage, and then grabbed her wrist and placed it on his exposed genitalia.
Other witnesses testifying Thursday were a teacher who offered support to the alleged victims as the case was being investigated, and the investigating Sitka police detective Jason Sexton
Due to the number of people yet to appear, and the possibility that the defense may try to construct its own case, Superior Court Judge David George opened the possibility of extending the trial into Saturday.
