LOS ANGELES _ Dr. Grant William Robicheaux billed himself as an elite orthopedic surgeon catering to Newport Beach's famous and wealthy. It was a lifestyle he pushed not only in his medical work but on realty TV, where he appeared on a Bravo dating show wearing his hospital scrubs and a wide smile.
But Orange County prosecutors on Tuesday accused Robicheaux and his girlfriend of drugging and raping two women in separate assaults and said they suspect there are many more alleged victims. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said Tuesday that Robicheaux and Cerissa Laura Riley seemed like "clean-cut, good-looking people" but used their charms to prey on women they would meet in local bars and festivals such as Burning Man.
Robicheaux, 38, and Riley, 31, are accused of drugging their victims and bringing them back to his Newport Beach bachelor's pad, where they would sexually assault and rape them.
Neither could be reached for comment Tuesday.
Robicheaux appeared in 2014 on the Bravo's show "Online Dating Rituals of the American Male," which followed him as he looked for a girlfriend. A Hoag Hospital profile describes him as an orthopedic surgeon who received his medical degree from Louisiana State University and did his residency at University of California, Irvine Medical Center. He is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon who says he repairs sponsored athletes.
Rackauckas said detectives with search warrants found a video of the sex acts with one of the two identified victims. But he said they also saw what he describes as numerous other videos and photographs on the pair's phones of other potential victims.
"There are a substantial number of videos, I cannot tell you if it is 10s or 100s, it is certainly more than 10s," the top prosecutor said in an interview. "It appears they are highly intoxicated beyond the ability to consent or resist, they are barely responsive to the defendants' sexual advances," he said.
Rackauckas said his office cannot make those images public, but everything suggests those women were also victims of assault.
Those videos were recovered this year by Newport Beach detectives. Some of the images come from festivals across the western U.S. including Burning Man and the Splash House in Palm Springs, Rackauckas said.
The couple now face multiple felony counts including rape by drugs, oral copulation by anesthesia, assault with intent to commit sexual offenses.
The surgeon and his girlfriend came to the attention of authorities when a young woman screamed for help and the physician's neighbor called Newport police on Oct. 2, 2016.
A 32-year-old woman met the couple in a local restaurant in April 2016 and they invited her to a party, authorities alleged. She told authorities she consumed large amounts of alcohol before they invited her to Robicheaux's residence for an afterparty. But once inside, prosecutors allege, they plied her with piles of drugs and then raped and orally copulated her.
The woman immediately contacted the police the next morning to report that she had been assaulted and a subsequent test of her blood showed multiple controlled substances in her body, Rackauckas said.
Prosecutors alleged Robicheaux and Riley struck again Oct. 2, 2016. They are accused of drinking alcohol with a second woman at a Newport Beach bar until the alleged victim was no longer conscious. They brought her to Robicheaux's apartment and began "sexually assaulting her with the intent to commit rape," officials said.
A subsequent search of Robicheaux's home Jan. 9 turned up large quantities of illegal drugs along with a small arsenal of firearms.
Rackauckas said those drugs included GHB, the so-called date rape drug, MDMA and cocaine.
Robicheaux is also accused of possessing two illegal, unregistered assault rifles, four other firearms and several large-capacity magazines.
Newport Beach police turned over their investigation Sept. 6 to prosecutors who filed charges Sept. 11. The next morning, detectives arrested the couple.
The California medical board has opened an investigation into Robicheaux's conduct.
Robicheaux and Riley are freed on $100,000 bail each.
