(CNN)Prosecutors in California plan to drop charges against a surgeon and his girlfriend who were accused of drugging and raping women, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Tuesday.
Dr. Grant Robicheaux, 39, and Cerissa Riley, 32, had been charged in September 2018 by the county’s previous district attorney of using their “good looks, charm” and drugs to lure women home to rape while they were unconscious or semiconscious. The couple and their attorneys had repeatedly denied the accusations.
Grant Robicheaux and Cerissa Riley
The case made international headlines and was an issue in the 2018 election for district attorney, when Spitzer challenged incumbent Tony Rackauckas. Rackauckas, who was the Orange County District Attorney in 2018, said then that investigators had found hundreds of videos of women in various states of consciousness on Robicheaux’s phone. Many of the women seemed unable to consent to a sexual act and many videos included Riley, Rackauckas said.
Rackauckas estimated more than 1,000 videos were on the phone and said then that “there might be many unidentified victims out there.”