How a Minnesota serial child molester skirted the legal system

Douglas Robinette sat in the state prison in Faribault, Minn., in 2011, fresh off guilty pleas for owning thousands of child pornography images and repeatedly raping a vulnerable 14-year-old boy in Kanabec County. He was talking candidly about his sexual history to two federal law enforcement agents, knowing the information he shared about producing child porn could lead to an indictment and decades of prison time added to his already lengthy sentence.

"I tried so hard, you know, to not molest anybody else," Robinette said in the middle of their interview. "Glad I got caught, you know?"

But Robinette's capture came too late for his 14-year-old victim, and others. Despite many red flags through the years — eviction by relatives, failure to complete sex offender treatment and investigations — he was not apprehended until much damage was done. Even while under investigation for making child porn in 2010, he was molesting the young teen, who like several of his other victims was considered vulnerable and easily exploitable.

Federal officials indicted Robinette in 2013, describing him as a predator and an extreme danger. In July of this year, he was sentenced in federal court to 30 years in prison for producing and distributing videos involving the 14-year-old.

Long before that, Robinette had sexually assaulted five other children in Minnesota and other places, attacks never reported to police. Some were only 3 years old, and several others were housed at an orphanage in Jamaica run by his mother, where he stayed for a time as a teenager. Back in the Twin Cities, he was caught by relatives watching child pornography and molesting children.

Investigators and prosecutors had no clue about Robinette's assaults on minors when he was charged with 15 counts of possessing child pornography in Ramsey County in July 2010. Because he didn't have a criminal history and cooperated with police, a summons detailing the charges and a court date for August 2010 were mailed to a homeless shelter in St. Paul where he had stayed.

Robinette never showed up for that hearing, instead voluntarily turning himself in later that month to the Kanabec County Sheriff's Office. He admitted to his sexual crimes against the 14-year-old, which had started a few weeks before Ramsey County charged him in the child porn case.

Like any prosecutor, the Ramsey County attorney's office had the choice to charge him by warrant instead of a summons, meaning an arrest warrant would have been quickly disseminated to officers. Last year, the county issued 10,799 warrants.

Even if Robinette had been charged by warrant, the nature of his crime — collecting child porn — made him a low priority for pickup. When he missed his August 2010 court appearance, the judge issued a warrant and set a low $10,000 bail if he was arrested. In his case, a conviction for child pornography possession was unlikely to result in jail time.

"Keep in mind, the intentions of people making these decisions are always to look out for public safety issues. You can only act on what you know," said Ramsey County Attorney John Choi, who wasn't in that job when Robinette was charged. "If you want to say charging him by warrant would have precluded the subsequent abuse from happening, that is an unfair stretch to make."

Each year, Choi's office averages 4,000 cases that bring charges in adult felony cases. Beyond public safety concerns, the decision to charge by warrant or summons is determined by the defendant's flight risk. Nobody wants what happened in Robinette's case on their watch, Choi said.

The images Robinette distributed of his 14-year-old victim mean that the sexual assaults on him probably will exist forever in cyberspace, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Lola Velazquez-Aguilu.

The assaults on the teen happened after Robinette came to Kanabec County in 2010 to help a relative move. He was picked up at his homeless shelter, where he had lived on and off for three years. He later told police he was allowed to stay even after he was being investigated for having child pornography. He also said he didn't molest anybody while living at the shelter — because he didn't have access to children.

As early as 14, Robinette, who spent most of his childhood in Minnesota, had started to abuse children, sometimes in a vehicle at a church parking lot in the Twin Cities, he later told authorities. When his mother caught him molesting orphans during his time in Jamaica, she duct-taped his hands together for about a month, he said. By 19, he had a massive pornography collection that he posted on a website.

Robinette also told police that he was molested at a young age by a relative in Minnesota, but it's not clear if it was reported. His mother once told him she knew he was molesting children and said, "but you'd better keep it on the down low, otherwise I can't protect you," according to a court document. She couldn't be reached for comment.

"I know she prays for me, loves me, but I don't know," he told authorities.

Investigators who interviewed Robinette at Faribault prison said he told them that he sometimes deleted his pornography because he knew it was wrong. That would last about a week and then "I just kept thinking about it and really obsessing about it," he told them.

"Even now, when facing decades in prison, he admitted that given the opportunity, he would do it again," she said.

A victim impact statement provided to the U.S. attorney's office by the Kanabec County 14-year-old's mother said his life has been destroyed by Robinette. The boy now has violent outbursts, has broken things and has hurt others as well as himself, she said.

"There are no words that could ever express the damages you caused to my son and the rest of the family," his mother wrote. "We have been ripped apart at the seams."