Former Wichita cop, school employee pleads no contest to molesting boys in 2011, 2012
A former Wichita police officer, ex-Wichita public schools employee and local youth organization volunteer who was awaiting trial on charges accusing him of molesting underage boys on Friday pleaded no contest to one count of indecent liberties with a child and two counts of aggravated indecent solicitation of a child, the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office said by email.
Alex O. Robinson, 58, will be sentenced April 13 before District Judge David Kaufman, the DA’s office said.
The crimes Robinson has been convicted of involve three victims who were abused in Wichita in 2011 and 2012, according to the email. Robinson’s plea comes just days before his scheduled jury trial, which was set for Monday.
Robinson’s defense lawyer did not immediately respond a message seeking comment late Friday afternoon.
Robinson, a 22-year veteran of the Wichita Police Department, was working for Wichita Public Schools as its safety services supervisor when he was arrested in January 2013. He came under police scrutiny after a man came forward with accusations that Robinson had molested him repeatedly after they met through the Boys & Girls Club when the man was 11 or 12. Other victims surfaced following the arrest.
Robinson was an officer at the time of some of the alleged assaults, The Eagle previously reported. He also had been serving on the board of directors of youth-mentoring program Real Men, Real Heroes but resigned in the wake of the sex abuse investigation.
Prosecutors say in court filings that Robinson “was recognized as a pillar of the community, helping shape the lives of young people in Wichita” and “used these relationships to meet, befriend, and ultimately sexually assault multiple young boys.” The reported assaults occurred at locations including Robinson’s home and at a youth organization’s camp. He met the victims through friends and youth mentoring programs.
All of the victims knew Robinson was a police officer and described him as “an authority figure in their lives,” prosecutors say in the court filings, but each feared “what he would do if they told anyone about his behavior.”
Before Friday’s plea, Robinson had been facing 10 criminal charges in Sedgwick County including aggravated criminal sodomy, aggravated indecent liberties with a child and indecent liberties with a child. The allegations tied to the charges stretch over 12 years, starting in 2000, and involved boys aged 11 to 14.
The plea comes nearly seven years after Robinson was formally charged in part because he also was charged and convicted in a Colorado child sex abuse case that was reported shortly after the first victim came forward in Wichita. Robinson was sentenced to prison in the Colorado case in 2016 and served several years there before he was transferred back to Wichita last May.
This story was originally published February 19, 2021 at 4:50 PM.
