In what could be a precursor to his criminal trial on sexual molestation charges involving three high school students, former girls’ basketball coach Thurston Jackie Robinson on Thursday won a civil lawsuit that accused him of illegal sexual contact with one of the players.
The player, 19-year-old Miya Giles-Jones, had been seeking $2.5 million in damages.
This trial was conducted separately from Robinson’s criminal charges, which are still pending in Cumberland County Superior Court. In that case, he is accused of nine misdemeanor counts of sexual battery, five felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a student, and one felony count of indecent exposure.
These cases involve three girls, according to testimony this week. Another girl made an accusation of an incident in Georgia, according to statements in court, but there is no criminal case ongoing with her.
Staff from the Cumberland County District Attorney Office sat in on some of the testimony of the civil trial this week and made notes.
The verdict was announced about 1:30 p.m. Thursday, after fewer than three hours of deliberations, and concluded a trial that started Monday afternoon. The jury heard emotional and sometimes graphic testimony.
Accusations of abuse denied
Giles-Jones was under Robinson’s tutelage while playing at Terry Sanford High School, E.E. Smith High School, and in travel basketball, she and Robinson told the jury. She now is on the women’s team at Fordham University in New York, a Division I NCAA school, and just finished her freshman year.
Giles-Jones testified that Robinson molested her nearly every day from age 16 through around September 2022 when she was 18. The molestation stopped, she said, when law enforcement was investigating the report from the girl who said she was sexually assaulted in Georgia in summer 2022, she said. Giles-Jones testified she was interviewed and told a detective with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office that she, too, had been molested.
Her allegations of Robinson’s behavior involved kissing on her neck, hugs where he grabbed her from behind and rubbed against her body, fondling of her breasts and buttocks, and other unwanted touching of a sexual nature. The allegations did not include sexual intercourse or rape.
Robinson testified he had hugged and put his arm around Giles-Jones and other players as a father would — that he cared about them as he cared for his own daughters. He said he sometimes kissed them on their foreheads to encourage them and celebrate their successes. He said he never did anything inappropriate.
During Robinson’s defense, his lawyer, Jared Hammett, tried to portray Giles-Jones as someone who lied in an effort to get money from Robinson and his wife, Charlotte Robinson, the latter of whom said she discovered that Giles-Jones’ mother had been stealing from her.
A financial record shown to the jury indicates the Robinsons have been successful in business, with rental homes, the home health business, and a restaurant they used to operate on Bragg Boulevard. They also have the T.J. Robinson Life Center in Hope Mills, a youth sports recreational facility with five basketball courts.
Verdict draws tears
When the court clerk read out loud the jury’s findings that it did not find Robinson liable, Giles-Jones teared a little up as she sat near her lawyer, Michael Porter, Porter told CityView later.
“She’s pretty devastated,” Porter said. She declined an interview request.
After Superior Court Judge Robby Hicks sent the jury out following the verdict, a crying woman stood in the courtroom seating area and yelled angrily at Robinson. She called him a disgusting human being and said he would be going to prison. The woman was Giles-Jones’ mother, Tawanda Giles, Porter said.
As the jury’s decision was announced, Robinson at first appeared calm. But then he started to cry, wiping his face with his hands. Afterward, he hugged his wife and his legal team.
Robinson also declined to be interviewed.
What did the jury think?
As the deliberations extended from morning to afternoon on Thursday, Hammett and Porter speculated that the jurors were deadlocked.
When the judge asked the jurors at about 1 p.m. if they wanted to take a break for lunch, they told him they preferred to keep working.
At 1:22 p.m., a bailiff delivered a message to the court that the jury had reached its verdict.
Jurors met with all the lawyers after the verdict, Porter said.
“They said they didn’t know who to believe,” he said.
“The members of the jury thought that Mr. Robinson’s conduct was inappropriate, and that he had no boundaries,” Porter said. “However, they felt like because it was a he-said-she-said case, they didn’t feel comfortable rendering a verdict for the plaintiff.”
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
This story was made possible by contributions to CityView News Fund, a 501c3 charitable organization committed to an informed democracy.
