A jury last week convicted Bob Raines, the former superintendent of Shoreline Unified School District, of annoying or molesting a child after two former students testified that he touched them inappropriately while they were in elementary school.
Mr. Raines was arrested in June 2021 after a former Shoreline employee reported that she had seen him with his hand in her 9-year-old son’s pocket, stroking his leg near his groin. The boy, who is now 11, testified at the trial, as did a former Petaluma elementary school student who is now 27.
The first boy’s mother reported the incident to the school district just weeks before Mr. Raines was due to retire after 43 years in education, the last five at Shoreline. She said the incident had occurred in Mr. Raines’s office.
Mr. Raines was initially charged with a felony, but that charge was reduced to a misdemeanor, which carries a penalty of up to one year in prison and a $5,000 fine. His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 13 in Marin County Superior Court.
The jury deliberated for two hours before reaching a guilty verdict at the end of a four-day trial.
Both boys testified that they were 9 years old when Mr. Raines befriended them, gave them favorable treatment and touched them inappropriately, according to an account provided after the trial by the Marin County District Attorney’s office.
The first witness to testify was the Shoreline student’s mother. An employee of Shoreline at the time, she said she had left her son at the district office while classes were being conducted online during the pandemic because she had to work and had no one to watch him at home.
She said she saw Mr. Raines inappropriately touching her son when she came to the office to pick him up after school. Later that day, her son confirmed to her that the touching had occurred. She contacted the sheriff’s office after informing some coworkers and district officials about the incident.
The next day, the boy described the incident in a recorded interview with sheriff’s detective and the mother confronted Mr. Raines in a recorded telephone call.
The child testified at trial that Mr. Raines had touched him on his back and reached into his pocket and touched his buttocks.
Shoreline Unified placed Mr. Raines on unpaid leave as soon as the allegations against him were reported.
Mr. Raines, who has previously denied the incident, did not testify during the jury trial last week, but jurors heard similar allegations from a second former student and a former teacher at Wilson Elementary School in Petaluma, where Mr. Raines was principal before working at Shoreline.
The former teacher, Ellen Lesher, testified that she had seen several fourth- and fifth-grade boys sitting on Mr. Raines’s lap in his office. She confronted him about those episodes and about an incident in which he was accused of applying calamine lotion to the genitals of a boy who had a rash from poison oak.
After he laughed the incident off, Ms. Lesher testified, she contacted the school board and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. Charges were never filed.
The former Wilson elementary student testified that he was the boy involved in the poison oak episode, which occurred during the 2006-2007 school year. He said he spent several days a week in Mr. Raines’s office during lunch time, sitting on his lap and watching music videos on the principal’s computer.
After the verdict was read, Deputy District Attorney Katie Panzer, who led the prosecution, congratulated the accusers for their bravery in testifying.
Adam Jennings, who replaced Mr. Raines as Shoreline superintendent, sent a statement to the school community last week after the verdict was announced.
“We remain shocked that someone leading our schools could engage in such disturbing and inappropriate conduct,” he wrote. “Prior to his hire, Mr. Raines underwent criminal background checks and extensive reference checking that did not identify any complaints of inappropriate conduct with students nor any prior criminal convictions.”
John Carroll, the superintendent of Marin County schools, told the Light that the county’s hiring policies include rigorous background checks, but no system is foolproof.
“Some people give up and don’t want to work in schools because of what they have to go through to get cleared,” he said. “But obviously, nothing’s 100 percent. When anything like this happens, it’s not good for the credibility of the system, and it creates anxiety. But a lot of measures are in place to prevent it from happening.”
Mr. Raines’s defense attorney, Charles Dresow, did not respond to a request for comment about the verdict.
In a statement issued after the trail, District Attorney Lori E. Frugoli thanked the jurors and the witnesses.
“These are incredibly difficult cases to prosecute for a variety of reasons, the least of which is that the victim’s statements are often discredited and disbelieved by adults and the defense,” she said. “Our communities are becoming more aware of the depth and magnitude of these crimes and the harsh realities of the devastating damage it causes to victims, particularly children.”