‘Monster wearing a hero’s mask’
An Edmonton police officer has admitted to making sexual advances toward eight women he met on the job — including several victims of crime — in one case letting himself into an intoxicated woman’s home and kissing her despite repeated demands he leave.
Const. Hunter Robinz, 39, pleaded guilty to a single count of breach of trust Monday in Edmonton Court of King’s Bench, admitting he used his job as a police officer to meet women for his own “sexual gratification.”
Prosecutor Photini Papadatou read an agreed statement of facts into the record detailing how Robinz met the women while on duty, and in some cases used police databases to access personal information.
In all eight cases, he did so “for the purpose of pursuing a sexual relationship,” she said.
One of the women remembered how Robinz seemed “like a knight in shining armour” when she met him after reporting a break-in.
Now she sees the “aptly named” officer as a “predator,” who “wanted nothing more than to take in prey like a spider in its web,” she wrote in a victim impact statement.
Robinz sat quietly beside defence lawyer Allan Fay during Monday’s hearing. He remains a member of the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) but has been on unpaid leave since March 2021.
Papadatou said she plans to seek a two- to three-year sentence, which could see Robinz sent to federal prison. Fay declined to make submissions pending a report on whether Robinz suffers PTSD related to his military service in Afghanistan, but said he might seek a conditional sentence, which would spare his client jail time.
Justice Susan Bercov declined a Crown application to revoke Robinz’s bail, noting he has been on release for three years with no breaches.
The names of the victims are covered by a publication ban. Robinz’s case is next in court Nov. 1 to set a sentencing date.
Entered intoxicated woman’s home
Robinz’s activities spanned from March 2017 to June 2019, when he was a patrol officer. The investigation that led to criminal charges began in 2019, though he had been subject to previous probes by the EPS professional standards branch.
That August, a woman told police Robinz made sexual advances on her on June 29, 2019, after he and another officer drove her home. According to the agreed facts, the 24-year-old woman was “upset and intoxicated” in a public park after a night at a bar. Robinz and his partner insisted they take her home. On the way, they stopped at a McDonald’s where the woman’s roommates worked to borrow their keys.
Robinz returned later that evening and let himself in using the roommate’s key. The woman was crying, and recalled him “getting close and putting his hands on her waist and trying to kiss her.” She started yelling and pushing him away, but he refused until she insisted on using the bathroom.
When the woman exited the bathroom, Robinz was halfway up the stairs. She asked if he needed a warrant to be in her home or if he needed to take a call, noting his radio was “going off.” Robinz finally left after she told him to leave “about 20 times,” the woman said.
“She felt lucky she was not black-out drunk because she was still able to say ‘no’ and able to push him away,” Papadatou said.
The next day, Robinz sent the woman “sexually explicit” Facebook messages from his account, “Ranger Sparrow.”
Impact on sex assault investigation
Police moved Robinz to an administrative role after the woman’s complaint. His police-issue phone was searched by EPS and ASIRT, Alberta’s police watchdog, which helped reveal the identities of six other women with whom Robinz exchanged sexual messages after meeting them on duty.
Investigators later found another woman, who said she started having sex with Robinz after he responded to a call about her abusive common-law spouse. When she was allegedly beaten and sexually assaulted by the man, she told investigators she could not undergo a rape kit “because she had recently had sex with her police officer ‘boyfriend,’ who was identified as Robinz,’” the agreed facts state.
Other victims include:
- A woman Robinz met on a call while she was suicidal, with whom he struck up a relationship that included sexually explicit text messages
- A woman who reported a “prowler” on her property and later received an “unsolicited and inappropriate” text from Robinz. She reported the message in 2018, saying she was worried because Robinz contacted her on Snapchat, which led her to believe he accessed her personal information.
- A domestic violence victim who met Robinz after she called police about her abuser breaching court conditions and allegedly sexually assaulting her. She later told a female EPS officer Robinz was her “current boyfriend” and showed her texts he sent. EPS launched a professional standards investigation during which Robinz admitted to knowing the woman but lied about meeting her on the job.
The woman who called Robinz a “spider” met him after someone broke down the door of her mother’s home. She was 25, grew up in a small rural community and was overwhelmed by her family’s recent move to the city. After spending “a few hours” at their home, Robinz texted the woman’s mother asking permission to message her.
The younger woman was initially “giddy” but said the texts became “suddenly forward and crude.” She said Robinz would stop by their home or drive by in his car, attracting unwanted attention from the neighbours. He later asked her to do “sexual things” in his vehicle, but she refused.
In a victim impact statement, the woman’s mother described Robinz as “someone who should have been a hero, and not a monster wearing a hero’s mask.”
She said Robinz reminded her of her abusive stepfather, a Calgary police detective, who “would regale us proudly of the days when he was in uniform and the horrible things that he and his fellow officers would get away with.”
“You can’t just tell someone Hunter doesn’t represent all of the police force,” she added. “Because how could anyone who worked with him not know what he was, when it became clear to us pretty quickly?”
In a “community impact” statement submitted by the Edmonton Police Service, Staff Sgt. Harry Grewal, head of the EPS sexual assault section, described the breach of trust as an “egregious offence.”